September 17, 2025 • 25 mins
Hundreds of newly released police files reveal chilling details about Bryan Kohberger’s life before the murders — accounts of awkward interactions, unsettling classroom behavior, and strained relationships. Behavioral experts weigh in on the patterns that emerged, what they may reveal about his mindset, and how they connect to the events that followed.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This guy was like American psycho.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I can do something even more important, something larger. I
can become a serial killer and get away with it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I have never seen from any case I've covered someone's
so completely devoid of anything internal.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
This is the Idaho Massacre. A production of KAT Studios
and iHeartRadio, Season three, Episode five, Strange Behavior. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a producer at KATS Studios, with Stephanie Leideger and Gabriel Castillo.
(00:47):
Over one hundred documents have been released by the Moscow
Police Department and another five hundred and fifty by the
Idaho State Police. Together, they don't just fill in the
blanks an even clearer and at times far more troubling
picture of this case. Crime analysts Body move In takes
(01:09):
us deep inside the files that focus specifically on Brian
Coberger's behavior, what his colleagues noticed, the patterns that emerged,
and the red flags that may have been hiding in
plain sight. Then behavioral analyst Robin Drake helps us connect
the dots, breaking down what these documents reveal about Coburger's mindset,
(01:33):
his decision making, and the strange behaviors that led up
to the murders. You'll hear Robin's theory on motive why
he thinks this seemingly promising PhD student took such a
dark turn. But first, let's start with Body move In
and Stephanie Leidecker as they guide us through some of
(01:53):
the most revealing files.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Yet, all of these findings and files are coming out publicly,
and we can't get through them fast enough.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We're eating them up as pridic as possible.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
But it shows a lot into his brain space while
getting his PhD.
Speaker 6 (02:10):
He's described by many as creepy, socially awkward, and domineering.
He frequently stared intensely at people. One woman counted nine
times during a class she saw him staring at her intensely,
like creepy, scary.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Like without a blink.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
You know, times you might just be gazing in a
direction and you happen to be looking at a person
and it's so embarrassing. You're like, I swear I'm not
overly staring. But in this case, this was a repeat pattern,
and he wouldn't really blink. He would just be so
intensely staring.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
He exhibited this macho or puffed up demeanor, and he
always wanted to dominate every conversation he had. So if you,
if you and I were talking about the new Barbie
Doll okay that we all got we love this Barbie
Doll enter Coburger, he would turn the conversation it is
something he's interested and then dominate that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (03:05):
In one report, there was a guy and he said
that Brian wasn't really his friend, but he was more
than an acquaintance, so he's kind of an in between
And he got a ride from Brian Coberger and they
ended up being in his car for hours in the
parking lot, just talking, and Brian was venting to him,
saying that I don't you know, I don't have a
lot of guys to talk to. And then he said
(03:27):
he could walk into a bar and have any woman
he wanted.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Yeah, I mean, give me a break. His guy, he
couldn't get a girl.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
Persistent complaints from women about his behavior. He made sexist
and belittally remarks. He denied man's plaining even exists. This
girl was And then the class was telling her something
about eyewitnesses get things wrong, and they were talking about
that and he basically told her she was wrong and
(03:55):
explained why she was wrong, which is fine, but apparently
he was man's plaining and the argument got so heated
that she left the classroom crying and heated and like
left everything behind.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
He told a disabled gay student he would only accept
a physically perfect partner and would she even consider procreating
because of her disability?
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Meaning because she had a disability, he thought maybe she shouldn't.
Like That's what he was implying is that you're not
perfect enough to procreate.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
Right.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
He said in some of these classes that he was
in that he believed in like traditional roles, and he
believed in like traditional marriage. You know, he was homophobic.
He made homophobic comments. He had hostility towards women. He
was dismissive of all the female professors authority. He questioned
one's ability to grade because she was too foreign. He
(04:48):
was systematically late to classes taught by women. He was
never late to the male professor classes. There was even
a male professor who started letting his class out early
so that Brian could make it to his colleague's female class,
and Brian was still late to her class.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
What was intentionally disruptive? He would leave class in the
middle of a woman speaking one of his professors and
go get coffee?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Are you kidding me? He was dismissive.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
It got it was so bad that people in classes
that were that were with Coburger started keeping a tally
how many times he was late to female professors classes
versus the male professors. It was it was apparently very
obvious that he had issues with women. Female grad students
often felt uncomfortable, harassed or trapped. He would block doorways,
(05:39):
preventing them from leaving offices, and he would like corner them,
and the word was spatially trap people in rooms and conversations,
and then when you would try to get away from him,
he would follow you and continue the conversation, sometimes following
people all the way to their car. And it got
so bad he allegedly stalked a staff member, asked her
(06:00):
out on a date, and followed her to a car.
