The trial of Bryan Kohberger – the man who brutally murdered four University of Idaho students inside their off-campus home – ended in July before it ever truly began when he accepted a plea deal that saw him sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of an appeal or parole.
Kohberger sat impassively throughout the hearing as the loved ones of each of the four students whose lives he so callously ended repeatedly asked him the same question: Why?
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And when he was finally given the opportunity to answer their questions, he said, “I respectfully decline.”
That decision further fueled the mystery around his motive for murdering Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Kaylee Goncalves.
“There’s no reason for these crimes that could approach anything resembling rationality,” Idaho District Judge Steven Hippler said during Kohberger’s sentencing. “The more we try to extract a reason, the more power and control we give to him.”
But, he added, investigators and researchers may wish to study his actions – if only to learn how to prevent similar crimes from occurring in the future.
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Indeed, academics and former FBI profilers told CNN the challenge of unravelling the criminal mind of a man like Bryan Kohberger is enticing. And while his trial may be over, in many ways, the story of what can be learned from his crimes may have only just begun.
“We want to squeeze any silver lining that we can out of these tragedies,” said Molly Amman, a retired profiler who spent years leading the FBI’s Behavioral Threat Assessment Center.
“The silver lining is anything we can use to prevent another crime. It starts with learning absolutely, positively everything about the person and the crime that we possibly can.”
CNN
Only Kohberger knows
Even seasoned police officers who arrived at 1122 King Road on November 13, 2022, struggled to process the brutality of the crime scene.
All four victims had been ruthlessly stabbed to death before the attacker vanished through the kitchen’s sliding glass door and into the night.
“The female lying on the left half of the bed … was unrecognizable,” one officer would later write of the attack that killed Kaylee Goncalves. “I was unable to comprehend exactly what I was looking at while trying to discern the nature of the injuries.”
Initial interviews with the two surviving housemates gave investigators a loose timeline and a general description of the killer – an athletic, White male who wore a mask that covered most of his face – but little else.
Police later found a Ka-Bar knife sheath next to Madison’s body that would prove to be critical in capturing her killer.
One of the surviving housemates told police about a month before the attacks, Kaylee saw “a dark figure staring at her from the tree line when she took her dog Murphy out to pee.”
“There has been lighthearted talk and jokes made about a stalker in the past,” the officer noted. “All the girls were slightly nervous about it being a fact, though.”
But after years of investigating the murders, detectives told CNN they were never able to establish a connection between Kohberger and any of the victims, or a motive.
Kohberger is far from the first killer to deny families and survivors the catharsis that comes with confessing, in detail, to his crimes. But that, former FBI profilers tell CNN, is part of what makes the prospect of studying him infuriating and intriguing.
