Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Mega Edition: Bryan Kohberger And The Incel Theory (9/5/26)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: And welcome back to the program. Much and more has
- 0:04Speaker 1: been made about Brian Koberger possibly being an incel. Now,
- 0:10Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm 100% sold on the theory,
- 0:13Speaker 1: but it's quite possible. When you hear about the way
- 0:16Speaker 1: he treated women, you hear about how he was treated
- 0:19Speaker 1: by girls when he was younger, and then you hear
- 0:22Speaker 1: about how he was a loner, there were no women
- 0:25Speaker 1: in his life. I know there's been some reports about
- 0:28Speaker 1: Brian Koberger allegedly having women over at his house, reports
- 0:32Speaker 1: about some Asian girl, but none of that's corroborated, right? So,
- 0:38Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, Brian Koberger is certainly on
- 0:42Speaker 1: the margins of what we would call an incel. So,
- 0:47Speaker 1: what exactly is an incel? According to Wikipedia, an incel
- 0:52Speaker 1: is a member of an online subculture of people who
- 0:55Speaker 1: define themselves as unable to get a romantic, or a
- 0:59Speaker 1: sexual partner despite desiring one, or in layman's terms, somebody
- 1:03Speaker 1: who can't get laid. Discussions in incel forums are often
- 1:07Speaker 1: characterized by resentment and hatred, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity, and self-loathing, racism,
- 1:15Speaker 1: a sense of entitlement to sex, and endorsement of violence
- 1:19Speaker 1: against women and sexually active people. Now imagine having that
- 1:23Speaker 1: kind of brain pattern making its way through your brain.
- 1:27Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so I can't get laid, so let me
- 1:29Speaker 1: go and kill a bunch of women and some dudes
- 1:31Speaker 1: who are sexually active as well.
- 1:33Speaker 2: Here's an idea.
- 1:34Speaker 1: Get your shit together, stop being an ingrate, get off
- 1:38Speaker 1: of the computer for five minutes, clean the Cheetos off
- 1:40Speaker 1: your hands, and then maybe you'll get a date. The
- 1:44Speaker 1: American Southern Poverty Law Center described the subculture as part
- 1:48Speaker 1: of an online male supremacist ecosystem that is included in
- 1:52Speaker 1: their list of hate groups. Incels are mostly male and heterosexual,
- 1:57Speaker 1: and are often white. Estimates of the overall size of
- 2:01Speaker 1: the subculture vary greatly, ranging from thousands to hundreds of
- 2:05Speaker 1: thousands of individuals. Since 2014, multiple mass killings have been
- 2:11Speaker 1: perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of
- 2:16Speaker 1: violence or attempted violence. Incel communities have been increasingly criticized
- 2:21Speaker 1: by scholars and commentators for their misogyny, the condoning and
- 2:26Speaker 1: encouragement of violence, and extremism. So that's what an incel is,
- 2:32Speaker 1: according to Wikipedia. Now, as I said in the opening,
- 2:36Speaker 1: I have my doubts if I would classify Brian Koberger
- 2:39Speaker 1: as your prototypical incel, but old boy was certainly on
- 2:44Speaker 1: the margins. So today, we have an article from Airmail,
- 2:49Speaker 1: and the headline of this article is Idaho, Instagram, and incels.
- 2:55Speaker 1: The alleged Moscow student murderer's behavior is straight out of
- 2:58Speaker 1: the incel playbook. This article was authored by Nancy Jo Sales.
- 3:06Speaker 1: On Instagram, Madison Mogan showed us a certain kind of
- 3:10Speaker 1: perfect life. Whatever struggle she may have endured before falling
- 3:13Speaker 1: victim to a killer one morning in Moscow, Idaho on
- 3:17Speaker 1: November 13th, on Instagram, she is always smiling. Her account
- 3:22Speaker 1: is like a prototype for what social media culture demands
- 3:25Speaker 1: of young women and girls. That they look happy, sexy,
- 3:29Speaker 1: occasionally pensive, and above all, enviable. And I think that's
- 3:34Speaker 1: true of most people online, right? Most people and their
- 3:38Speaker 1: online life, that's like a highlight reel. It's not showing
- 3:41Speaker 1: you all the gritty, dirty parts of it that all
- 3:44Speaker 1: of us go through. It's just giving you that highlight
- 3:47Speaker 1: reel of people's lives that they.
- 3:49Speaker 2: Want you to see.
- 3:52Speaker 1: Mogan, 21, shows us the life of a pretty, blonde
- 3:55Speaker 1: American college girl, a popular sorority girl. She was a
- 3:59Speaker 1: member of Pi Beta Phi. She poses in formals and
- 4:03Speaker 1: bikinis and the cutest outfits, as she describes them, often
- 4:07Speaker 1: popping her foot or bending down playfully, touching her knees.
- 4:11Speaker 1: She strides gaily into a building at the University of
- 4:14Speaker 1: Idaho in a post she captioned, Heaven is a place
- 4:18Speaker 1: on Earth. She visits Cabo and Jamaica with friends. many
- 4:22Speaker 1: of them blonde young women who resemble her. Lucky me,
- 4:26Speaker 1: I have the best friends ever. Mogan captioned the picture
- 4:29Speaker 1: of herself going jet skiing with two other blondes. Beautiful, cute, stunning, gorge,
- 4:36Speaker 1: her friends commented on her posts, fulfilling their duty per
- 4:39Speaker 1: social media conventions to comment enthusiastically and with many emojis. See,
- 4:46Speaker 1: this stuff is foreign to me, folks. When we start
- 4:48Speaker 1: getting down to like the social media, and the cultivating
- 4:51Speaker 1: of likes and all of that, that's just not something
- 4:54Speaker 1: I'm interested in. And I know I'm missing the boat
- 4:57Speaker 1: financially by not being more active on social media, but
- 5:01Speaker 1: it's just not my bag. I'm really not into it,
- 5:03Speaker 1: all the drama, all the arguing, and all of the bullshit.
- 5:07Speaker 1: It's just not for me. As a 43-year-old man, those
- 5:11Speaker 1: days are long over for your boy. That was the
- 5:14Speaker 1: kind of shit I was doing on AOL in 1999.
- 5:18Speaker 1: So I just can't get involved in all of that nonsense.
- 5:21Speaker 1: But when you talk about social media and the appearance
- 5:25Speaker 1: and the persona you're trying to pass, it's a huge
- 5:28Speaker 1: deal for the younger generation, right? Everybody wants to keep
- 5:32Speaker 1: up with the Joneses. It's chilling now to think that
- 5:35Speaker 1: Brian Kohlberger could have been watching all this, seeing Mogan
- 5:38Speaker 1: with her sweet smile and twinkling eyes, living her seemingly
- 5:42Speaker 1: perfect life. You wonder if it made him angry, jealous?
- 5:47Speaker 1: Was Instagram for him? Like a gallery of women to date?
- 5:50Speaker 1: Or perhaps target for violence? And that's something we've talked
- 5:54Speaker 1: about here on the podcast previously. All of these social
- 5:58Speaker 1: media accounts, that's a fertile ground for these sickos. Before,
- 6:02Speaker 1: they'd actually have to leave their house to find targets.
- 6:05Speaker 1: Now they can just hop on the internet from wherever
- 6:07Speaker 1: they are and go about it that way. Koberger28, formerly
- 6:13Speaker 1: a graduate student at Washington State University... has been accused
- 6:16Speaker 1: of killing Mogan and her roommates, Kaylee Gonsalves and Zanna Kernodle,
- 6:21Speaker 1: as well as Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, entering the girl's
- 6:25Speaker 1: house around 4 a.m. and stabbing them to death in
- 6:28Speaker 1: their beds. A story that Air Mail contributor, Howard Bloom,
- 6:32Speaker 1: detailed in this publication. In January, people reported that Kohlberger
- 6:38Speaker 1: had followed the three females on Instagram and about two
- 6:41Speaker 1: weeks before the murders, messaged one of them repeatedly. He
- 6:45Speaker 1: was definitely persistent, said an investigative source on the case.
