'Detached' Suspect in Idaho Murders Studied Under Famed Criminologist

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/idaho-murders-person-of-interest-reportedly-
arrested-in-student-slayings

Bryan Kohberger, 28, was arrested in Pennsylvania on Friday on a warrant
for the first-degree murders of four Idaho students.

Updated Dec. 31, 2022 2:33AM ET / Published Dec. 30, 2022 11:42AM ET

The 28-year-old grad student charged with killing four University of Idaho
students in their sleep undertook a research project that asked ex-cons to
map out how they committed their crimes, and took courses by the famed
forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland, who has written 68 books
including How to Catch a Killer, The Psychology of Death Investigations,
and The Mind of a Murderer.

Moscow Police Chief James Fry confirmed at a Friday afternoon press
conference that Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested that morning on a
warrant for the first-degree murders of Kaylee Goncalves and Madison
Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, both 20. He
was nabbed in his hometown of Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, and will
appear in court Tuesday for extradition proceedings.

Fry declined to release further details, including a potential motive,
until Kohberger is brought back to Idaho. An FBI surveillance team had
been tracking him for four days before his arrest, according to CNN. Cops
have not yet found the murder weapon, Fry said, but they did seize a white
Hyundai Elantra, the same model of car seen in the vicinity of the murders
in November.

Public records list Kohberger as a registered libertarian voter and a
criminology buff who comes from a family of mental health workers. He is a
criminal justice and criminology Ph.D student at Washington State
University—and lives on campus in Pullman, just eight miles from the
Moscow crime scene.

WSU Pullman Chancellor Elizabeth Chilton confirmed that search warrants
were executed Friday at Kohberger’s apartment and office on campus.
“Kohberger had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s
criminal justice program earlier this month,” she said, adding that campus
police were working with local, state, and federal law enforcement.

Kohberger completed his graduate studies in criminal justice this year at
DeSales University, in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, where students told
The Daily Beast he took classes with Prof. Ramsland, whose courses
included “Psychology of Death Investigations.” Ramsland declined to
comment when reached by The Daily Beast Friday.

A former classmate at DeSales, who asked not to be named, said they got
into a disagreement with Kohberger during an introductory biology class
group project. While they didn’t remember the conversation, they recalled
Kohberger as “very intelligent” and “well spoken” but “seemingly
detached.”

“He was very leveled and somewhat imposing. There wasn’t much emotion
displayed by him,” the classmate said, adding that he remembers
Kohberger’s “intense stare.”

“He took care with how he spoke,” the person said.

In a since-removed post on Reddit from seven months ago, Kohberger asked
ex-cons to participate in a DeSales research project that sought to
“understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-
making when committing a crime.”

The research project, which was taken offline Friday, asked participants
questions like how they approached their victim or target, how they
prepared for the crime, how they traveled to and entered the location of
the crime, and “Did you struggle with or fight the victim?”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, DeSales confirmed Kohberger received a
bachelor’s degree in 2020 and completed his graduate studies in June 2022.
“As a Catholic, Salesian community, we are devastated by this senseless
tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families during
this difficult time,” a spokesperson said.

Northampton Community College in Albrightsville confirmed to The Daily
Beast that Kohberger graduated in 2018 as a psychology major. He was also
employed as a part-time school security officer by the Pleasant Valley
School District for several years until last year.

Former friends told The Daily Beast that Kohberger’s high school years
were marked by a drastic weight loss, as well as cruel bullying, and a
deep interest in police movies and criminology. Meanwhile, his parents
battled financial issues, filing for bankruptcy the year Kohberger was
born, and again when he was 14. On the second occasion, they surrendered
their house and car after facing $260,173 in debts and having just $512 in
the bank, records show.

Nick Mcloughlin, 26, who was friends with Kohberger in high school and
vocational school, described Kohberger as “down to earth” and overweight
when they graduated junior year. But at the start of senior year,
Kohberger was “thinner than a rail” and turned “aggressive,” he said. He’d
also picked up a new hobby: taking boxing classes.

“He always wanted to fight somebody, he was bullying people. We started
cutting him off from our friend group because he was 100 percent a
different person,” Mcloughlin said, adding that he had “no idea” what
might have contributed to the change that summer.