She filed a civil rights complaint with the university about
this because he wouldn't leave her alone. A cafe worker
said that he knew her name and scheduled despite never
being told, and she suspects that he tracked her for
weeks in order to figure that out.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
In order to figure that out right, witness has been
the guy that's like sitting outside the restaurant staring through
the window from the outside, marking her shifts.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Think about that. How scary that is.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Very Witnesses reported him showing up at women's homes or
being linked to suspicious incidents. Knocks on the windows, somebody
on a porch, somebody's underwear was stolen. This one lady,
she's a student, and she was in the cohort. She
invited everybody to her apartment for like some kind of orientation,
(06:51):
including Brian Coberger. Then rumor started circulating that she's on
this drug and she has this disease and da da
dada whatever, and it comes from Brian Colberg. She finds
out while he went through her medicine cabinet when he
was in her bathroom at her house. This guy, in fact,
one of the professors said that she works with predators
and she recognizes them when she sees them, and he's
(07:11):
definitely going to be somebody that they hear about. Another
one said that he was probably going to be a
future rapist. And you know, some faculty even warned students
not to be alone with him. You know, I'm a
little taken aback by how obvious his like absolute disdain
and disrespect for women were What were they thinking after
the murders, Like did they question like, oh my god,
(07:34):
I wonder if it could be him, Like I wonder
like internally, did any of them kind of go, I
don't know, here you are.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You're getting your PhD. You're a student, you know.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
And also he has younger people underneath him like their
prey to him. At this point, this guy was like
American psycho.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
We brought in Robin Drake, a retire FBI special agent
and former head of the bureau's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program.
He's reviewed these documents detailing Brian Coberger's unsettling behavior and
shares his insight into why Coburger acted the way he did.
He's joined by our producer Alison Bankston.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
To start off, I just I'd love for you to
tell us a little bit about you. What do you
specialize in? What's your background?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, so, Naval Academy graduate, Marine Corps officer from there.
I came in the FBI in nineteen ninety seven and
I was a counterintelligence agent. My job was recruiting spies
and I did it my entire career. I got on
our behavioral team for that as a team member, and
then I became the chief of that team. I taught
at Quantico all these advanced techniques for interpersonal relationships and
(08:49):
communication basically, and what that all boils down to is
I had with the FBI before I retired, over twenty
two years of understanding why humans do what they are
going to do. Going to recruit a spy, you have
to understand the world through their optic and lens if
they're going to have a relationship with you and trust
you with their life and betray their country. So with
that skill set, when I retired in twenty eighteen, and
(09:11):
even before that, I started getting called for because everyone
sees behavior in my background because chief of the Behable
House program, they and FBI behavior they know they want
me to give my thoughts and opinions on why bad
guys do bad things. I always got to covey on everything.
Not a licensed clinical physician, clinician or anything like that.
This is pure my backgrounds from my experiences.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
So these documents, these complaints from his colleagues at WSU,
what do you glean from them? What do they say
about him?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So what we start seeing with him is exactly how
empty he is. There is nothing there. And what I
mean by that is there are behaviors that are extremely psychopathic.
And when I worked and believe or not, even in
the world of counter intelligence, you dealt with psychopaths because
if someone's committee and espionage, the espionage is not the
(10:01):
only thing going sideways in that person's life. And so
that high level of psychopathy I saw it multiple times,
both in my bureau career and obviously afterwards consulting on
these cases. And at the core of psychopathy, the highest
level psychopathy, this is pure predator with empty shell They're
really only reacting to biological impulses and genetics, that is it.
And so I have never seen from any case I've covered,
(10:23):
someone so completely devoid of anything internal. That's Coburger. Every
interaction you see with him is the reason why he
creeps people out, because when we see creepy, what it
is is we're picking up as human beings inconsistencies and
behavior inconsistencies and the words that are being setting the
motions that someone has. This I mean, we're extremely attuned
(10:43):
to our environment. As a biological organism on this planet's
evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, and so when
we feel unsafe, that's that creepy feeling, and unsafe means
there's incongruence in the environment or the individual. Coburger is
the epitome of consistently incongruent because he has no emotion
and he has no idea how to act. His ability
(11:03):
to socialize and have healthy regular conversations and knowing boundaries
with people that you don't have a stronger relationship with
obviously is again incapable of a self regulation of knowing
what's appropriate and inappropriate.
Speaker 7 (11:16):
What do you make off this treatment of women, belitterally them,
never listening to them, just being beyond disrespectful, abhorrent. What
does this say about him? And could this be a motivation?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Some people have made a lot about in him being
an in cell and things like that. I just see
him as really emotionally and sexually frustrated. I think to
hit that level of wanting to join because think about it.
In cells are kind of you know, from what I've
seen on it, it's a group, and it's a cult
(11:47):
mentality of these people that a group together. Coburg is
not a joiner. That's why I didn't really I don't
put him in the sense of his in cell because
it's kind of a group, a group mentality that kind
of helps each other you rage against, you know, girls,
and kind of feel better about who they are by
joining together and doing that. He's not a joiner, so
(12:09):
it doesn't really strike me, but frustrated with his inability
because he sucks at human interaction.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
Interesting, Yeah, definitely seems to suck at human interaction.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
No.
Speaker 7 (12:19):
I keep kind of going back to the fact that
he'd just stare at people, and he'd also physically block
them in corners, as if he was wasn't allowing that
person to leave the conversation. There is something so odd
to me about blocking someone in a corner. It's scary
and awkward and creepy and odd and uncomfortable if.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
It's a pattern. Because even in the classroom they talk
about him as a TA on the first day standing
awkwardly in front of the class, So I think part
of it is that that control aspect of it. I
think the majority of it, though, is his complete unaware
self serving himself, of having no clue about what's appropriate inappropriate.