- 6:49Speaker 1: He slid into one of the girls' DMs several times,
- 6:52Speaker 1: but she didn't respond. Basically, it was just him saying, hey,
- 6:56Speaker 1: how are you? But he did it again and again.
- 7:00Speaker 1: And now we know, or at least we've heard from sources,
- 7:03Speaker 1: that he also had the picture of one of the
- 7:06Speaker 1: victims on his cell phone. And as we discussed in
- 7:10Speaker 1: the previous articles, I think that person was Madison. When
- 7:16Speaker 1: we look at everything and we go back and evaluate
- 7:19Speaker 1: using hindsight, it certainly seems clear to me now that
- 7:22Speaker 1: Madison was the original and intended target. Now, of course,
- 7:27Speaker 1: I can't prove that, right? I don't have the facts
- 7:30Speaker 1: to back that up. I'm just going by the circumstantial
- 7:33Speaker 1: evidence that is available to us. And according to that
- 7:37Speaker 1: evidence that has been provided, it certainly seems to me
- 7:40Speaker 1: that Madison Mogan was the target here. Having a random
- 7:45Speaker 1: guy slide into their DMs, direct messages, wouldn't cause most
- 7:49Speaker 1: women alarm.
- 7:50Speaker 2: However creepy, it's.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Now viewed as a regular feature of modern dating, with
- 7:54Speaker 1: magazines and YouTube videos advising men on what types of
- 7:59Speaker 1: messages to send in order to get a response. Most
- 8:02Speaker 1: women will simply ignore the guy, which is what Mogan
- 8:06Speaker 1: reportedly did. You wonder if being ignored made Koberger irate.
- 8:11Speaker 1: I'm sure it played a part. I'm definitely sure it
- 8:13Speaker 1: played a part. but there was a lot of other
- 8:15Speaker 1: things going on as well. He had the issues at work,
- 8:19Speaker 1: all of that pressure, and if he had these fantasies
- 8:22Speaker 1: bubbling within him, that could have easily led to those
- 8:26Speaker 1: fantasies becoming reality. The police haven't told us the motive
- 8:31Speaker 1: in this case, but it seems like everybody has a theory.
- 8:34Speaker 1: Women I've spoken to have said since the story broke
- 8:38Speaker 1: that they believe the Idaho student murders were committed by
- 8:41Speaker 1: someone who hates women. And that's certainly something that's been
- 8:44Speaker 1: thrown out there from the very beginning of this. We've
- 8:47Speaker 1: talked about the incel theory before. And like I said then,
- 8:51Speaker 1: it's certainly something that has to be discussed. We can't
- 8:54Speaker 1: just discount the theory without knowing, right? You see, the
- 8:58Speaker 1: thing is, we just don't know who Brian Koberger really
- 9:01Speaker 1: is yet. There's not been enough information provided. Sure, we've
- 9:05Speaker 1: had some accounts from people who used to know him,
- 9:07Speaker 1: from people who were going to school with him. But
- 9:10Speaker 1: who is Brian Koberger? what his motivations are, what he
- 9:14Speaker 1: was thinking at the time. If he is the man
- 9:16Speaker 1: who did this, let's remember, there's always a little bit
- 9:19Speaker 1: of headroom for him not even to be the guy.
- 9:21Speaker 1: We always got to keep that in mind. But who
- 9:24Speaker 1: was Brian Kohlberger? And what would lead somebody to do
- 9:28Speaker 1: something like this? That is the million-dollar question. And so far,
- 9:33Speaker 1: we don't have any answers. Which, unfortunately, wouldn't be surprising.
- 9:38Speaker 1: Femicide is an under-discussed problem in the United States. where
- 9:42Speaker 1: nearly three women are murdered every day, most often by
- 9:45Speaker 1: current or former intimate partners. And that's why at the
- 9:48Speaker 1: very beginning of this, when we first heard about what
- 9:51Speaker 1: was going on, I thought that it was going to
- 9:54Speaker 1: end up being somebody that one of these girls were dating. But, obviously,
- 9:59Speaker 1: it turned out to be something completely different. And just
- 10:02Speaker 1: because the usual statistics say that it's an intimate partner
- 10:06Speaker 1: or somebody that they know, we can't just hang our
- 10:09Speaker 1: hat on that and think that that's going to be
- 10:12Speaker 1: the case every single time.
- 10:15Speaker 2: In the Idaho case.
- 10:16Speaker 1: It was the look of the victims that first raised
- 10:18Speaker 1: suspicions that this was a hate crime.
- 10:21Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if I agree with that.
- 10:23Speaker 1: I think that any time you have three girls murdered,
- 10:26Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself if it was some kind
- 10:28Speaker 1: of misogynist knucklehead who was behind all of it. Unfortunately,
- 10:32Speaker 1: that's the society we live in. There was the fact
- 10:36Speaker 1: that this happened in a house full of attractive girls.
- 10:39Speaker 1: Chapin was just visiting. And the nature of the killings,
- 10:42Speaker 1: by knife, as the victims lay in bed, seemed like
- 10:45Speaker 1: a horrifying substitute for rape. A former FBI agent, Jennifer Kofendaffer,
- 10:51Speaker 1: told Newsweek days before Koberger was arrested that she believed
- 10:55Speaker 1: the murderer was an individual with absolutely horrible, murderous desires
- 11:00Speaker 1: against these women and perverted thoughts and anger toward women
- 11:05Speaker 1: in general. They're known as incels. And again, I don't
- 11:08Speaker 1: know if I buy the incel theory, right? I don't
- 11:11Speaker 1: know enough about Brian Koberger yet to really jump into
- 11:14Speaker 1: the pool with both feet on this incel theory. It's
- 11:17Speaker 1: certainly something worth talking about, however, because he might fit
- 11:20Speaker 1: into this category once we get all of his profile built,
- 11:25Speaker 1: if you will. And that's going to take some more time. Remember,
- 11:27Speaker 1: this gag order is really impeding any kind of real
- 11:31Speaker 1: investigative work here. Down the incel rabbit hole. Since Koberger's arrest,
- 11:37Speaker 1: there has been mounting speculation about whether he qualifies as
- 11:41Speaker 1: an incel. Incel, short for involuntary celibates, are heterosexual men
- 11:47Speaker 1: who blame women for their lack of romantic success. On
- 11:51Speaker 1: hundreds of online forums, websites, and blogs, in the so-called manosphere,
- 11:56Speaker 1: they promote women-hating and anti-feminism. They also tend to subscribe
- 12:01Speaker 1: to white supremacy, and their rhetoric is often violent. Over
- 12:05Speaker 1: the last decade, incels have been tied to dozens of
- 12:08Speaker 1: assaults and murders, as well as a couple of mass murders.
- 12:11Speaker 1: including the 2018 attack by Alec Manassian, then 25, who
- 12:17Speaker 1: plowed a van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto,
- 12:20Speaker 1: killing 11 people and injuring 15, predominantly women. The incel
- 12:26Speaker 1: rebellion has already begun, Manassian wrote in a Facebook post
- 12:30Speaker 1: prior to his attack. We will overthrow all the Chads
- 12:34Speaker 1: and the Stacys. I guess that means if you have
- 12:37Speaker 1: a boyfriend out there, you're a Stacy, and fellas... If
- 12:41Speaker 1: you have a girlfriend, I guess you're a Chad. I mean,
- 12:44Speaker 1: are these people for real?
- 12:45Speaker 2: Like, get a hobby, bro.
