I have written and reported on the murder of the four Moscow, Idaho college students since it happened on November 13, 2022.
That is the date a masked intruder entered 1122 Kings Road just before dawn and brutally dispatched Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodel, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20, with a hunting knife.
Washington State University graduate student Bryan Kohberger, 30, will stand trial for the heinous crimes in August. He has pled not guilty. I for one suspect the state has an overwhelmingly strong case against him.
Yet, in all their voluminous evidence, there is nothing – nothing! – that even comes close to answering that one burning question: Why would he have done it?
I think I can propose an answer. Of course, Kohberger is innocent until proven guilty but, I believe, I have discovered a credible theory for this seemingly senseless slaughter.
At its roots it is a love story – of a sort.
It begins when Kohberger enrolled in the master’s program in criminal justice at DeSales University in Pennsylvania in 2020. He was 20 and had succeeded in re-inventing himself after years of earlier tumult.
He had kicked a heroin habit. He had conquered the effects of Visual Snow Syndrome, a neurological condition that plagued him in his youth and left him looking at the world through a constant static like haze. He had lost more than 100 pounds and turned his body into a fortress through exercise and a vegan diet, and made his way out of a dismal community college.
But something was missing.
On November 13, 2022, a masked intruder entered 1122 Kings Road just before dawn and brutally dispatched Madison Mogen (second from left, top), Kaylee Goncalves (second from left, bottom), Xana Kernodel (second from right) and Ethan Chapin (center) with a knife.
Washington State University graduate student Bryan Kohberger (pictured) will stand trial for the heinous crimes in August. I for one suspect the state has an overwhelmingly strong case against him.
He had already gained his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology at DeSales and decided to continue his studies with a Master of Arts in the school’s Criminal Justice Program.
Here, finally, he had found his calling: forensic psychology, the new science of exploring the dark caverns that lurk in the recesses of criminal minds.
As luck would have it, he had also found an unlikely friend and champion to guide him – Dr. Katherine Ramsland.
Dr Ramsland is a recognized authority in the psychological study of serial killers. She is a prolific author of, at the latest count, 59 books and a familiar face on true-crime network and cable shows where she reliably brings a measure of academic gravitas to the proceedings.
The professor had seemingly done it all. And she was Kohberger’s teacher.
As her student during his two-year course, Kohberger read the 72-year-old professor’s seminal works ‘Inside the Minds of Serial Killers: Why They Kill,’ and ‘Confessions of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer.’
Howard Blum (pictured) is the author of ‘When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders.’
It seems clear to me that obsessions came easily to Kohberger, a man who had, after all, so determinedly reshaped his life.
It is my hypothesis that Dr Ramsland became the idealized object of Kohberger’s respect and affection which, in the uneven landscape of his mind, tipped into a toxic obsession.
Kohberger wanted to prove that the pupil was ready to become the teacher. He was determined to demonstrate to the professor that he had learned all her lessons well.
And while her academic journey into hell had been judicious – reaching out in letters and interviews to convicted killers – in this scenario he would charge full speed into the belly of the beast.
Theoretically, he would kill and get away with it. He would prove how smart he was. He would show her how much he had learned.
He wouldn’t be the first man to kill in a pointless bid to secure the attention of a woman. Like John Hinckley, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan to win the heart of the actress Jodie Foster, a woman he’d never met, I believe that Kohberger was coerced by his own twisted desires.
He would go some place where his mentor had never dared to journey. It would be his triumph and his tribute.
I imagine the raging, crackling anger that was unleashed in Kohberger as he determined how he would demonstrate the sacrifices he was prepared to make to gain his mentor’s respect and comradeship.
What does Ramsland make of all this? While not replying to my emails, she has issued a statement saying she had no email communication with Kohberger while he was at Washington State University either before or after his arrest and downplayed her relationship with her former student.
Kohberger found his calling: forensic psychology, the new science of exploring the dark caverns that lurk in the recesses of criminal minds. As luck would have it, he had also found an unlikely friend and champion to guide him – Dr. Katherine Ramsland (pictured).
Dr Ramsland is a recognized authority in the psychological study of serial killers. She is a prolific author of, at the latest count, 59 books and a familiar face on true-crime network and cable shows where she reliably brings a measure of academic gravitas to the proceedings.
It is my hypothesis that Dr Ramsland became the idealized object of Kohberger’s affection which, in the uneven landscape of his mind, tipped into a toxic obsession. He would kill and get away with it. He would prove how smart he was. He would show her how much he had learned.
Certainly, I am not suggesting that Ramsland encouraged any delusions that Kohberger may have fostered.
But she has confirmed that she reached out to the Kohberger family as ‘a gesture of kindness’ not long after his arrest in Pennsylvania. And her connection to her student was sufficient for the family to take the call at a moment when they were cutting themselves off from a harassing world.
The professor maintains that she was never involved in any discussion in the days after, but, according to a source with knowledge of the conversation, Kohberger’s parents informed a court-appointed attorney that they would not meet with him until they’d reviewed the potential conference with Ramsland.
To the Kohbergers, then, she apparently loomed as a prominent figure. Meanwhile, at a recent appearance at a Massachusetts library I am told she revealed that there will be a chapter about ‘my student, Bryan Kohberger’ in a forthcoming book she’s writing.
Of course, it is impossible to step into the mind of an alleged killer, but perhaps some more substantive insights will appear in her pages.
In the meantime, I think anyone searching for the criminal justice student’s potential motive might mull an insight into serial killers that the learned professor herself once shared.
‘Fantasy,’ she wrote, ‘Builds an appetite to experience the real thing.’
A former reporter for the NY Times, Howard Blum is the author of several bestselling nonfiction books, including ‘When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders.’