I think he's just so stupid on his emotional intelligence
(12:57):
that he has no clue about what he's doing. I
think he's just thinks he's the most important person. Everyone
wants to listen to him because he's so smart, so
everyone must want to listen to me. So I'm just
going to stand here awkwardly. But to him, he's not
being awkward. To him, he's just being who he is,
and he's just completely oblivious to his impact on others.
He has zero ability to read a room. He has
zero ability to read other people. It is profound, is
(13:18):
what it is.
Speaker 7 (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely, you know in one of these accounts, and
it just goes along with everything you're saying. You know,
he was always acting like he was so smart, thinking
he's the smartest person in the room. And in one
of these documents it says that he was also always
bragging about knowing some high profile professor, which I have
to imagine is doctor Kapin Ramsland from the Sales University.
You know, she taught him and he looked up to her.
(13:41):
But yeah, he would brag about knowing this professor and
you know, like, oh look at me, Yeah I know her.
This is amazing, as if it was some like.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Power trip, just a name dropper. So Let's go back
to the Ramslan thing, because I think it's really relevant
because again it gives us a glimpse on his motivations
in life. So Howard Bloom, great author, did a lot
of great work. His book When Night Comes Falling was
a fantastic study, and he is numerous times said that
he thinks part of Coburger's motivation was to impress Ramslin
(14:13):
in some way. And I always take in what other
people observe when they've done a lot of deep dives
on this, and I think Howard was on to something.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Author and investigative journalist Howard Blum has floated
a compelling theory that Brian Coberger may have been driven
by a desire to impress his renowned professor at the
(14:46):
Sales University. His professor was doctor Catherine Ramsland. She's a
criminologist well known for her connections to serial killer studies.
Here's Howard Blum.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Brian Koberger was a student of criminal justice. Part of
his research was studying serial killers. But has his professor,
his advisor, Katherine Ramslin, a great authority and forensic psychology
author of seventy nine books rights. You know, fantasy and
killers makes them want to experience the real thing and maybe,
(15:23):
just maybe again this is just speculative. He wanted to
try to see if he could pull off the perfect crime.
Maybe he wanted to try to impress his criminal justice
professor who was his advisor, Katherine Ramslin, that I can
do even better than you. You go into prisons and
speak face to face with serial killers. I can do
something even more important, something larger. I can become a
(15:47):
serial killer and get away with it.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Here's behavioral analyst Robin Draeke sharing why he thinks this
theory holds weight.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Why did he get into criminology, why did he get
into this?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And so with all of us.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
As human beings, we do things, and we're exposed to
things and behaviors in our early formative years of life
roughly between ages nine to twenty four, as the prefund
the lobes fully forming. That allows us to feel safe
and valued by others because we're genetically in biologic coded
to gravitate towards things that make us feel safe and valued.
You know, we see it all the time with people
in our own lives, whether it's in the university or
(16:25):
in jobs. We tend to say someone is really good
at something if they tend to spend a lot of
time doing it. It's the only thing they focus on.
He sucked at everything else in life, and so he
goes off and studies under Ramsland, who then validates him, says, wow,
he's so intelligent. Ramsland gave him validation. I mean, she's
an expert. The only thing that motivates a psychopath is
(16:48):
notoriety and grandiosity, and so he sees that, you know,
I might be become notable to someone who I admire.
So I don't think it was going to be a
personal thing. I think part of his motivation was to
be someone that she studied, that he would do something
that like. She was very impressed necessarily not like admiration wise,
(17:09):
but very impressed with the level and skills of Bundy,
BTK and Dahmer and all these people, and so he
wanted to be that notorious to hers.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
Wow. Yeah, the logic lines up there. I mean, obviously
doctor Ramslan didn't intend this exactly, but it's such an
interesting way to look at this all because you know,
we all like to be good at things. And when
we are good at things, it's like a dopamine effect.
And for once, he seems to have found a little niche,
which is being great at criminology. He's found the one
thing that someone says, hey, you know, you're great at this.
(17:40):
Good for you. Yeah, I can absolutely see what you're saying,
you know. And another thing too that is interesting that
we learned from these documents that he was googling Ted
Bundy a lot before and after the murders. Do you
think that he could have been motivated to become next him?
You know? And in fact, in one of these WSU documents,
a student says that they were compared in the University
of Idaho murders to the child mega house murders at
(18:03):
Florida State University, which which obviously Bundy was responsible for.
And Coberger must have loved that. What do you think
about this Bundy inspiration theory?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Everything he's done and everything he did was complete copycat
of someone else. Definitely, I think part of his emo
is trying to be someone in that same realm as them.
For that grandiosity thing. I still think a lot of
what he was doing was studying on what he should
do next, and how he should behave and how to
get away with things better. He's trying to find the
(18:33):
best to emulate that got away with things for a
longer period of time. So let's try to be more
like that. And so let's put ourselves in the PhD
candidate shoes of I'm going to try to be the
best at doing this. And since I have no original
thought on my own anyway, let's study as many people
take the best elements of this person. Best elements. This
best element is this, and if I put it all together,
(18:55):
because I'm so smart, I can get away with it
because I'm taking all these things and putting gether into
one person. So again, no innovation, no original thought. I'm
just going to keep copying all these people. I don't
think he has an original thought ever, yoh.