- 12:47Speaker 1: Go play Dungeons and Dragons with your friends. Go play
- 12:50Speaker 1: Magic the Gathering and quit your bullshit. In the lexicon
- 12:54Speaker 1: of incels, stacies are beautiful, typically blonde girls, who deny
- 12:58Speaker 1: incels sex. Incels believe it is their right to have
- 13:01Speaker 1: sex with stacies, forget about what stacies want, and hate
- 13:05Speaker 1: them because they can't have them. They see stacies as
- 13:09Speaker 1: stupid and shallow, because they prefer men who incels refer
- 13:13Speaker 1: to as chads. Square-jawed jocks who enjoy great success with
- 13:17Speaker 1: women do only, incels say, to their handsomeness. Imagine having
- 13:22Speaker 1: that kind of worldview where you sit on the internet
- 13:25Speaker 1: all day, complain you can't get laid, and then decide
- 13:28Speaker 1: that it's everybody else's fault.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Here's an idea.
- 13:31Speaker 1: Take a shower, leave the house, and see how that
- 13:34Speaker 1: works out for you. You can see how an incel
- 13:37Speaker 1: might have regarded the house where the Idaho victims lived
- 13:40Speaker 1: as a veritable nest of Stacy's. The surviving roommates were
- 13:44Speaker 1: also pretty blondes. This was the house Koberger drove past
- 13:48Speaker 1: at least 12 times, as if doing surveillance, which police
- 13:52Speaker 1: say they know from his cell phone records. What was
- 13:55Speaker 1: he looking for when he repeatedly rolled past? Was he
- 13:58Speaker 1: already planning an attack, or was he looking for a
- 14:01Speaker 1: glimpse into what he saw as a golden world full
- 14:05Speaker 1: of beautiful blondes and their popular clique. I think that
- 14:10Speaker 1: he was obsessed with Madison, and I think that's what
- 14:13Speaker 1: caused him to surveil that place all of those times.
- 14:17Speaker 1: And did he plan to kill them or her while
- 14:20Speaker 1: he was going through all of these different trips out there?
- 14:23Speaker 2: Who knows?
- 14:24Speaker 1: But when he comes in front of that jury, the
- 14:26Speaker 1: prosecution is certainly going to make it look like he
- 14:28Speaker 1: was planning it. Kohlberger's apparent obsession with girls... deemed out
- 14:33Speaker 1: of his league, goes back to an early rejection. In
- 14:37Speaker 1: middle school in Broadheadsville, Pennsylvania, his heart was reportedly broken
- 14:41Speaker 1: by Kim Kennelly, a future high school cheerleader. By all accounts,
- 14:46Speaker 1: an overweight, awkward boy, Kohlberger would become relentless in his pursuit,
- 14:51Speaker 1: repeatedly leaving love letters in Kennelly's locker and telling her
- 14:56Speaker 1: he liked her. Reported the Daily Mail, she'd say, oh
- 14:59Speaker 1: my God, leave me alone. Kennelly's mother, Sandra, told the paper,
- 15:04Speaker 1: In interviews, former classmates say that Koberger was bullied by
- 15:07Speaker 1: the popular girls in school. They literally tortured him, said
- 15:11Speaker 1: an unnamed source. In his senior year of high school,
- 15:14Speaker 1: he lost about 100 pounds, apparently in an attempt to
- 15:17Speaker 1: fit in, turning himself into a frightening-looking version of Daniel
- 15:22Speaker 1: Day-Lewis in the Age of Innocence. But this extreme physical
- 15:26Speaker 1: transformation couldn't change Koberger's personality, which reportedly still felt off.
- 15:32Speaker 1: and now was becoming aggressive and mean-spirited, according to former classmates.
- 15:39Speaker 1: In high school, Kohlberger reportedly started taking heroin to dull
- 15:42Speaker 1: the pain of his existence.
- 15:44Speaker 2: He later went to rehab and got sober.
- 15:47Speaker 1: I feel like an organic sack of meat with no self-worth,
- 15:50Speaker 1: he wrote on an online forum when he was 16
- 15:52Speaker 1: in 2011. He developed a rare condition, visual snow, spots
- 15:57Speaker 1: before your eyes, which he said coincided with an increasing
- 16:01Speaker 1: absence of emotion. I'm sure there's a lot of people
- 16:04Speaker 1: with the same exact thing who don't go out and
- 16:06Speaker 1: murder people. And yet, through his trials and tribulations, Koberger
- 16:13Speaker 1: was apparently still harassing his female classmates. If he liked
- 16:17Speaker 1: or was interested in a girl, and she wasn't, he
- 16:20Speaker 1: didn't understand why or just didn't accept her saying no
- 16:23Speaker 1: and move on. Dominique Clarke, who attended elementary and high
- 16:27Speaker 1: school with Kohlberger, told the New York Post. Later, Kohlberger's
- 16:31Speaker 1: reported misogyny extended to locker room talk. There was a
- 16:35Speaker 1: comment he made, and it was kind of a flippant
- 16:37Speaker 1: guy talk thing, Benjamin Roberts, a fellow grad student at
- 16:41Speaker 1: Washington State University, told CBS News. At one point, he
- 16:45Speaker 1: just idly mentioned, you know, I can go down to
- 16:48Speaker 1: a bar or a club and pretty much have any
- 16:51Speaker 1: lady I want. Oh, big pimpin', huh? Big baller over here.
- 16:55Speaker 1: Tom Brady in the house. Just gonna walk into whatever
- 16:58Speaker 1: bar or club he wants and leave with whatever lady
- 17:01Speaker 1: he wants.
- 17:02Speaker 2: Okay, sure.
- 17:04Speaker 1: From everything we know about Kohlberger, this sounds doubtful. The
- 17:07Speaker 1: bravado of a man who would like to be a
- 17:09Speaker 1: player but drives a white Hyundai Elantra. At Washington State,
- 17:13Speaker 1: where he was pursuing a PhD in criminology, Kohlberger reportedly
- 17:17Speaker 1: turned off his female classmates by mansplaining to them. His
- 17:22Speaker 1: peers said he rankled some people with a habit of
- 17:25Speaker 1: over-explaining and sounded particularly condescending when he spoke to his
- 17:30Speaker 1: female classmates. The New York Times reported, In the manosphere,
- 17:35Speaker 1: incels like to talk about how they suffer from women's disregard,
- 17:39Speaker 1: never taking responsibility for how their own misogynistic attitudes and
- 17:43Speaker 1: behavior might be what's pushing women away. Yeah, you know,
- 17:47Speaker 1: a little self-evaluation is always a good idea, right? Before
- 17:51Speaker 1: you start worrying about what everybody else is doing wrong,
- 17:53Speaker 1: you should probably take a look in the mirror and
- 17:55Speaker 1: ask yourself, what am I doing wrong? Another window into
- 18:00Speaker 1: Koberger's apparent failure to connect with women is in the
- 18:04Speaker 1: story of Haley Ouellette, 26, who in January posted a
- 18:08Speaker 1: TikTok about how her Tinder date with Koberger seven years
- 18:11Speaker 1: ago when she was an undergrad at Penn State Hazleton
- 18:15Speaker 1: and he was probably living with his parents in nearby Albrightville.
- 18:20Speaker 1: Ouellette said Koberger kept trying to touch her, making her uncomfortable,
- 18:24Speaker 1: until she finally got him to leave. After which, he
- 18:27Speaker 1: messaged her, saying that she had good birthing hips, a
- 18:31Speaker 1: small detail which suggests that Koberger may have spent time
- 18:35Speaker 1: in the manosphere. Incels believe that women exist purely for
- 18:39Speaker 1: their reproductive and sexual capabilities, according to the Southern Poverty
- 18:44Speaker 1: Law Center. That whole entire world is so foreign to
- 18:47Speaker 1: me and so weird, I just don't understand people that
- 18:51Speaker 1: are going to sit on the computer and complain about
- 18:53Speaker 1: not getting laid. It's not that difficult, man. Go out
- 18:56Speaker 1: and find yourself a girl. You're going to sit there
- 18:59Speaker 1: and cry and bitch and moan, not take showers, live
- 19:02Speaker 1: with mommy and daddy forever, blame the whole world. Nobody
- 19:06Speaker 1: wants to hear it. We all have problems. And if
- 19:08Speaker 1: your biggest problem is you can't get laid, well, learn
- 19:12Speaker 1: how to code. Look what it did for guys like
- 19:14Speaker 1: Bill Gates.
