The Idaho Murders

     On November 13th four college students who were attending the University of Idaho were found dead inside a house located in Moscow.  The murder weapon was confirmed to be a fixed-blade knife. The investigation was very quiet until now when a suspected killer was caught. The suspected killer whose name is Bryan Kohberger is appearing in court on 1/12/23. He is being charged with all four counts of murder. Over the last few weeks, we have come to find out that he may have stocked all four of the roommates for months. He was a teacher’s assistant who was working in criminology. Before this, his life growing up was ordinary with little to no prevalent indicators of his soon-to-be violent uprising. According to those who had known him, some say that he had “anger issues and he would have outbursts and stuff” (Sager.) Although anger issues can be linked with physically violent acts that end up with killing a person intentionally, this wouldn’t be the first conclusion that would be thought of when somebody has anger issues. The article also states that he had used heroin as a teen (Sager) but once again, although it shouldn’t be normalized for teens to use drugs, this isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Despite his rocky childhood, he continued to strive for a higher education. He had gotten a degree in psychology, went on to pursue a master’s degree, and eventually a Ph.D. in criminology. (Sager.) Once again, there is no immediate indication of any violent uprising within Bryan Kohberger. 

The victims were living in a relatively safe area and they had all gone out to have fun earlier the night that they were murdered. There were 6 roommates and  2 of the victims were never harmed and were spared public shame by not being allowed to do any interviews or talk to any press. We can tell by the house layout that there are 3 floors and 2 doors. One of the doors leads to one level and the other leads to another level. We still do not know why the 2 roommates who were spared were not harmed but this was a house that was usually unlocked due to the fact that they would have parties and the area that they were living in was supposedly safe.

As to the alleged killer, the only possible connection to his murder spree would be a Reddit poll that he had posted. Bryan Kohberger had made a Reddit post that was intended to get a public poll on a list of specific questions he chose to post. His goal was to get people who had been previously incarcerated to answer questions that would “emphasize your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience” (Jones.) For example, one of his questions was “how did you travel to and enter the location where the crime occurred” and “did you prepare for the crime before leaving your home? Please detail what you were thinking and feeling at this point” (Jones.) This Reddit poll does pose a red flag due to how detailed these questions seemed to be. It can be assumed that he had meticulously thought out these questions to receive the specific answer he wanted. But once again, a Reddit poll wouldn’t be the lead factor that would indicate his quadruple murder of four college students. Yes, there were small indications and some questionable indications of something that wasn’t right, but if we took into consideration every single Reddit poll and went into depth, there would be too many people to look into. This was an extremely horrifying unfortunate murder of four bright young people but there was nothing that could have foreseen his intention for these murders. There was nothing that anyone could have done to predict his atrocity. 

Sources

Sager, Jessica. “Idaho Murder Suspect: What We Know about Bryan Kohberger.” Peoplemag, PEOPLE, 3 Feb. 2023, https://people.com/crime/bryan-kohberger-idaho-murders-what-to-know/. 

Jones, Author: Kelly. “Yes, Idaho Murder Suspect Bryan Kohberger Did Post on Reddit Asking for Help Researching Why People Commit Crimes.” Verifythis.com, 6 Jan. 2023, https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/crime-verify/idaho-murder-suspect-bryan-kohberger-did-post-on-reddit-crime-survey/536-2e92d56a-a432-4eb5-af6f-f9f8977dc4f4.