Speaker 7 (19:07):
One hundred percent. If you could kind of compare some
of his behavior to some other top serial killers, like
compare him to you know, what does he have in
common with BTK, what does he have in common with Bundy?
We'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I'm actually going to do the reverse in some cases,
when you're trying to say all the similarity to someone
because there's I think there's a lot of similarities between
what he was trying to do compared you know, with BTK, Dahmer, Bundy.
There's so many comparisons that they become I think overwhelming.
What I think it's easier to do is say where
(19:43):
isn't he similar and where he failed and where he
continues to fail is where they were successful, and that
is most of them were very very good at masking
who they were. At their core, they're very good. They're
they're eq Their emotional intelligence was much higher than and
his and so I think he's very similar in what
he tried to do compared to all the other people.
(20:05):
The difference is is that they were being who they were.
They were naturally able to problem solve and innovate. They
weren't copying anyone. They were just being these horrendous serial killers,
and they were naturally figuring out how to do this
really effectively, using their natural charisma, use their natural interpersonal skills,
and do those things to get away with it for
a longer period of time. Coburger had zero of that ability,
(20:28):
and so he's trying to copy people that he's incapable
of copying. He can copy mechanics, but he can't copy empathy.
He can't copy socialization. He's completely incapable of it. So
I think he's very similar in the mechanics of what
all of them were doing, but horrendous and completely incapable
of copying any socialization.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
That's such a good point because yeah, if you think
of Ted Bundy, you know everyone liked him, like he's
still handsome, he's so smooth with women. BTK was a
leader at the church.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Oh my god, I think BTK is the best at it.
So Dennis Raider Btke the bondis Tarcher kill killer. He's
very famous serial killer. What he would do is was
he killed for his sexual fanization as a serial killer,
but he would go for long periods of time in
between his kills. He was able to satiate that by
other stimulation to keep it subdued in that bay. And
(21:20):
the way he hid in plain sight was he had
a family. He is a member of the church, he
was a president of this organization. He had a daughter.
All these people and all people in his regular life
are completely unaware because he was such a good guy
to them. But then he knew that he was going
to have a period of time where I got to
let this monster out, and he let that monster out.
But he's able to because of his socialization, able to
(21:42):
do it very much like when you see these serial
killers that are able to stay hidden for such a
long period of time. It's because that socialization is so
so pronounced, really very good. Because again Coburger stands out
to everyone all the time. His entire life of being
awkward and not so his chance of becoming a serial killer,
even if you wanted to be, he was so low
(22:02):
because he couldn't hide.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
Yes, I think too back of this story for his
high school days where he worked so hard to lose
the weight because he's like, you know, if I lose weight,
maybe people will finally like me. You know. The only
reason I'm getting bullied is not because I'm an insufferable person.
It's because I'm large, you know, So if I lose weight,
people will help me. So he works and works and works,
and he loses over one hundred pounds and still no
(22:24):
one likes him. You know, he tries and tries to
be like these famous serial killers and he fails. How
frustrating must that be, you know, to maybe that's why
he's so violent, is you know, he's like, oh, if
I do this, if I do that, then then people
will like me, then I'll be noticed. But he just
can't seem to ever land.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Isn't that the greatest torture he's going through right now?
That I'm the only thing I think that gives the
families any piece is the fact that he is tortured
every day by his failure. That is just it's just
magnificent looking at his failure. He failed at everything he
tried to do in life and good and he's reminded
of it every single day.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Absolutely sitting in his prison cell and just being faced
with these thoughts of extreme failure. That has to be
the greatest torture, especially for someone who seems to be
as narcissistic as him. One last thing here from these documents,
I thought this was interesting too. In one of these documents,
there's an interview with some of his fellow teaching assistants
and it says that he was the only one in
(23:21):
the class. This person is saying this, he's the only
one in the class who supported the death penalty, which
you know now is pretty ironic considering he planned guilty
and is living the rest of his life in prison.
What do you make of this behavior?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
My theory, again, it's not because he had that thought,
is because he read that people that are innocent will
say things like that. You interview someone that has done
something heinous, and one of the things that a couple
do during that interview is says, so, what do you
think that should happen to someone that did that? And
typically a guilty person will say, well, you know, you know,
(23:56):
they should be given a second chance, you know, and
they'll come up with all these equivocations on what should
happen other than the maximum sentence to someone. So I
think he've read somewhere that's what he should say.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. It turns out that Brian Coberer's past support
for the death penalty was the ultimate irony, because in
the end, he pled guilty to avoid Idaho's firing squad
(24:32):
and spare his own life. Now, instead of facing execution,
he spends his days confined to a small sterile cell
at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. It's a place he'll
call home for the rest of his life. His daily
reality twenty three hours a day in lockdown with a
(24:54):
single hour outside those four walls. So what does life
I really looked like for an inmate in Idaho's most
secure prison? What kind of existence awaits Brian Kobeger behind
those bars? Next time we'll get into it with bail
bondsman Kevin Corson. He has the inside scoop on exactly
(25:15):
how the Idaho Maximum Security Institution operates. More on that
next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos,
follow us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho
Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leideker, Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo,
(25:38):
and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Toois.
Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masacre is a production
of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
This guy was like American psycho.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I can do something even more important, something larger. I
can become a serial killer and get away with it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I have never seen from any case I've covered someone's
so completely devoid of anything internal.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
This is the Idaho Massacre. A production of KAT Studios
and iHeartRadio, Season three, Episode five, Strange Behavior. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
a producer at KATS Studios, with Stephanie Leideger and Gabriel Castillo.
(00:47):
Over one hundred documents have been released by the Moscow
Police Department and another five hundred and fifty by the
Idaho State Police. Together, they don't just fill in the
blanks an even clearer and at times far more troubling
picture of this case. Crime analysts Body move In takes
(01:09):
us deep inside the files that focus specifically on Brian
Coberger's behavior, what his colleagues noticed, the patterns that emerged,
and the red flags that may have been hiding in
plain sight. Then behavioral analyst Robin Drake helps us connect
the dots, breaking down what these documents reveal about Coburger's mindset,
(01:33):
his decision making, and the strange behaviors that led up
to the murders. You'll hear Robin's theory on motive why
he thinks this seemingly promising PhD student took such a
dark turn. But first, let's start with Body move In
and Stephanie Leidecker as they guide us through some of
(01:53):
the most revealing files.
Speaker 5 (01:54):
Yet, all of these findings and files are coming out publicly,
and we can't get through them fast enough.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
We're eating them up as pridic as possible.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
But it shows a lot into his brain space while
getting his PhD.
Speaker 6 (02:10):
He's described by many as creepy, socially awkward, and domineering.
He frequently stared intensely at people. One woman counted nine
times during a class she saw him staring at her intensely,
like creepy, scary.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Like without a blink.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
You know, times you might just be gazing in a
direction and you happen to be looking at a person
and it's so embarrassing. You're like, I swear I'm not
overly staring. But in this case, this was a repeat pattern,
and he wouldn't really blink. He would just be so
intensely staring.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
He exhibited this macho or puffed up demeanor, and he
always wanted to dominate every conversation he had. So if you,
if you and I were talking about the new Barbie
Doll okay that we all got we love this Barbie
Doll enter Coburger, he would turn the conversation it is
something he's interested and then dominate that conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (03:05):
In one report, there was a guy and he said
that Brian wasn't really his friend, but he was more
than an acquaintance, so he's kind of an in between
And he got a ride from Brian Coberger and they
ended up being in his car for hours in the
parking lot, just talking, and Brian was venting to him,
saying that I don't you know, I don't have a
lot of guys to talk to. And then he said
(03:27):
he could walk into a bar and have any woman
he wanted.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Yeah, I mean, give me a break. His guy, he
couldn't get a girl.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
Persistent complaints from women about his behavior. He made sexist
and belittally remarks. He denied man's plaining even exists. This
girl was And then the class was telling her something
about eyewitnesses get things wrong, and they were talking about
that and he basically told her she was wrong and
(03:55):
explained why she was wrong, which is fine, but apparently
he was man's plaining and the argument got so heated
that she left the classroom crying and heated and like
left everything behind.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (04:07):
He told a disabled gay student he would only accept
a physically perfect partner and would she even consider procreating
because of her disability?
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Meaning because she had a disability, he thought maybe she shouldn't.
Like That's what he was implying is that you're not
perfect enough to procreate.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
Right.
Speaker 6 (04:27):
He said in some of these classes that he was
in that he believed in like traditional roles, and he
believed in like traditional marriage. You know, he was homophobic.
He made homophobic comments. He had hostility towards women. He
was dismissive of all the female professors authority. He questioned
one's ability to grade because she was too foreign. He
(04:48):
was systematically late to classes taught by women. He was
never late to the male professor classes. There was even
a male professor who started letting his class out early
so that Brian could make it to his colleague's female class,
and Brian was still late to her class.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (05:05):
What was intentionally disruptive? He would leave class in the
middle of a woman speaking one of his professors and
go get coffee?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Are you kidding me? He was dismissive.
Speaker 6 (05:16):
It got it was so bad that people in classes
that were that were with Coburger started keeping a tally
how many times he was late to female professors classes
versus the male professors. It was it was apparently very
obvious that he had issues with women. Female grad students
often felt uncomfortable, harassed or trapped. He would block doorways,
(05:39):
preventing them from leaving offices, and he would like corner them,
and the word was spatially trap people in rooms and conversations,
and then when you would try to get away from him,
he would follow you and continue the conversation, sometimes following
people all the way to their car. And it got
so bad he allegedly stalked a staff member, asked her
(06:00):
out on a date, and followed her to a car.
She filed a civil rights complaint with the university about
this because he wouldn't leave her alone. A cafe worker
said that he knew her name and scheduled despite never
being told, and she suspects that he tracked her for
weeks in order to figure that out.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
In order to figure that out right, witness has been
the guy that's like sitting outside the restaurant staring through
the window from the outside, marking her shifts.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Think about that. How scary that is.