- 19:14Speaker 2: And Elon Musk.
- 19:15Speaker 1: 11 days before the Idaho murders, according to the New
- 19:19Speaker 1: York Times, Kohlberger had a meeting with faculty members at
- 19:23Speaker 1: Washington State University, which had been investigating his professionalism and
- 19:28Speaker 1: his conduct around women in his role as a teaching assistant.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Some female students reported that Mr. Kohlberger had made them
- 19:36Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable, including by allegedly following a female student to
- 19:40Speaker 1: her car. He was fired in December. Incels like to
- 19:44Speaker 1: be known for when they kill people or when they
- 19:47Speaker 1: have a conquest like this.
- 19:49Speaker 2: Dr.
- 19:49Speaker 1: Carol Lieber a forensic psychiatrist, said on Court TV. On
- 19:53Speaker 1: the night of the murders, the killer left his knife
- 19:56Speaker 1: sheath on the bed where Mogan and Gonsalves had been sleeping.
- 20:00Speaker 1: That knife sheath bears Koberger's DNA, according to the police.
- 20:04Speaker 1: But if Koberger was indeed the killer, you wonder how
- 20:08Speaker 1: a grad student in criminology managed to forget this vital
- 20:11Speaker 1: piece of evidence? Did he leave it there accidentally? Or
- 20:15Speaker 1: was it his way of marking his kill? And that's
- 20:19Speaker 1: certainly a discussion that we've had several times here on
- 20:21Speaker 1: this podcast. And again, that's unfortunately something that we're not
- 20:25Speaker 1: going to know until trial or maybe ever, depending on
- 20:29Speaker 1: what Brian Kohlberger has to say. If the killings were
- 20:33Speaker 1: sexually motivated, then the sheath was akin to a discarded condom.
- 20:38Speaker 1: proof that its owner was the one who had been there,
- 20:40Speaker 1: violating those popular, good-looking young people. Before Koberger was arrested,
- 20:46Speaker 1: a Facebook group devoted to discussing the murders was visited
- 20:49Speaker 1: by a user who called himself Papa Roger. Some group
- 20:53Speaker 1: members later noticed that the person with the username had
- 20:56Speaker 1: guessed rather too accurately about the knife sheath being left
- 21:00Speaker 1: at the scene. Of the evidence released, Papa Roger commented,
- 21:04Speaker 1: Weeks before police released this detail, the murder weapon has
- 21:08Speaker 1: been consistent as a large fixed blade knife. This leads
- 21:11Speaker 1: me to believe that they found the sheath. So, like
- 21:15Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, I don't really know if
- 21:17Speaker 1: this guy Papa Roger was Brian Koberger, but I have
- 21:20Speaker 1: my doubts. There's a lot of people that get on
- 21:23Speaker 1: the internet and act the fool. Some believe Papa Roger
- 21:27Speaker 1: was Koberger himself, which would make his username a nod
- 21:31Speaker 1: to his identification with incels, as well as kind of
- 21:34Speaker 1: a brag. Elliot Roger is was the name of the
- 21:37Speaker 1: misogynistic terrorist who killed six people and injured 14 others
- 21:41Speaker 1: in Isle Vista, California, in 2014, when he was 22,
- 21:46Speaker 1: before turning the gun on himself. Roger is a hero
- 21:50Speaker 1: to the incel movement, which the U.S. Secret Service National
- 21:53Speaker 1: Threat Assessment Center has identified as a growing domestic terror threat.
- 21:59Speaker 1: Through his murder spree and his online manifesto, in which
- 22:02Speaker 1: he blames his loneliness and isolation on women, For refusing
- 22:05Speaker 1: to have sex with him, Roger became the incel king.
- 22:09Speaker 1: All hail the supreme gentleman, Elliot Roger. Alec Manassian wrote
- 22:14Speaker 1: on Facebook before his 2018 Toronto attack, incels cheered. It's
- 22:19Speaker 1: so weird to me to think that there's a whole
- 22:21Speaker 1: group of people that base their whole entire existence on
- 22:24Speaker 1: the fact that they can't get laid. We are haunted
- 22:29Speaker 1: by the last photo Gonsalves posted on Instagram just hours
- 22:32Speaker 1: before she and her roommates died. There is Mogan smiling,
- 22:36Speaker 1: sitting on the shoulders of Gonsalves. They were like sisters,
- 22:40Speaker 1: inseparable since sixth grade. There are Kernodle and Chapin embracing.
- 22:45Speaker 1: Whoever killed them, four people with loving connections, the type
- 22:49Speaker 1: of connections Kohlberger never found in life and coveted in others.
- 22:54Speaker 1: The senselessness of it is infuriating. Is that why we've
- 22:57Speaker 1: become so obsessed with this story? And yet many other
- 23:01Speaker 1: murders occur that are as shocking and deserving of our attention.
- 23:06Speaker 1: So why the Idaho victims? Could it be we're as
- 23:09Speaker 1: obsessed with Stacey's as incels are? Dead white girl holy
- 23:13Speaker 1: grail of podcast remarks BJ Novak as the cynical podcaster.
- 23:17Speaker 2: In the movie Vengeance. Alright folks, well there it is.
- 23:21Speaker 1: Another entry into the catalog. This one talking about Brian
- 23:25Speaker 1: Koberger and him possibly being an incel. So what do
- 23:29Speaker 1: you folks think? Do you think he fits into this category?
- 23:32Speaker 1: Or do you think he fits somewhere else? Shoot me
- 23:35Speaker 1: some emails and let me know. Alright folks, that's going
- 23:39Speaker 1: to do it for this one. All of the information
- 23:41Speaker 1: that goes with the episode can be found in the
- 23:44Speaker 1: description box. What's up everyone and welcome back.
- 23:47Speaker 2: To the program.
- 23:50Speaker 1: Like most of you out there, I've wondered over and
- 23:53Speaker 1: over and over again what the motive could have been
- 23:57Speaker 1: for Brian Koberger to allegedly kill four college students while
- 24:02Speaker 1: they were home in their beds. And to tell you
- 24:06Speaker 1: the truth, there aren't any good reasons that I can
- 24:10Speaker 1: come up with. But the best reason that I've heard
- 24:13Speaker 1: so far is simply because Brian Kohlberger was an incel.
- 24:18Speaker 1: And I know that sounds simple, but when you start
- 24:21Speaker 1: looking at everything that we're finding out about him in context,
- 24:25Speaker 1: about how.
- 24:25Speaker 2: He was bullied.
- 24:26Speaker 1: how he was a general outcast, you know, not welcomed
- 24:30Speaker 1: among the popular groups, and how that can lead to
- 24:33Speaker 1: him having animosity for people like this later on in
- 24:37Speaker 1: the future.
- 24:38Speaker 2: Thus, the incel theory.
- 24:40Speaker 1: So let's get into this article from the New York Post,
- 24:44Speaker 1: and let's see what Olivia Land has for us. Headline,
- 24:50Speaker 1: Idaho murder suspect Brian Kohlberger had an incel complex that
- 24:55Speaker 1: drove him to kill. University of Idaho murder suspect Brian
- 24:59Speaker 1: Koberger may have been driven to kill by his history
- 25:03Speaker 1: of social issues and a possible incel complex, a former
- 25:07Speaker 1: FBI investigator told the Post. And I knew once we
- 25:11Speaker 1: started hearing from people that were in his life, ex-friends,
- 25:15Speaker 1: people that were around him, people who knew him, that
- 25:17Speaker 1: we'd start to get more of a profile from some
- 25:20Speaker 1: of these experts that are following along with the case.
