Bryan Kohberger came within a whisker of pulling off the ‘perfect crime’ and getting away with the murders of four young students.
Robin Dreeke, former Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, told Daily Mail that Kohberger, 30, would have gotten away with the 2022 stabbings in Moscow, Idaho, had he not forgotten to wipe his DNA from a knife sheath.
And Dreeke offered a fascinating insight into why he thinks Kohberger made the mistake: the notorious murders he wished to emulate all pre-dated DNA technology.
Koherger, who admitted killing Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernoble and Ethan Chapin at a plea deal hearing in Boise Wednesday, planned and executed most of the bloodbath with the terrifying precision and coldness, Dreeke said.
But he slipped up because he had a ‘dated’ perception of the ‘forensic capabilities of investigators,’ Dreeke believes.
A former FBI agent says Kohberger, pictured in a selfie taken after the killings, would definitely have tried to kill again because he is a ‘cold-blooded killer looking for a rush’
‘He simply didn’t know about the potential of touch DNA being on that sheath and the law enforcement folks being able to extract it,’ Dreeke told Daily Mail. ‘Also, he may not have been aware that his father was in the database that outed him.
‘Those were the critical errors.’
Kohberger was a criminology student at Washington State University who searched for notorious killer Ted Bundy online.
Bundy killed at least 20 women and girls between 1974 and 1978 and was caught thanks to a lucky break and rudimentary forensic testing on hairs found in his Volkswagen Beetle.
Dreeke said that in other respects, Kohberger was the perfect killing machine and offered a bloodcurdling motive for the slaughter.
‘He’s a psychopath,’ Dreeke explained, noting that he is not a clinical psychologist so he cannot formally diagnose Kohberger – but reiterated that the killer fits the profile.
Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder marked by several traits, most notably lack of empathy and poor behavioral controls.
‘Kohberger has zero empathy. He’s devoid of emotion,’ he said. ‘People ask if he is guilty – do I think he did it? Yes. But guilt is an emotion.
‘He does not have emotions.’
Bryan Kohberger (pictured in a selfie taken hours after the quadruple murder) carried out the nearly ‘perfect murder’ when he broke into an off-campus house a stabbed four University of Idaho students to death
The ‘psychopath’ killer probably would’ve gotten away with his gruesome crime had he not made one fatal ‘rookie error’, experts say. Pictured: Quadruple murder victims Madison Mogen (left) and Kaylee Goncalves (right)
‘People think too hard about what he’s thinking. They were analyzing his court appearance saying he was trying to control his emotions. There’s nothing to control. He doesn’t have emotions.
‘He’s cold-blooded killer looking for a rush.’
He believes that Kohberger would ‘100 per cent’ kill again had he not been arrested over the slayings because of the emotional response that murder provides him.
Although Dreeke only has his ‘theory and conjecture’, the criminal behavior expert believes Kohberger’s decision to kill Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernoble and Ethan Chapin had little to do with them.
‘I think it had nothing to do with the girls. It was all about him,’ he said of the five women living in the off-campus house in Moscow, northern Idaho.
‘Kohberger studied how to do this for a long time. He was OCD in his methodology and I think he set out to commit the perfect crime.’
Dreeke believes he targeted the home because it was in a location that he perceived as safe. The shared residence was a ‘high traffic home’ that allowed him to hide in ‘plain sight’ and go ‘undetected’.
‘He did precisely what you should do if you studied this, but you haven’t done it before,’ he added.
The former FBI agents says it his possible Kohberger would still be at large today had he not left DNA on the knife sheath found at the crime scene.
Investigators linked Kohberger to the killings after collecting DNA samples from the garbage outside his parents’ Pennsylvania home.
They determined DNA left on a Q-Tip at the residence belonged to the father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath.
Dreeke notes that investigators may have ‘eventually’ tied Kohberger to the case after looking into his car – which was seen in Moscow the night of the killings and 23 times prior – but that scenario is ‘much less probable’.
Robin Dreeke, (pictured) retired FBI Special Agent and Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, says that although the Idaho murders were a precise textbook case, Kohberger’s killings were a ‘novice attempt, not a master attempt’
Bryan Kohberger, 30, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the murders of Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin , Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle in November 2022. The controversial plea bargain spared him the death penalty and will instead see him serve four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole
Regardless, the former FBI agent is confident that had he not been caught, Kohberger would have continued to kill.