Speaker 6 (06:30):
Very Witnesses reported him showing up at women's homes or
being linked to suspicious incidents. Knocks on the windows, somebody
on a porch, somebody's underwear was stolen. This one lady,
she's a student, and she was in the cohort. She
invited everybody to her apartment for like some kind of orientation,
(06:51):
including Brian Coberger. Then rumor started circulating that she's on
this drug and she has this disease and da da
dada whatever, and it comes from Brian Colberg. She finds
out while he went through her medicine cabinet when he
was in her bathroom at her house. This guy, in fact,
one of the professors said that she works with predators
and she recognizes them when she sees them, and he's
(07:11):
definitely going to be somebody that they hear about. Another
one said that he was probably going to be a
future rapist. And you know, some faculty even warned students
not to be alone with him. You know, I'm a
little taken aback by how obvious his like absolute disdain
and disrespect for women were What were they thinking after
the murders, Like did they question like, oh my god,
(07:34):
I wonder if it could be him, Like I wonder
like internally, did any of them kind of go, I
don't know, here you are.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
You're getting your PhD. You're a student, you know.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
And also he has younger people underneath him like their
prey to him. At this point, this guy was like
American psycho.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
We brought in Robin Drake, a retire FBI special agent
and former head of the bureau's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program.
He's reviewed these documents detailing Brian Coberger's unsettling behavior and
shares his insight into why Coburger acted the way he did.
He's joined by our producer Alison Bankston.
Speaker 7 (08:20):
To start off, I just I'd love for you to
tell us a little bit about you. What do you
specialize in? What's your background?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Yeah, so, Naval Academy graduate, Marine Corps officer from there.
I came in the FBI in nineteen ninety seven and
I was a counterintelligence agent. My job was recruiting spies
and I did it my entire career. I got on
our behavioral team for that as a team member, and
then I became the chief of that team. I taught
at Quantico all these advanced techniques for interpersonal relationships and
(08:49):
communication basically, and what that all boils down to is
I had with the FBI before I retired, over twenty
two years of understanding why humans do what they are
going to do. Going to recruit a spy, you have
to understand the world through their optic and lens if
they're going to have a relationship with you and trust
you with their life and betray their country. So with
that skill set, when I retired in twenty eighteen, and
(09:11):
even before that, I started getting called for because everyone
sees behavior in my background because chief of the Behable
House program, they and FBI behavior they know they want
me to give my thoughts and opinions on why bad
guys do bad things. I always got to covey on everything.
Not a licensed clinical physician, clinician or anything like that.
This is pure my backgrounds from my experiences.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
So these documents, these complaints from his colleagues at WSU,
what do you glean from them? What do they say
about him?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So what we start seeing with him is exactly how
empty he is. There is nothing there. And what I
mean by that is there are behaviors that are extremely psychopathic.
And when I worked and believe or not, even in
the world of counter intelligence, you dealt with psychopaths because
if someone's committee and espionage, the espionage is not the
(10:01):
only thing going sideways in that person's life. And so
that high level of psychopathy I saw it multiple times,
both in my bureau career and obviously afterwards consulting on
these cases. And at the core of psychopathy, the highest
level psychopathy, this is pure predator with empty shell They're
really only reacting to biological impulses and genetics, that is it.
And so I have never seen from any case I've covered,
(10:23):
someone so completely devoid of anything internal. That's Coburger. Every
interaction you see with him is the reason why he
creeps people out, because when we see creepy, what it
is is we're picking up as human beings inconsistencies and
behavior inconsistencies and the words that are being setting the
motions that someone has. This I mean, we're extremely attuned
(10:43):
to our environment. As a biological organism on this planet's
evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, and so when
we feel unsafe, that's that creepy feeling, and unsafe means
there's incongruence in the environment or the individual. Coburger is
the epitome of consistently incongruent because he has no emotion
and he has no idea how to act. His ability
(11:03):
to socialize and have healthy regular conversations and knowing boundaries
with people that you don't have a stronger relationship with
obviously is again incapable of a self regulation of knowing
what's appropriate and inappropriate.
Speaker 7 (11:16):
What do you make off this treatment of women, belitterally them,
never listening to them, just being beyond disrespectful, abhorrent. What
does this say about him? And could this be a motivation?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Some people have made a lot about in him being
an in cell and things like that. I just see
him as really emotionally and sexually frustrated. I think to
hit that level of wanting to join because think about it.
In cells are kind of you know, from what I've
seen on it, it's a group, and it's a cult
(11:47):
mentality of these people that a group together. Coburg is
not a joiner. That's why I didn't really I don't
put him in the sense of his in cell because
it's kind of a group, a group mentality that kind
of helps each other you rage against, you know, girls,
and kind of feel better about who they are by
joining together and doing that. He's not a joiner, so
(12:09):
it doesn't really strike me, but frustrated with his inability
because he sucks at human interaction.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
Interesting, Yeah, definitely seems to suck at human interaction.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
No.
Speaker 7 (12:19):
I keep kind of going back to the fact that
he'd just stare at people, and he'd also physically block
them in corners, as if he was wasn't allowing that
person to leave the conversation. There is something so odd
to me about blocking someone in a corner. It's scary
and awkward and creepy and odd and uncomfortable if.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
It's a pattern. Because even in the classroom they talk
about him as a TA on the first day standing
awkwardly in front of the class, So I think part
of it is that that control aspect of it. I
think the majority of it, though, is his complete unaware
self serving himself, of having no clue about what's appropriate inappropriate.
I think he's just so stupid on his emotional intelligence
(12:57):
that he has no clue about what he's doing. I
think he's just thinks he's the most important person. Everyone
wants to listen to him because he's so smart, so
everyone must want to listen to me. So I'm just
going to stand here awkwardly. But to him, he's not
being awkward. To him, he's just being who he is,
and he's just completely oblivious to his impact on others.