- 25:23Speaker 1: Like I've said to you a bunch of times, I'm
- 25:26Speaker 1: not you know, equipped to build a proper profile and
- 25:30Speaker 1: come out here and tell you, oh yeah, this, this, this,
- 25:32Speaker 1: and this. I'm certainly not a forensic expert. I'm certainly
- 25:36Speaker 1: not a clinical psychologist. But when you look at what
- 25:40Speaker 1: we have learned about Brian Koberger, it certainly seems to
- 25:44Speaker 1: me that this whole entire incel theory certainly has some traction.
- 25:50Speaker 1: The murders may have been an effort to assert some
- 25:53Speaker 1: type of dominance. Former FBI agent And security expert Pete
- 25:58Speaker 1: Yachmitz explained to the Post this week. And people like this,
- 26:02Speaker 1: people that commit these kinds of crimes, we know a
- 26:05Speaker 1: lot of it's about control. And for some of these
- 26:08Speaker 1: people who commit these crimes, the control is actually what
- 26:12Speaker 1: gets them off. Not the murder, not the sexual assault,
- 26:16Speaker 1: if there is sexual assault, but the actual control part
- 26:20Speaker 1: is what they're looking for, to have that feeling of
- 26:23Speaker 1: being in complete control of the situation. having control over
- 26:27Speaker 1: everything about you, even your life and death. Koberger, 28,
- 26:34Speaker 1: was arrested late last month for the November 13th stabbing
- 26:37Speaker 1: deaths of Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan
- 26:42Speaker 1: Chapin at an off-campus residence in Moscow, Idaho. Yachmetz believes
- 26:48Speaker 1: the brutality of the crime and Koberger's history of social
- 26:51Speaker 1: challenges may offer some hints to his possible motive. And
- 26:56Speaker 1: I think that's definitely on the right track, whether that
- 26:59Speaker 1: it's him being an incel completely and his hatred of
- 27:04Speaker 1: women or whatever led him directly to doing this. Or
- 27:08Speaker 1: we come to find out that it's something else like
- 27:11Speaker 1: a perceived slight by one of these girls. You know,
- 27:14Speaker 1: they ran into him at like a bar or something
- 27:17Speaker 1: or a coffee shop or at work. He hit on
- 27:19Speaker 1: him or something like that. And. They weren't receptive to it,
- 27:23Speaker 1: so he took it personal. And if you have this
- 27:25Speaker 1: kind of personality, an incels type of personality, and you're,
- 27:30Speaker 1: you know, willing to go to the next step like
- 27:33Speaker 1: Kohlberger allegedly was willing to do, then it becomes a
- 27:37Speaker 1: very dangerous situation for the person who was perceived to
- 27:42Speaker 1: slight you. I believe a continued stabbing of a victim
- 27:47Speaker 1: indicates an uncontrollable rage and extreme anger. Yachmit said, noting
- 27:53Speaker 1: that Kohlberger has been described as socially awkward with a
- 27:56Speaker 1: long history of interpersonal problems. I think he may have
- 28:01Speaker 1: developed a sort of incel complex, he surmised. And when
- 28:05Speaker 1: you're talking about I hear demons and all the rest
- 28:08Speaker 1: of the nonsense that Kohlberger was allegedly talking about online.
- 28:13Speaker 1: and then you're accused of crimes like this, people are
- 28:16Speaker 1: going to start to put all of that together and
- 28:19Speaker 1: build a profile on you.
- 28:20Speaker 2: And when I say people, I don't mean the tarot
- 28:23Speaker 2: card reader.
- 28:24Speaker 1: I'm talking about professionals, criminologists, ex-FBI agents, and people that
- 28:30Speaker 1: are well-trained in the field and know the craft. And
- 28:33Speaker 1: these people are coming out and the profile that they're
- 28:36Speaker 1: building on Brian Koberger certainly leads to him being enraged
- 28:41Speaker 1: and him being angry. But the real question is who,
- 28:45Speaker 1: if anyone, that anger was directed at specifically. And as
- 28:50Speaker 1: of now, at least us in the public here, we
- 28:52Speaker 1: just don't know that. We don't know who the target was,
- 28:55Speaker 1: if there was a specific target or if it was
- 28:58Speaker 1: something else. But when you look at everything that we
- 29:02Speaker 1: have been privy to, it certainly looks like one of
- 29:05Speaker 1: the girls was targeted.
- 29:07Speaker 2: And I've said it once and I'll say it again.
- 29:10Speaker 1: It has to be Madison or Kaylee, right? At this point,
- 29:13Speaker 1: with everything we know now, I guess there's some room
- 29:16Speaker 1: for discussion about which one of them it was.
- 29:19Speaker 2: But for my money.
- 29:21Speaker 1: I would have to say that either one of them
- 29:24Speaker 1: was the original initial target by the killer who the
- 29:27Speaker 1: government says is Brian Koberger. So I think that's going
- 29:33Speaker 1: to be a very important part of this to figure
- 29:35Speaker 1: out if we're going to get to the bottom of
- 29:37Speaker 1: it and we're going to get some answers, then they're
- 29:40Speaker 1: going to have to figure that all out and figure
- 29:42Speaker 1: out where the paths crossed, how, you know, they came
- 29:45Speaker 1: onto his radar and all of that jazz.
- 29:48Speaker 2: And it's a daunting task, right?
- 29:50Speaker 1: They have to go through everything with a fine tooth
- 29:52Speaker 1: comb because, you know, Koberger is not going to be
- 29:55Speaker 1: any help. Not like he's going to get out there
- 29:58Speaker 1: and start singing a song for the government.
- 30:01Speaker 2: Dude should know better.
- 30:02Speaker 1: But then again, you take a look at this crime
- 30:04Speaker 1: scene and you say to yourself, maybe he's stupid.
- 30:07Speaker 2: Enough to talk.
- 30:08Speaker 1: That would certainly be beneficial from a prosecution standpoint. Get
- 30:13Speaker 1: this guy to talk to some kind of jailhouse snitch
- 30:15Speaker 1: or something like that. And who knows what kind of
- 30:18Speaker 1: secrets he'd start to spill. The term incel, an abbreviation
- 30:24Speaker 1: for involuntarily celibate, is generally used to refer to men
- 30:28Speaker 1: who struggle to establish romantic or sexual relationships. The identity
- 30:34Speaker 1: is occasionally linked to misogynistic online forums and, in extreme cases, crime.
- 30:40Speaker 1: In 2021, self-professed incel Tress Jenko was busted for planning
- 30:46Speaker 1: a mass shooting of 3,000 sorority sisters at an unnamed
- 30:50Speaker 1: Ohio university. Jenko, 22, pled guilty to the sick plot
- 30:56Speaker 1: And is facing life in prison. Sounds like a hell
- 30:59Speaker 1: of a guy, huh? Let me go out here and
- 31:01Speaker 1: plot to kill a bunch of sorority girls. Because none
- 31:04Speaker 1: of them would ever want to hang out with me.
- 31:06Speaker 1: Here's an idea, buddy. Take a shower. Brush your teeth.
- 31:10Speaker 1: Comb your hair. Hell, maybe get a haircut. Hit the gym.
- 31:14Speaker 1: And maybe, just maybe, you might be able to find
- 31:17Speaker 1: a date. But if you let all that butter grow
- 31:20Speaker 1: on your teeth. You don't take a shower. You smell funky.
- 31:24Speaker 1: You look like a goofball. Well, what do you expect, bro?
- 31:28Speaker 1: All these incels are like, oh, it's women, it's this one,
- 31:31Speaker 1: it's that one. Meanwhile, they're sitting around smelling like shit,
- 31:35Speaker 1: looking like shit, and certainly acting like shit. Though it
- 31:40Speaker 1: is not a proper psychological definition, Psychology Today noted last
- 31:44Speaker 1: year that men who identify as incels often have poor
- 31:48Speaker 1: mental health and experience feelings of victimhood, inferiority, and loneliness.
