What is Locard’s Exchange Principle? Expert says Bryan Kohberger ‘wasn’t a good student’
This article is based on sources and MEAWW cannot verify this information independently.
MOSCOW, IDAHO: Investigators probing the horrifying deaths of the four University of Idaho students made a breakthrough in the case on December 30, 2022, when they arrested Bryan Kohberger. As more details about the 28-year-old alleged killer of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin began to come out, it was found out that he is a first year PhD student of criminology.
The shock discovery also gave birth to several speculations, including that he studied psychology and criminal justice in his grad and post-grad respectively and then went on to do a doctorate to execute the “perfect crime." Enzo Yaksic, a criminal profiler and founder of the Atypical Homicide Research Group in Boston, reportedly said, “I suspect that Kohberger was well aware of his dark nature and homicidal ideation and endeavored to discover more about himself through his studies.”
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Yaksic reportedly continued, “But pursuing an advanced degree to become a better murderer is a foolhardy exercise as nothing more is learned about such tactics and strategies than can be found on a popular podcast or true crime book,” adding, “If Kohberger is an aspiring serial murderer who desired to commit the perfect murder, he quickly learned what many have discovered in the modern-age: it is far more difficult to get away with serial killing today than when Ted Bundy was active.”
However, an ex-NYPD detective sergeant, who is now a teacher at New York City’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reportedly disagreed with Yaksic. Professor Joseph Giacalone told The Daily Beast, “Someone asked, ‘Are you worried about making better criminals?’ It’s always a concern, you always have that in the back of your mind. But [Kohberger] is behind bars right now. So, maybe he wasn’t as good a student as everybody thought.”
Giacalone added, “If somebody like this was really a student of criminal justice and criminology, then he would understand certain things like Locard’s Exchange Principle. It shows you the arrogance of people like him, where he thinks he’s smarter than the cops because he read something in a book. At the end of the day, experience trumps academics every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
What is Locard’s Exchange Principle?
The National Institute of Justice defines Locard’s Exchange Principle as “whenever two objects come into contact with one another, an exchange of materials occurs between them. This may lead to a connection between a suspect and a crime scene or a suspect and a victim, based on transferred fragments of materials.”
ScienceStruck has given more insight into it by noting after a crime happens, it leaves investigators with broken parts of a puzzle, which “can be anything from hair, fibers, pieces of clothing, blood, fingerprints, etc.” It also cited famed criminalist Paul L Kirk, who had reportedly said, “Wherever he [the criminal] steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him."
Kirk elaborated, “This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.”