He has zero ability to read a room. He has
zero ability to read other people. It is profound, is
(13:18):
what it is.
Speaker 7 (13:19):
Yeah, absolutely, you know in one of these accounts, and
it just goes along with everything you're saying. You know,
he was always acting like he was so smart, thinking
he's the smartest person in the room. And in one
of these documents it says that he was also always
bragging about knowing some high profile professor, which I have
to imagine is doctor Kapin Ramsland from the Sales University.
You know, she taught him and he looked up to her.
(13:41):
But yeah, he would brag about knowing this professor and
you know, like, oh look at me, Yeah I know her.
This is amazing, as if it was some like.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Power trip, just a name dropper. So Let's go back
to the Ramslan thing, because I think it's really relevant
because again it gives us a glimpse on his motivations
in life. So Howard Bloom, great author, did a lot
of great work. His book When Night Comes Falling was
a fantastic study, and he is numerous times said that
he thinks part of Coburger's motivation was to impress Ramslin
(14:13):
in some way. And I always take in what other
people observe when they've done a lot of deep dives
on this, and I think Howard was on to something.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Author and investigative journalist Howard Blum has floated
a compelling theory that Brian Coberger may have been driven
by a desire to impress his renowned professor at the
(14:46):
Sales University. His professor was doctor Catherine Ramsland. She's a
criminologist well known for her connections to serial killer studies.
Here's Howard Blum.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Brian Koberger was a student of criminal justice. Part of
his research was studying serial killers. But has his professor,
his advisor, Katherine Ramslin, a great authority and forensic psychology
author of seventy nine books rights. You know, fantasy and
killers makes them want to experience the real thing and maybe,
(15:23):
just maybe again this is just speculative. He wanted to
try to see if he could pull off the perfect crime.
Maybe he wanted to try to impress his criminal justice
professor who was his advisor, Katherine Ramslin, that I can
do even better than you. You go into prisons and
speak face to face with serial killers. I can do
something even more important, something larger. I can become a
(15:47):
serial killer and get away with it.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Here's behavioral analyst Robin Draeke sharing why he thinks this
theory holds weight.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Why did he get into criminology, why did he get
into this?
Speaker 1 (16:03):
And so with all of us.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
As human beings, we do things, and we're exposed to
things and behaviors in our early formative years of life
roughly between ages nine to twenty four, as the prefund
the lobes fully forming. That allows us to feel safe
and valued by others because we're genetically in biologic coded
to gravitate towards things that make us feel safe and valued.
You know, we see it all the time with people
in our own lives, whether it's in the university or
(16:25):
in jobs. We tend to say someone is really good
at something if they tend to spend a lot of
time doing it. It's the only thing they focus on.
He sucked at everything else in life, and so he
goes off and studies under Ramsland, who then validates him, says, wow,
he's so intelligent. Ramsland gave him validation. I mean, she's
an expert. The only thing that motivates a psychopath is
(16:48):
notoriety and grandiosity, and so he sees that, you know,
I might be become notable to someone who I admire.
So I don't think it was going to be a
personal thing. I think part of his motivation was to
be someone that she studied, that he would do something
that like. She was very impressed necessarily not like admiration wise,
(17:09):
but very impressed with the level and skills of Bundy,
BTK and Dahmer and all these people, and so he
wanted to be that notorious to hers.
Speaker 7 (17:19):
Wow. Yeah, the logic lines up there. I mean, obviously
doctor Ramslan didn't intend this exactly, but it's such an
interesting way to look at this all because you know,
we all like to be good at things. And when
we are good at things, it's like a dopamine effect.
And for once, he seems to have found a little niche,
which is being great at criminology. He's found the one
thing that someone says, hey, you know, you're great at this.
(17:40):
Good for you. Yeah, I can absolutely see what you're saying,
you know. And another thing too that is interesting that
we learned from these documents that he was googling Ted
Bundy a lot before and after the murders. Do you
think that he could have been motivated to become next him?
You know? And in fact, in one of these WSU documents,
a student says that they were compared in the University
of Idaho murders to the child mega house murders at
(18:03):
Florida State University, which which obviously Bundy was responsible for.
And Coberger must have loved that. What do you think
about this Bundy inspiration theory?
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Everything he's done and everything he did was complete copycat
of someone else. Definitely, I think part of his emo
is trying to be someone in that same realm as them.
For that grandiosity thing. I still think a lot of
what he was doing was studying on what he should
do next, and how he should behave and how to
get away with things better. He's trying to find the
(18:33):
best to emulate that got away with things for a
longer period of time. So let's try to be more
like that. And so let's put ourselves in the PhD
candidate shoes of I'm going to try to be the
best at doing this. And since I have no original
thought on my own anyway, let's study as many people
take the best elements of this person. Best elements. This
best element is this, and if I put it all together,
(18:55):
because I'm so smart, I can get away with it
because I'm taking all these things and putting gether into
one person. So again, no innovation, no original thought. I'm
just going to keep copying all these people. I don't
think he has an original thought ever, yoh.
Speaker 7 (19:07):
One hundred percent. If you could kind of compare some
of his behavior to some other top serial killers, like
compare him to you know, what does he have in
common with BTK, what does he have in common with Bundy?
