Bryan Kohberger pleaded responsible Wednesday to the premeditated slaughter of 4 College of Idaho undergrads — however a slew of obtrusive free ends stay.
Prosecutors gave a step-by-step timeline of the 30-year-old killer’s actions earlier than, throughout and after the grotesque pre-dawn 2022 slaying in Moscow, Idaho, however they failed to clarify Kohberger’s attainable motive.
However the “why?” wasn’t the one burning query that has tantalized followers of the case for 2 and a half years.
The place is the knife?
Kohberger bought a KA-BAR military-style knife, sheath, and sharpener from Amazon in March 2022 — some eight months earlier than he even moved to the world, prosecutors mentioned.
Police recovered the knife sheath on the crime scene along with his DNA on it, however the homicide weapon itself was nowhere to be discovered.
Cellular phone tower information place Kohberger’s telephone close to a rural village outdoors Moscow at round 4:45 a.m., roughly a half hour after the killings, which suggests he might have ditched it in any variety of Idaho fields and pastures alongside the way in which.
Did Kohberger know any of the victims, and why did he goal them?
Kohberger didn’t break right into a random home: Cellular phone tower information positioned Kohberger within the victims’ neighborhood 23 occasions within the months earlier than the murders, and safety digital camera footage exhibits his automotive circling their block like a shark earlier than lastly transferring in for the kill.
Early studies claimed Kohberger had cyberstalked one of many victims and bombarded her with Instagram messages, however his legal professionals later insisted he had no connection to the victims in any respect.
So how did he learn about Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin?
The one trace prosecutors provided on Wednesday was suggesting Kohberger won’t have entered the home meaning to kill all 4 victims.
Whose ID did Kohberger have hidden at his dad and mom’ home?
In 2023, a police supply instructed NewsNation investigators had discovered an ID “linked to somebody from the quadruple murder” rigorously hidden at Kohberger’s dad and mom’ home.
The report prompted frenzied hypothesis that Kohberger had saved a sufferer’s ID as a memento.
That now appears unlikely: A sufferer’s ID would have been a significant piece of bodily proof and would probably have come up within the courtroom.
However the ID might have been any variety of issues: A pretend ID for a possible escape off the grid, and even simply the Amazon present card prosecutors mentioned he used to buy the knife.
One colourful concept suggests Kohberer had a Joker-style calling card to depart on the scenes of future murders.
No matter it was, we’ll probably by no means know.
Is Kohberger a psychopath?
Kohberger’s protection revealed that he had OCD and gentle autism, however they mentioned these traits has no bearing on the crimes he was accused of.
A jury trial might have concerned psychological evaluations of Kohberger and proof for what psychologists name “darkish tetrad” persona traits: Narcissism, sadism, Machiavellian manipulativeness, and, after all, psychopathy.
Why did Kohberger return to the scene of the crime?
Cellular phone tower information counsel Kohberger went again to his sufferer’s neighborhood roughly 5 hours after the bloody deed.
Was it to get well a bit of proof, maybe even the lacking knife? Or simply to admire his lethal handiwork?
He definitely appeared to be pleased with himself, as evidenced by a grinning, “thumbs up” selfie he took when he received residence.