‘Why wouldn’t he? He didn’t kill out of vengeance toward the students. He killed for himself… and liked it!’ Dreeke told Daily Mail.
He believes the murderer would have learned from the Idaho kill, studying what he did correctly and his mistakes, and would do it again.
Dreeker further believes Kohberger would’ve chosen a similar environment – a shared home or ‘vulnerable location where he could move in and out unobserved’ – for his next kill.
‘He would use a knife to again because it worked,’ he added. ‘Killing someone with a knife is personal, up close and causes an emotional response. Kohberger was looking for an emotional response
‘Serial killers often take trophies – a memory, an imprint of the fantasy they tried to live out. In this case, his selfie was the only trophy. That’s not a lot to remember it by, so he most certainly would’ve done it again.’
Kohberger on Wednesday pleaded guilty to the quadruple stabbing of Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin in November 2022.
The controversial plea bargain spared him the death penalty and will instead see him serve four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
The deal also included a clause that Kohberger cannot ever appeal his conviction.
He will be sentenced later this month and will have the chance to speak.
But Kohberger will not be forced to address the court, meaning his true motive may never be known.
Dreeke believes he targeted the victims’ home (pictured in December 2023) because it was in a location that he perceived as safe. The shared residence was a ‘high traffic home’ that allowed him to hide in ‘plain sight’ and go ‘undetected’
University of Idaho students Xana Kernodle, right, and Ethan Chapin on a boat on Priest Lake, in Idaho in July 2022. Both students were among four found stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home on Nov. 13 that year
Lead prosecutor Bill Thompson laid out his key evidence Wednesday at Kohberger’s plea hearing.
The evidentiary summary spun a dramatic tale that included a DNA-laden Q-tip plucked from the garbage in the dead of the night, a getaway car stripped so clean of evidence that it was ‘essentially disassembled inside’ and a fateful early-morning Door Dash order that may have put one of the victims in Kohberger’s path.
These details offered new insights into how the crime unfolded on Nov. 13, 2022, and how investigators ultimately solved the case using surveillance footage, cell phone tracking and DNA matching.
But the synopsis leaves hanging key questions that could have been answered at trial – including a motive for the stabbings and why Kohberger picked that house, and those victims, all apparent strangers to him.
Kohberger, now 30, had begun a doctoral degree in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University – across the state line from Moscow, Idaho – months before the crimes.
‘The defendant has studied crime,’ Thompson told the court. ‘In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing when he was working on his PhD, and he had that knowledge skillset.’
Kohberger’s cell phone began connecting with cell towers in the area of the crime more than four months before the stabbings, Thompson said, and pinged on those towers 23 times between the hours of 10pm and 4am in that time period.
A compilation of surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses also placed Kohberger’s vehicle – known to investigators because of a routine traffic stop by police in August – in the area.
Bryan Kohberger was pulled over with his father (pictured together) before his arrest
Kohberger’s apartment and office were scrubbed clean when investigators searched them, and his car had been ‘pretty much disassembled internally’, prosecuting attorney Bill Thompson told the plea hearing Wednesday
Kohberger has now admitted to the world that he did murder Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin , 20, on November 13, 2022
On the night of the killings, Kohberger parked behind the house and entered through a sliding door to the kitchen at the back of the house shortly after 4am.
He then moved to the third floor, where Mogen and Goncalves were sleeping and stabbed them both the death. Kohberger left a knife sheath next to Mogen’s body.
Both victims’ blood was later found on the sheath, along with DNA from a single male that ultimately helped investigators pinpoint Kohberger as the only suspect.
On the floor below, Kernodle was still awake. As Kohberger was leaving the house, he crossed paths with her and killed her with a large knife. He then killed Chapin – Kernodle’s boyfriend, who had been sleeping in her bedroom.
Two other roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, survived unharmed.
Mortensen was expected to testify at trial that sometime before 4.19am she saw an intruder there with ‘bushy eyebrows,’ wearing black clothing and a ski mask.
Roughly five minutes later, Kohbeger’s car could be seen on a neighbor’s surveillance camera speeding away so fast ‘the car almost loses control as it makes the corner,’ Thompson said.
After Kohberger fled the scene, his cover-up was elaborate. But methodical police work ultimately caught up with him, with Kohberger now one of the world’s most notorious mass-murderers.