- 31:54Speaker 1: And a lot of that is stoked by all of
- 31:58Speaker 1: these grifters out there. People like Andrew Tate and others
- 32:01Speaker 1: like him who prey on people.
- 32:04Speaker 2: These weak ass dudes.
- 32:05Speaker 1: Mr. I got picked in volleyball last my whole entire life.
- 32:09Speaker 1: I've never had a girlfriend. So, of course, these dudes
- 32:12Speaker 1: are going to be vulnerable to some knucklehead out here
- 32:15Speaker 1: pitching all kinds of nonsense. That's how it works with
- 32:18Speaker 1: grifters and with snake oil salesmen. They look for vulnerable
- 32:22Speaker 1: people who are easy to sink their hooks in. And
- 32:25Speaker 1: when you're talking about an incel community like this, forget it.
- 32:31Speaker 1: Yachmit's personal analysis of Koberger echoed that of Dr. Carol Lieberman,
- 32:37Speaker 1: a forensic psychiatrist who told Court TV last week that
- 32:41Speaker 1: she believed the suspect fit the incel profile. And he
- 32:45Speaker 1: most certainly does with what we know. Now, look, we
- 32:48Speaker 1: don't know the guy's whole entire life story yet, right?
- 32:51Speaker 1: We only know what we've been told by people that
- 32:53Speaker 1: were around him in his previous life. And everything that
- 32:58Speaker 1: we have heard has been pretty creepy, right? We haven't
- 33:00Speaker 1: heard somebody come forward and say, oh yeah, Brian, average dude,
- 33:04Speaker 1: great guy, one of my favorite boyfriends ever. We broke
- 33:07Speaker 1: up because we grew apart. Where are all the people
- 33:11Speaker 1: coming out and saying stuff like that? You really haven't
- 33:16Speaker 1: heard anything like that. So it would lead me to
- 33:18Speaker 1: believe that there aren't many people out there that have
- 33:21Speaker 1: anything really great to say about old boy. And once again,
- 33:25Speaker 1: that means nothing in a court of law. But when
- 33:28Speaker 1: you're looking at it in the totality of circumstantial evidence,
- 33:33Speaker 1: it's not good for Brian Koberger. And it makes them
- 33:35Speaker 1: look guilty as hell. I've been saying this from the beginning,
- 33:39Speaker 1: that he's an incel, Lieberman said, explaining that she was
- 33:43Speaker 1: largely convinced due to Koberger's alleged choice of victims or
- 33:47Speaker 1: decision to target mostly female college students. So if he
- 33:51Speaker 1: is an incel, I wonder if he was active on 4chan.
- 33:55Speaker 1: You know that's where all these clowns go and hang out.
- 33:58Speaker 1: And if he was active there, I wonder if they
- 34:01Speaker 1: can trace his account and his posts and see what
- 34:04Speaker 1: he was up to. Because again, that helps build a
- 34:07Speaker 1: profile of who the guy was. If he's sitting there
- 34:10Speaker 1: talking about stuff like that in forums, well, chances are
- 34:15Speaker 1: that's how he really feels, right? Whenever you have the
- 34:19Speaker 1: air of anonymity, more than likely you're going to be
- 34:24Speaker 1: more willing to say things that you wouldn't say if
- 34:27Speaker 1: you had to put your name behind it. So if
- 34:29Speaker 1: they can find, you know, a burner account that Koberger
- 34:33Speaker 1: was using, that he was using on a place like
- 34:36Speaker 1: 4chan especially, then they can really put something together, perhaps,
- 34:40Speaker 1: about this whole entire incel theory. Lieberman was also intrigued
- 34:46Speaker 1: by evidence which suggested Koberger returned to the crime scene
- 34:51Speaker 1: in the hours after the murders. Incels like to be
- 34:54Speaker 1: known for when they kill people or when they have
- 34:57Speaker 1: a conquest like this, she said. On the one hand,
- 35:01Speaker 1: he wanted to commit the perfect crime and not be caught.
- 35:04Speaker 1: But on the other hand, he did want to be
- 35:06Speaker 1: caught and be proud in a sense of what he did.
- 35:09Speaker 1: And again, that fits with what I think as well.
- 35:11Speaker 1: How many times have I said it's almost like this
- 35:14Speaker 1: dude wanted to get caught with how sloppy he was
- 35:17Speaker 1: at that crime scene with the sheath and all of
- 35:19Speaker 1: the other stuff. So could it be he's looking for
- 35:23Speaker 1: that sort of notoriety and wants to take this and
- 35:26Speaker 1: the whole entire country basically on a ride with him
- 35:29Speaker 1: throughout this trial? Now, look, I don't know if that's
- 35:32Speaker 1: his motivation. I have no idea. But it's certainly possible.
- 35:36Speaker 1: And like everything else, I'm not going to discount it
- 35:39Speaker 1: until we have official word one way or the other.
- 35:43Speaker 1: Because there are way too many unknowns in this case.
- 35:46Speaker 1: And we just don't know enough about Brian Koberger or, hell,
- 35:50Speaker 1: the case overall to really have that kind of opinion yet.
- 35:54Speaker 1: At the time of the murders, Koberger was a doctoral
- 35:57Speaker 1: student in criminology at Washington State University, just 15 minutes
- 36:02Speaker 1: from Moscow. While WSU classmates described him as gregarious, peers
- 36:07Speaker 1: from his Pennsylvania hometown remembered him as a loner who
- 36:11Speaker 1: was bullied for his weight before spiraling into drug addiction.
- 36:15Speaker 1: And that also could play into the whole incel thing.
- 36:19Speaker 1: He could have turned into an incel after all of
- 36:21Speaker 1: the abuse, felt like he was getting picked on too
- 36:24Speaker 1: much by the quote-unquote cool kids, and he's going to
- 36:27Speaker 1: get his revenge. Sounds crazy to me and you, but
- 36:31Speaker 1: to some people out there, this is like a legit
- 36:35Speaker 1: scenario that they play out in their brain. One alleged
- 36:40Speaker 1: middle school crush of Kohlberger's, Kim Kenley, reportedly even contacted
- 36:44Speaker 1: the FBI about her experience with him. He would always say, OK, oh, Kim,
- 36:50Speaker 1: I think you're very pretty. Just like weird comments. And
- 36:53Speaker 1: she'd say, oh, my God, leave me alone. Kenley's mother, Sandra,
- 36:57Speaker 1: told the Daily Mail. And I don't know how much
- 36:59Speaker 1: stock we can put into all of that. Right. We
- 37:02Speaker 1: always have to be cautious of people who are trying
- 37:04Speaker 1: to insert themselves into stories. But when you hear it
- 37:07Speaker 1: from multiple people, you start to say to yourself, well, hey, look,
- 37:11Speaker 1: maybe this all tracks. If all of these people are
- 37:14Speaker 1: coming out and saying, oh, boy, it was weird as shit. Well,
- 37:17Speaker 1: he was probably a pretty weird dude. And don't get
- 37:22Speaker 1: me wrong, just being weird doesn't make you guilty. But again,
- 37:26Speaker 1: you have to look at the totality of everything we know.
- 37:32Speaker 1: She did not give him the time of day. When
- 37:34Speaker 1: kids are little, they're mean. They don't say, oh my God,
- 37:37Speaker 1: thank you, but no. Another middle school classmate who asked
- 37:40Speaker 1: to remain anonymous told the outlet that the popular cheerleaders
- 37:44Speaker 1: tortured Koberger. And it looks like another situation where you
- 37:48Speaker 1: can say, so what?
- 37:49Speaker 2: Big deal. That happened so long ago. What does it matter?