We'd be very curious to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
I'm actually going to do the reverse in some cases,
when you're trying to say all the similarity to someone
because there's I think there's a lot of similarities between
what he was trying to do compared you know, with BTK, Dahmer, Bundy.
There's so many comparisons that they become I think overwhelming.
What I think it's easier to do is say where
(19:43):
isn't he similar and where he failed and where he
continues to fail is where they were successful, and that
is most of them were very very good at masking
who they were. At their core, they're very good. They're
they're eq Their emotional intelligence was much higher than and
his and so I think he's very similar in what
he tried to do compared to all the other people.
(20:05):
The difference is is that they were being who they were.
They were naturally able to problem solve and innovate. They
weren't copying anyone. They were just being these horrendous serial killers,
and they were naturally figuring out how to do this
really effectively, using their natural charisma, use their natural interpersonal skills,
and do those things to get away with it for
a longer period of time. Coburger had zero of that ability,
(20:28):
and so he's trying to copy people that he's incapable
of copying. He can copy mechanics, but he can't copy empathy.
He can't copy socialization. He's completely incapable of it. So
I think he's very similar in the mechanics of what
all of them were doing, but horrendous and completely incapable
of copying any socialization.
Speaker 7 (20:48):
That's such a good point because yeah, if you think
of Ted Bundy, you know everyone liked him, like he's
still handsome, he's so smooth with women. BTK was a
leader at the church.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Oh my god, I think BTK is the best at it.
So Dennis Raider Btke the bondis Tarcher kill killer. He's
very famous serial killer. What he would do is was
he killed for his sexual fanization as a serial killer,
but he would go for long periods of time in
between his kills. He was able to satiate that by
other stimulation to keep it subdued in that bay. And
(21:20):
the way he hid in plain sight was he had
a family. He is a member of the church, he
was a president of this organization. He had a daughter.
All these people and all people in his regular life
are completely unaware because he was such a good guy
to them. But then he knew that he was going
to have a period of time where I got to
let this monster out, and he let that monster out.
But he's able to because of his socialization, able to
(21:42):
do it very much like when you see these serial
killers that are able to stay hidden for such a
long period of time. It's because that socialization is so
so pronounced, really very good. Because again Coburger stands out
to everyone all the time. His entire life of being
awkward and not so his chance of becoming a serial killer,
even if you wanted to be, he was so low
(22:02):
because he couldn't hide.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
Yes, I think too back of this story for his
high school days where he worked so hard to lose
the weight because he's like, you know, if I lose weight,
maybe people will finally like me. You know. The only
reason I'm getting bullied is not because I'm an insufferable person.
It's because I'm large, you know, So if I lose weight,
people will help me. So he works and works and works,
and he loses over one hundred pounds and still no
(22:24):
one likes him. You know, he tries and tries to
be like these famous serial killers and he fails. How
frustrating must that be, you know, to maybe that's why
he's so violent, is you know, he's like, oh, if
I do this, if I do that, then then people
will like me, then I'll be noticed. But he just
can't seem to ever land.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Isn't that the greatest torture he's going through right now?
That I'm the only thing I think that gives the
families any piece is the fact that he is tortured
every day by his failure. That is just it's just
magnificent looking at his failure. He failed at everything he
tried to do in life and good and he's reminded
of it every single day.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Absolutely sitting in his prison cell and just being faced
with these thoughts of extreme failure. That has to be
the greatest torture, especially for someone who seems to be
as narcissistic as him. One last thing here from these documents,
I thought this was interesting too. In one of these documents,
there's an interview with some of his fellow teaching assistants
and it says that he was the only one in
(23:21):
the class. This person is saying this, he's the only
one in the class who supported the death penalty, which
you know now is pretty ironic considering he planned guilty
and is living the rest of his life in prison.
What do you make of this behavior?
Speaker 3 (23:36):
My theory, again, it's not because he had that thought,
is because he read that people that are innocent will
say things like that. You interview someone that has done
something heinous, and one of the things that a couple
do during that interview is says, so, what do you
think that should happen to someone that did that? And
typically a guilty person will say, well, you know, you know,
(23:56):
they should be given a second chance, you know, and
they'll come up with all these equivocations on what should
happen other than the maximum sentence to someone. So I
think he've read somewhere that's what he should say.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. It turns out that Brian Coberer's past support
for the death penalty was the ultimate irony, because in
the end, he pled guilty to avoid Idaho's firing squad
(24:32):
and spare his own life. Now, instead of facing execution,
he spends his days confined to a small sterile cell
at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. It's a place he'll
call home for the rest of his life. His daily
reality twenty three hours a day in lockdown with a
(24:54):
single hour outside those four walls. So what does life
I really looked like for an inmate in Idaho's most
secure prison? What kind of existence awaits Brian Kobeger behind
those bars? Next time we'll get into it with bail
bondsman Kevin Corson. He has the inside scoop on exactly
(25:15):
how the Idaho Maximum Security Institution operates. More on that
next time. For more information on the case and relevant photos,
follow us on Instagram at kat Underscore Studios. The Idaho
Massacre is produced by Stephanie Leideker, Alison Bankston, Gabriel Castillo,
(25:38):
and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Toois.
Music by Jared Aston. The Idaho Masacre is a production
of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Stephanie Lydecker
Courtney Armstrong
Jeff Shane
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