Was Bryan Kohberger aiming for the perfect crime? Columnist poses questions about Idaho suspect's motive
This article is based on sources and MEAWW cannot verify this information independently.
MOSCOW, IDAHO: The slayings of four University of Idaho students – Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin – on November 13 led to a massive manhunt that culminated in the arrest of a 28-year-old PhD student on December 30. The accused, identified as Bryan Kohberger, is now in police custody, but the motive behind the murders is yet to be uncovered.
One of the startling facts about the case is that Kohberger has a masters in criminal justice. Columnist Tom Leonard writes in The Daily Mail that the quadruple killings are still a big mystery as “it faces up to the possibility that, not for the first time, someone schooled in the workings of the criminal mind and the conduct of criminal investigations has turned to murder himself. If Kohberger is the killer, it seems unlikely that his criminology studies are a mere coincidence given his decision to slaughter four young people he apparently never knew.”
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Was Bryan Kohberger aiming for the perfect crime?
The author, however, disputes that Bryan was a “brilliant” student as his classmates and professors suggest. Leonard thinks he "was clearly not brilliant enough." "Despite allegedly going to great lengths to cover his tracks, he left a trail of clues,” he adds, before mentioning other American serial murderers who also held criminal justice degrees. The list included Dennis Rader, the 'BTK Killer', and Joseph DeAngelo, the 'Golden State Killer'.
Leonard explained, “Perhaps Kohberger thought he could emulate them — or maybe Richard Speck, an American mass murderer who stabbed and strangled eight students in their Chicago dormitory one night in 1966 and whose case is cited by some experts looking for parallels with Kohberger. The latter has a degree in criminology from DeSales University and had moved to Washington State to study for a PhD at the criminal justice and criminology department." Meanwhile, experts told the Mail that Kohberger may have known "just enough about forensics to convince himself he could get away with it — but not enough to escape detection.”
Did Kohberger use his academic learning to avoid being caught?
Though Bryan had been on investigators’ radar since the initial stages of the probe thanks to his white Hyundai Elantra, as per a prosecution affidavit, he tried his best to avoid being caught. He “changed his car number plates within days of the killings but was also observed on several occasions intently scrubbing clean the car interior. He was also seen putting his family's rubbish into the dustbins of their neighbors.”
Besides, his phone was switched off for several hours after the murders. Leonard explained this is a “common tactic for criminals who know their movements can be tracked via nearby mobile-phone towers. It would certainly be known to a student of police investigations.”
Nevertheless, investigators gathered sufficient proof against him and the “final but crucial piece of evidence obtained by investigators was that DNA match. They found it, they say, on the sheath of a US Marines KA-BAR 'fighting knife' that the murderer — in what appears to have been a major slip-up — left on a bed near the bodies of two of his victims,” Leonard remarked.
Questions remain unanswered even after Kohbereger's arrest
Two housemates miraculously survived the bloodbath that killed their friends. Upon seeing the bodies, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke first called their friends before informing authorities - allegedly after six hours had passed.
Leonard said, “Investigators admit that questions remain. They are reportedly 'puzzled' as to why it took the victims' surviving flatmates nearly eight hours to alert police — having first summoned friends. They have said the delay may have been down to intoxication or fear but have apparently ruled out the possibility that Mortensen was connected to the killer.”
The columnist noted, “The more pressing mystery is motive. What prompted Kohberger to kill four people to whom, evidence suggests, he had no connection? He is some years older than they were, and doesn't seem the sort of person who would have come to any of their many parties.” He added, “Their friends had never heard of him. Prosecutors don't need to establish a motive to get a conviction but it would certainly throw much-needed light on an impenetrably dark crime that continues to disturb America.”