- 37:52Speaker 2: He moved on. Look at him.
- 37:53Speaker 1: Has his criminology degree. He's a relatively successful guy. Has
- 37:57Speaker 1: a TA job over at Washington State.
- 38:00Speaker 2: So what does it matter?
- 38:00Speaker 1: He got picked on. Well, obviously it matters, huh? When
- 38:05Speaker 1: you go back and you look at all of it
- 38:06Speaker 1: now and you look at what he's being accused of,
- 38:10Speaker 1: it obviously matters. The whole clique of popular girls made
- 38:15Speaker 1: fun of him in school. They were the cheerleaders and
- 38:18Speaker 1: the ones that every kid had crushes on, they said.
- 38:22Speaker 1: And look, kids are nasty, right? I remember when I
- 38:25Speaker 1: was a kid, I wasn't the nicest person in the world.
- 38:28Speaker 1: Could say some mean things. You don't really know any
- 38:30Speaker 1: better when you're a kid. But When you're somebody who's
- 38:33Speaker 1: an incel or somebody with these kinds of thoughts, you
- 38:37Speaker 1: take that shit personally and it stays with you forever.
- 38:41Speaker 1: And in some cases, it turns into violence. Kohlberger's adolescent
- 38:47Speaker 1: social isolation was also reflected in posts he reportedly made
- 38:51Speaker 1: to online forums, writing in one 2011 entry that he
- 38:56Speaker 1: felt like an organic sack of meat with no self-worth.
- 39:00Speaker 1: Hypothesis about the possible motive for Koberger's alleged crime come
- 39:05Speaker 1: as investigators scramble to establish a link between him and
- 39:09Speaker 1: the four victims. After a brief hearing on Thursday, the
- 39:12Speaker 1: suspect remains in custody in Latah County, where he's being
- 39:16Speaker 1: held without bail. Koberger, who has not entered a plea
- 39:20Speaker 1: despite facing four counts of murder and one of felony burglary,
- 39:24Speaker 1: is expected back in court on June 26th. All right, folks,
- 39:29Speaker 1: so what do you think? Do you think that Brian
- 39:32Speaker 1: Koberger is an incel? Do you think that that could
- 39:35Speaker 1: have driven him to commit these crimes if you think
- 39:38Speaker 1: he committed these crimes? So shoot me some email and
- 39:42Speaker 1: let me know what all of you think. All right, folks,
- 39:45Speaker 1: that's going to do it for this one. If you'd
- 39:48Speaker 1: like to contact me, you can do that at BobbyCapucci
- 39:51Speaker 1: at ProtonMail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at ProtonMail.com. You can also find
- 40:00Speaker 1: me on Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The link that
- 40:07Speaker 1: I discuss can be found in the description box. Welcome
- 40:13Speaker 1: back to the program. One of the main questions I have,
- 40:18Speaker 1: and I'm sure most people have, is what motivated Brian
- 40:22Speaker 1: Koberger to allegedly commit these crimes? And at this point,
- 40:27Speaker 1: we don't have any solid answers. All we have is
- 40:30Speaker 1: a lot of speculation and a lot of opinions from
- 40:34Speaker 1: experts in the various fields that deal with these sorts
- 40:38Speaker 1: of crimes. And on today's episode, we're hearing from another
- 40:43Speaker 1: one of these experts, This time, a forensic psychiatrist named
- 40:48Speaker 1: Ian Lamoureux. So let's get into this article from Newsweek
- 40:53Speaker 1: and let's see what Mr. Lamoureux has for us. Headline,
- 40:58Speaker 1: Idaho murder was chasing a thrill kill, says forensic expert.
- 41:03Speaker 1: This article was authored by James Bickerton. The murder of
- 41:08Speaker 1: four University of Idaho students in the early hours of
- 41:11Speaker 1: November 13th, 2022, was likely a thrill kill, according to
- 41:16Speaker 1: a leading forensic psychiatrist. And for those of you wondering
- 41:21Speaker 1: what a thrill kill might be, here is what it
- 41:24Speaker 1: says in Wikipedia. A thrill kill is a premeditated or
- 41:29Speaker 1: random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of
- 41:32Speaker 1: the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders,
- 41:36Speaker 1: such as identifying thrill killing as a type of hedonistic
- 41:40Speaker 1: mass slaying, actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions,
- 41:45Speaker 1: making attempts at such distinctions problematic. Those identified as thrill
- 41:51Speaker 1: killers are typically young males, but other profile characteristics may vary.
- 41:57Speaker 1: According to Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on
- 42:01Speaker 1: Conflict and Violence at Northeastern University. The major common denominator
- 42:07Speaker 1: among those who commit thrill killings is that they usually
- 42:10Speaker 1: feel inadequate and are driven by a need to feel powerful.
- 42:14Speaker 1: To a certain extent, they, thrill killers, may make their
- 42:18Speaker 1: victims suffer so that they can feel good, said Levin.
- 42:21Speaker 1: Sadism is fairly common in thrill killings. The killer might torture, degrade,
- 42:26Speaker 1: or rape his victims before he or she takes his
- 42:29Speaker 1: or her life. They frequently have an ideal victim type
- 42:33Speaker 1: who has certain physical characteristics. Thrill killers have been frequently
- 42:38Speaker 1: romanticized in films. So just using that basic description of
- 42:44Speaker 1: what a thrill killer is certainly could see Brian Koberger
- 42:47Speaker 1: being categorized as that if he is the person responsible
- 42:51Speaker 1: for these murders. Certainly could be a situation where you
- 42:55Speaker 1: have a thrill killer who decided that now is the
- 42:58Speaker 1: time that I'm going to go and live out my fantasies.
- 43:01Speaker 1: And to normal thinking folks, that sounds just completely batshit insane.
- 43:06Speaker 1: But these people aren't wired the same way that most
- 43:09Speaker 1: of us are. And when the facade of normalcy snaps
- 43:13Speaker 1: for these people, forget it.
- 43:15Speaker 2: It snaps.
- 43:17Speaker 1: Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were
- 43:22Speaker 1: all stabbed to death when an intruder broke into a
- 43:25Speaker 1: shared student house in the town of Moscow, Idaho. Brian Koberger,
- 43:29Speaker 1: a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student, was arrested on December 30th
- 43:34Speaker 1: and has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder
- 43:38Speaker 1: along with burglary. Koberger's legal team have indicated he will
- 43:42Speaker 1: plead not guilty and he will seek to clear his name.
- 43:45Speaker 1: Good luck with that. There is a ton of evidence
- 43:48Speaker 1: against this dude, and it's going to be a challenge
- 43:51Speaker 1: for him to clear his name. And then you add
- 43:54Speaker 1: in the situation with Ann Taylor and the possible conflict
- 43:59Speaker 1: of interest, and Brian Koberger might even be looking at
- 44:02Speaker 1: having new legal counsel at some point. Speaking to Newsweek,
- 44:08Speaker 1: Ian Lamoureux, a forensic psychiatrist, and clinical assistant professor of
- 44:13Speaker 1: psychiatry at the university of arizona said initial evidence suggests
- 44:17Speaker 1: the murders could have been a thrill kill and look
- 44:21Speaker 1: we just don't know right if we're being honest all
- 44:24Speaker 1: of these experts all of these legal scholars they're just
- 44:27Speaker 1: given their opinions as well now their opinions are grounded
- 44:32Speaker 1: in more education than most of us as far as
- 44:35Speaker 1: the topic at hand but remember These experts don't have
- 44:39Speaker 1: access to all of the case files. They don't have
- 44:42Speaker 1: access to all of the evidence. All they're doing is
- 44:45Speaker 1: looking at the circumstantial evidence that's been provided and giving
- 44:48Speaker 1: an assessment based on that. What I will say, though,
- 44:52Speaker 1: is a lot of these experts end up being spot on.
