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Forensic psychologist says autopsy hints at Bryan Kohberger’s motive in Idaho killings

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epa12257039 Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse during his sentencing hearing, in Boise, Idaho, USA, 23 July 2025. Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for the 2022 fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students. EPA/KYLE GREEN / POOL
Some seven months after Bryan Kohberger began serving a life sentence in prison, newly released autopsy findings may well have shed some light on what exactly happened inside 1122 King Road on November 13, 2022. The former criminology PhD student admitted murdering four University of Idaho students in an frenzied and brutal attack that investigators say lasted about 15 minutes. More than 150 stab wounds were inflicted across the quartet of victims. What the post-mortem details now raise, according to forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Brucato, is why the violence unfolded in quite the way that it did. And whether perhaps just one person was the true focus of that night… (Picture: EPA)
UNDATED - PENNSYLVANIA: (EDITORS NOTE: Best quality available) In this handout provided by Monroe County Correctional Facility, 28-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger is seen in a booking photo after he was arrested on December 30, 2022 in Pennsylvania. Kohberger has been accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students - Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21 - in an off-campus house on November 13, 2022 in Moscow, Idaho. (Photo by Monroe County Correctional Facility via Getty Images) *** BESTPIX ***
Brucato, who previously co-led the Columbia University Mass Murder Database, believes that the distribution of wounds actually points to a specific motive rather than chaos, as many others have theorised. ‘This was a targeted psychosexual fantasy probably aimed at one individual in the house,’ he told Daily Mail. ‘But his intel failed him. So, when he got in there, he wound up committing a mass murder because he was not able to control everything as he expected. He overestimated himself and underestimated women.’ In Brucato’s view, Kohberger planned for domination and control. What he encountered instead was resistance, unpredictability and people who didn’t behave like the made-up characters in his head. (Picture: Monroe County Correctional Facility via Getty Images)
Crime Scene Photo Released by the Idaho State Police on Tuesday January 20, 2026 from the murder of four University of Idaho Students, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20, in November 2022. Bryan Christopher Kohberger is currently serving life in prison after pleading guilty to the killings in July 2025.
Investigators have previously suggested that they don’t think that all four students were Kohberger’s intended targets. After entering through the property’s rear sliding door, the killer went directly upstairs to a third floor bedroom where Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, also 21, were asleep in the same bed after a night out. Some experts have argued that the higher number of wounds on Goncalves suggests she may well have been the focus. ‘There is a school of thought that would say the person with more wounds might be the object of passion and therefore the target,’ Brucato said. ‘So some people would think Kaylee was the target.’ Brucato, however, disagrees with that theory. (Picture: Idaho State Police)
FILE - Bryan Kohberger, left, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in Nov. 2022, looks toward his attorney, public defender Anne Taylor, right, during a hearing in Latah County District Court on Jan. 5, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. Thirty news organizations have asked the Idaho Supreme Court to overturn a sweeping gag order in a case against Kohberger who is accused of stabbing the four students to death. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool, File)
He believes that it was actually Mogen who was the intended victim. And that Goncalves’ presence actually disrupted his plan. ‘My belief is he went in and made a beeline for Maddie – who was his target – and found Kaylee unexpectedly there.’ Mogen sustained 28 stab wounds. Goncalves was stabbed at least 38 times and also suffered blunt force injuries to the head and face. ‘That’s why you see so much rage towards Kaylee. I think Maddie was the primary target and Kaylee was not supposed to be there,’ he said. To Brucato, that difference reflects escalation of the planned violence rather than his actual, original intent. (Picture: AP)
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The attack didn’t end upstairs. Xana Kernodle, 20, was awake on the second floor, browsing through TikTok on her phone and eating, having just taken in a DoorDash order only minutes earlier. Her autopsy records 67 stab wounds. Blood on the soles of her feet suggests that she was moving about during Kohberger’s callous attack on her as she attempted to defend herself. ‘She made a mockery of his fantasy,’ Brucato explained. ‘He went in there thinking he was going to destroy and dominate a woman and a woman saw him and fought with him. So he was furious with her.’ (Picture: Ian Fox)
Crime Scene Photo Released by the Idaho State Police on Tuesday January 20, 2026 from the murder of four University of Idaho Students, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20, in November 2022. Bryan Christopher Kohberger is currently serving life in prison after pleading guilty to the killings in July 2025.
Brucato went on to expand on that point, describing what happens when a planned fantasy unravels in real time like this. ‘When a person becomes disorganised because the situation is out of their control, you see a frenzied thrashing out at a person who is fighting. This is a person who went in in the middle of the night, masked, having thought out all the science but, true to his personality, I think he didn’t understand people. He went in there to target one person and was furious that his fantasy was not going as it was supposed to go.’ The violence, he argues, ended up becoming much more chaotic that planned as events slipped out of his control. (Picture: Idaho State Police)
FILE - Bryan Kohberger, right, is escorted into a courtroom to appear at a hearing in Latah County District Court, Sept. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. Bryan Kohberger was arrested roughly six weeks after the bodies of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were found at a rental home near the Moscow campus of the University of Idaho Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool, File)
Ethan Chapin, 20, was – investigators believe – the final of Kohberger’s victims. He sustained 17 stab wounds, far fewer than the three women. For Brucato, that distinction is telling. ‘He had his initial target and then everybody else was not supposed to be there in his fantasy,’ he said. He believes the fury was directed primarily at women, while Chapin needed to be eliminated because he was merely present. Looking at what investigators believe is the order of deaths, Brucato argues the increasing number of injuries among the women reflects mounting disorganisation as the killer’s control over the situation rapidly deteriorated. (Picture: AP)
Bryan Kohberger, 30, appears for his sentencing hearing after he was convicted in the 2022 stabbing deaths of four Idaho college students, at the Ada County Courthouse, in Boise, Idaho, U.S., July 23, 2025. Kyle Green/Pool via REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Court documents show that Bryan Kohberger’s phone was in the vicinity of the house at least 23 times between July 2022 and the night of the killings, mostly at night. Digital searches recovered from his various devices included terms such as ‘sleeping’, ‘passed out’, ‘voyeur’, ‘forced’, ‘raped’ and ‘drugged’, alongside material relating to serial killers and violent home invasions. ‘He was probably obsessively watching his victim from afar and thought he knew everything about the movement of this foreign body – almost scientifically – but could never touch it. He could never have a conversation with her,’ Brucato said. (Picture: REUTERS)
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In his conclusion, the motive was fantasy. ‘When the motive is fantasy, you have to keep doing it to get the fantasy perfect. He was motivated like a serial killer,’ Brucato said. ‘I doubt that he had ever killed before but, let’s just say, if he had not been captured, I have no doubt that after a period of time he would have had more victims – and I think he would have gotten “better”.’

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