Bryan Kohberger was driven by an extreme desire for control and notoriety rather than a blind hatred of women, forensic psychologist Dr Gary Brucato has told a new Mail podcast.
Speaking to journalist and host Laura Collins, the violent crime expert saw shades of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy in Kohberger’s murder of four college students in their rental home in Moscow, Idaho.
Dr Brucato contrasted Kohberger’s ‘evil’ psychosexual fantasies with the extreme misogyny that drove infamous incel murderer Elliot Rodger.
Kohberger, 30, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary for the November 2022 killings but controversially accepted a plea deal in July 2025 to avoid the death penalty.
Asked whether the victims’ families’ heartfelt statements at the sentencing would have any effect on Kohberger, Dr Brucato said he feared that for killers like him, such public grief becomes part of their fantasy.
Bryan Kohberger was driven by an extreme desire for control and notoriety rather than a blind hatred of women, forensic psychologist Dr Gary Brucato has told a new Mail podcast
Asked whether the victims’ families’ heartfelt statements would have any effect on Kohberger, Dr Brucato said he feared that for killers like him, such grief becomes part of their fantasy
Speaking to journalist and host Laura Collins, the violent crime expert saw shades of infamous serial killer Ted Bundy in Kohberger’s murder of four college students
‘The families’ approach was to try and get under his skin,’ Dr Brucato said.
‘That’s because they had a sense that for a budding serial killer like Kohberger, the motive is to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.
‘Those killers want to level the playing field through domination, control and manipulation of other people, usually in a psychosexual way, or in the playing out of some sort of fantasy.
‘The idea is to tear them apart: to show that nothing that was done did that. That in the end, no one cares about you. That they’ve achieved no degree of notoriety beyond kind of a flash. I think that’s terrific.
‘But we must think about the kind of person this is, and I am afraid to say, he was like an automaton during those statements.
‘Like a calculating machine – I wondered while he was sitting there he wasn’t reliving in his mind what he had done, fantasising.’
Brucato went on to describe Kohberger as a ‘textbook serial killer’ whose motivations, like Ted Bundy’s, centred on control interwoven with sexual desire.
Both killers were educated and superficially charming, the forensic psychologist observed, using their intelligence to carefully plan attacks on young women driven by fantasies of domination rather than obvious rage.
Kohberger’s interest in Bundy was well-documented – court documents reveal he had undertaken several Google searches on the serial killer before the murders took place.
Some media outlets initially compared Kohberger to incel killer Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who murdered six people in California in 2014
The home at 1122 King Road where Kohberger broke in and murdered his victims
Left to right – Kohberger’s victims: Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee’s shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke
‘Control is really what this story is all about’, Dr Brucato argued.
‘Everything, even including this plea deal, seems to be about control. That’s precisely why we feel so dissatisfied.
‘Here’s somebody who was arbitrating who lives and who dies, and ultimately managed to live himself, that’s depressing.
‘Kohberger is quite easy to figure out. His motives, as demonstrated in what was on the ground, are fairly classic.
‘There are clues that this was psychosexual. Kohberger was viewing deeply disturbing pornography – and he clearly idolised sexually motivated serial killers.
‘The greatest clue was that he purchased the knife months before there was even a victim selected.
‘That means you have a fantasy, then you go out like a casting agent to find a person you can cast in your fantasy.
‘A representative of the group he felt rejected by. Attractive young women – he homed in on a specific victim who was representative of that whole group.’
Brucato said that the lack of personal relationship between Kohberger and his victims is particularly reminiscent of Bundy.
‘A serial killer doesn’t want a direct connection with his victim’, the forensic psychologist said.
‘There’s a story about Ted Bundy that he once picked up a potential victim and she started talking too much about her life, her identity – that he dumped her because it was too difficult to project onto her.’
Some media outlets initially compared Kohberger to incel killer Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who murdered six people in California in 2014 out of hatred toward women who rejected him.
But asked by host Collins whether he sees validity in the comparison, Dr Brucato said Kohberger was more ‘imitating Bundy’ and doesn’t meet the ‘definition of an incel’.
‘Bundy is much more of what Kohberger aspired to be’, he told the podcast.
‘The in-control person who knows how to use empathy to manipulate people.
‘What you see in Kohberger was more that, when women would get near him, he wouldn’t know what to do.
‘If he ever got in an intimate moment, he would shut the woman down or condescend them or say something weird.
‘He told a woman he went on a date with that he would like to tickle her, that she had great birthing hips.
‘That’s very different to an incel. An incel doesn’t even get the opportunity.’
To listen to the full episode featuring Dr Gary Brucato’s in-depth analysis, search for ‘On The Case: The Idaho Murders’ now, wherever you get your podcasts.