- 44:55Speaker 1: When you hear what they say, the way they break
- 44:58Speaker 1: down the profile, what the person was motivated by, a
- 45:02Speaker 1: lot of these experts, as far as these clinical psychologists,
- 45:06Speaker 1: criminal profilers, They know what they're talking about and they
- 45:09Speaker 1: know their business. So for me, I like to consume
- 45:12Speaker 1: as much information as possible and get as much context
- 45:15Speaker 1: as possible from as many people as possible. That way
- 45:19Speaker 1: we're well armed and we're equipped to deal with this
- 45:22Speaker 1: story as it evolves. He said, I have not seen
- 45:26Speaker 1: sufficient information to establish a motive at this stage.
- 45:30Speaker 2: Currently, this appears to be a thrill kill.
- 45:33Speaker 1: The thrill could be emotional excitement or sexual. It could
- 45:37Speaker 1: also be the thrill of executing the perfect murder. And
- 45:41Speaker 1: that's certainly something we have to keep on the table,
- 45:45Speaker 1: in my opinion, considering we don't know what the motivations were.
- 45:48Speaker 1: I think that we can't discount anything that sounds logical. Obviously,
- 45:55Speaker 1: anything that's out of there in fantasy land, that's something
- 45:58Speaker 1: that I just discount right away.
- 46:00Speaker 2: I don't want to hear about.
- 46:01Speaker 1: Psychics or aliens or spirit boxes, any of that bullshit.
- 46:05Speaker 1: But when we get the opinions of these experts, clinical
- 46:08Speaker 1: psychologists and stuff like that, I think that that's worthwhile
- 46:11Speaker 1: and certainly something that needs to be explored. And when
- 46:14Speaker 1: all is said and done, it's going to be something
- 46:17Speaker 1: like this. A thrill kill or he had some kind
- 46:20Speaker 1: of obsession, something like that will end up being the motivation. Lamoureux,
- 46:26Speaker 1: who emphasized that Kohlberger has yet to be convicted of
- 46:29Speaker 1: any crime, continued, it seems as though there is some speculation,
- 46:33Speaker 1: given his background in criminal studies, that this could be
- 46:36Speaker 1: the motive, the thrill of outsmarting the authorities. I've always
- 46:41Speaker 1: thought that that was a plausible scenario, that this guy
- 46:44Speaker 1: thinks he's smarter than everybody else, thinks that he's going
- 46:47Speaker 1: to get away with it, planned it for all of
- 46:50Speaker 1: these months, stalked these girls allegedly. cased the house, knew
- 46:54Speaker 1: where they worked, developed patterns, and he really thought he
- 46:57Speaker 1: was going to get away with it. Well, breaking news,
- 47:00Speaker 1: you're not as smart as you think, my friend. The
- 47:03Speaker 1: adrenaline rush and excitement of the killings is the end goal.
- 47:07Speaker 1: His online encounters with the victims, if guilty and accurate,
- 47:11Speaker 1: could represent stalking hunting behavior that killers of this category
- 47:15Speaker 1: exhibit as a way of stoking excitement, in anticipation of
- 47:20Speaker 1: the murders, the thrill of the hunt.
- 47:22Speaker 2: And it lines up.
- 47:24Speaker 1: If you look at what happened here, according to what
- 47:27Speaker 1: the probable cause affidavit tells us, then it lines up
- 47:31Speaker 1: with this possibly, possibly being a thrill kill. Certainly not
- 47:35Speaker 1: something that can be discarded or discounted as a theory
- 47:38Speaker 1: right now. And in my opinion, a top contender for
- 47:41Speaker 1: what the motivation is going to be.
- 47:43Speaker 2: When all is said and done. Now you'll see how.
- 47:47Speaker 1: According to the psychiatrist, the murderer likely took sadistic pleasure
- 47:52Speaker 1: in the suffering inflicted on their victims. He explained creating fear, terror,
- 47:57Speaker 1: and or pain in their victims will increase the intensity
- 48:00Speaker 1: of the pleasure derived from their acts. The intensely personal
- 48:04Speaker 1: and unusually violent nature of the murders, a large fixed
- 48:07Speaker 1: blade such as a K-bar military knife, supports this. This
- 48:11Speaker 1: process of hunting, stalking their victims, culminating in violent homicides
- 48:16Speaker 1: is intensely pleasurable to these individuals, similar to the rush
- 48:21Speaker 1: of narcotic drugs. The actual act sometimes is the aphrodisiac
- 48:27Speaker 1: for these people. And usually you'll hear about a killer
- 48:31Speaker 1: like this engaging in sexual assault or sexual abuse, something
- 48:34Speaker 1: like that. But some of them, the act itself, the
- 48:37Speaker 1: murder itself is the sexual gratification.
- 48:42Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that's what happened here. I don't know.
- 48:45Speaker 1: But we have seen many, many, many killers in the
- 48:48Speaker 1: past exhibit these same sorts of behavior. Lamoureux emphasized that
- 48:53Speaker 1: his comments were speculative as information regarding the defendant is
- 48:58Speaker 1: extremely limited at this time. And there's no doubt everything
- 49:02Speaker 1: that we talk about is pure speculation at this point.
- 49:06Speaker 2: And it's going to stay that way.
- 49:08Speaker 1: Until either the gag order is lifted or we get
- 49:11Speaker 1: to the trial portion of what's going on here. Because
- 49:15Speaker 1: with that gag order, no official sources are going to
- 49:17Speaker 1: come out and talk about what's going on behind the scenes.
- 49:22Speaker 1: That's over and done with. But there's going to be trickles.
- 49:25Speaker 1: There's going to be leaks. And you're going to hear
- 49:27Speaker 1: from a lot of these experts who are building profiles
- 49:31Speaker 1: on the alleged murderer, Brian Koberger, and using their expertise
- 49:35Speaker 1: to do so. He added the authorities have been uncharacteristically
- 49:40Speaker 1: non-forthcoming with information, which suggests they are very concerned about
- 49:45Speaker 1: protecting the integrity of the investigation itself and subsequent prosecution. Well,
- 49:50Speaker 1: if that's the case, they better make sure they deal
- 49:53Speaker 1: with that potential conflict of interest because that could end
- 49:56Speaker 1: up being real bad for everybody involved, the state, the defendant,
- 50:01Speaker 1: and the victim's families. So if the integrity of the
- 50:03Speaker 1: case is so important the way they say it is,
- 50:07Speaker 1: then they need to make sure that they're doing everything
- 50:09Speaker 1: in their power to protect the integrity of the case
- 50:12Speaker 1: and not just stamping out transparency. Police have yet to
- 50:17Speaker 1: recover the murder weapon used to kill the four students,
- 50:20Speaker 1: though they did recover a knife sheath at the crime scene.
- 50:23Speaker 2: Cara Kernodle, the mother of Zanna.
- 50:25Speaker 1: has indicated she does not want Kohlberger to face the
- 50:28Speaker 1: death penalty if convicted. Speaking to News Nation, she said,
- 50:32Speaker 1: I want to see him pay for what he's done.
- 50:34Speaker 1: I'm not interested in a death penalty. That's not who
- 50:37Speaker 1: I am. I don't believe in that, but I do
- 50:39Speaker 1: believe he should spend the rest of his days in prison.
- 50:43Speaker 1: The city of Moscow Police Department has been contacted for comment,
- 50:47Speaker 1: and I don't know why they continue to do that.
- 50:49Speaker 1: They're not going to comment on any of this at
- 50:51Speaker 1: this point, considering that gag order. So until we either
- 50:55Speaker 1: get that gag order lifted or we get to trial,
- 50:59Speaker 1: we'll continue to rely on the opinions and the breakdowns
- 51:03Speaker 1: of these various experts. All right, everybody, that's going to
- 51:07Speaker 1: do it for this one. All of the information that
- 51:10Speaker 1: goes along with this episode can be found in the
- 51:13Speaker 1: description box.