Mcloughlin said he and Kohberger would spend half the school day at
Pleasant Valley High before heading to Monroe County’s vocational school,
where they took classes related to heating and air conditioning work. He
said Kohberger also took criminal justice courses to potentially become a
cop.

Mcloughlin said the friendship ended when Kohberger began putting moves on
his girlfriend. “He was, like, reaching out to her, saying, ‘I can get us
a bottle and we hang out tonight.’”

Another high school friend, Thomas Arntz, recalled Kohberger as a “bully”
who would point out his friends’ “flaws and insecurities” to distract from
his own struggles with his weight.

“He did that to me all the time,” Arntz told The Daily Beast. “He would go
after my intelligence. He would basically insinuate that I’m kind of slow-
witted and that I’m forgetful and [that] I lack the intelligence to be his
friend.”

Arntz said he cut off his friendship with Kohberger because of the
incessant bullying. He said his father, a maintenance worker, and mother,
a substitute teacher, were “genuinely kind people.” Arntz’s sister, Casey,
said Kohberger told her after graduating that he had entered rehab.

When she ran into him at a wedding in 2017, she said, it seemed “like his
life was picking up.” She added: “Apparently it wasn’t.”

Arntz said he was shocked by the news of Kohberger’s arrest, but not
surprised. “He was mean-spirited, he was a bully,” he said. “I never
thought he would do something like that but at the same time it doesn't
really surprise me.”

A former teacher of Kohberger’s at Pleasant Valley High School told The
Daily Beast that he was a “good kid” and “never in major trouble.” She
said that when she taught him in 11th and 12th grade, Kohberger was
“passionate about criminal justice.”

“He was just a regular 12th grader, had a few friends, was a good
student,” she said. “I thought he would become a police officer or
correctional officer.”

“He liked to watch movies about police, and ask me the next day if I’d
seen it. It was more than a hobby for him, he was always asking
questions,” she said.

She said she’s feeling sick over Kohberger’s alleged crimes and wonders if
she could have done more for him or said something different to prevent
him from traveling down a dark path. “He liked school, got good grades,
did well at vo-tech, had friends, and a plan to go to school for criminal
justice,” she said. “He had his life in order.”

Another high school classmate, who asked not to be named, said of
Kohberger: “I remember he was very quiet and shy. A lot of people made fun
of him. I don’t know if it was because he was quiet and shy or how heavy
he was. But you could tell he was a smart, organized student, like all As
and really to the point.”

The arrest signifies a long-awaited breakthrough, and a stunning turn of
events after police fumbled the early stages of the investigation,
initially calling the killings “targeted” but later conceding they had no
murder weapon, no motive, no suspect, and no clear reason why the group
were killed so brutally.

In a statement to The Daily Beast after Kohberger’s arrest, Chapin’s
family said they were “relieved this chapter is over because it provides a
form of closure. However, it doesn't alter the outcome or alleviate the
pain. We miss Ethan, and our family is forever changed.”

“Over the last seven weeks, we stood by the Moscow Police Department, FBI,
and Idaho State Police, confident they would solve this crime. So, when we
received the phone call last night, we congratulated them for their
diligent work and service,” they said.

“Today, we marvel at the continued stories about Ethan and the lives he
touched in his short 20 years. If we all lived and loved as Ethan did, the
world would be a better place.”

Fry said detectives received more than 19,000 tips, and conducted 300
interviews. Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson would not say whether
Kohberger acted alone, but asked for anyone who knew, or interacted, with
him to get in touch with investigators.

“This is not the end of this investigation,” Thompson said. “In fact this
is a new beginning.”

He said a probable cause affidavit for Kohberger will remain sealed until
her appears in an Idaho court.

Kohberger will be represented by a public defender and is being held
without bail in Pennsylvania, Thompson said. He will be under the same
order once he returns to Idaho.

—with additional reporting by Decca Muldowney and William Bredderman



--
"LOCKDOWN", left-wing COVID fearmongering. 95% of COVID infections
recover with no after effects.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Donald J. Trump, cheated out of a second term by fraudulent "mail-in"
ballots. Report voter fraud: sf.n...@mail.house.gov

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.