June 20, 2025 • 46 mins
Where is the knife that killed four University of Idaho students? Did Brian Kohberger toss it out the window in a panic — or bury it deep in the woods?
Join private investigator Jason Jensen as we launch a targeted search for the missing murder weapon on June 21-22, 2025.
Discover how the knife sheath became the critical DNA link to Kohberger's arrest — and why forensic psychologists are called to evaluate suspects in custody for murder. We also examine killers who couldn’t resist leaving clues behind — from BTK’s Dennis Rader to Ted Bundy’s trail of discarded weapons — and explore why some murderers toy with law enforcement while others vanish without a trace.
Plus, we pull in twists from the Karen Read case and reflect on the tragic mystery surrounding Kurt Cobain.
Hooked on the criminal mind? Visit www.killerpsychologistpodcast.com for episode details.
Need a forensic psychologist for your next killer case? Book Dr. Anderson at www.psychologydr.com
Chapters
00:00 The Idaho Murders: A Gruesome Crime
00:58 The Search for the Missing Knife
07:48 Understanding Kohberger's Mindset
15:29 The Autism Diagnosis and Its Implications
25:22 The Karen Read Case: Analyzing Evidence
41:05 Future Investigations: The Kurt Cobain Case
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/killer-psychologist--6020549/support.
Join private investigator Jason Jensen as we launch a targeted search for the missing murder weapon on June 21-22, 2025.
Discover how the knife sheath became the critical DNA link to Kohberger's arrest — and why forensic psychologists are called to evaluate suspects in custody for murder. We also examine killers who couldn’t resist leaving clues behind — from BTK’s Dennis Rader to Ted Bundy’s trail of discarded weapons — and explore why some murderers toy with law enforcement while others vanish without a trace.
Plus, we pull in twists from the Karen Read case and reflect on the tragic mystery surrounding Kurt Cobain.
Hooked on the criminal mind? Visit www.killerpsychologistpodcast.com for episode details.
Need a forensic psychologist for your next killer case? Book Dr. Anderson at www.psychologydr.com
Chapters
00:00 The Idaho Murders: A Gruesome Crime
00:58 The Search for the Missing Knife
07:48 Understanding Kohberger's Mindset
15:29 The Autism Diagnosis and Its Implications
25:22 The Karen Read Case: Analyzing Evidence
41:05 Future Investigations: The Kurt Cobain Case
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/killer-psychologist--6020549/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Killer Psychologist. I'm Dana Anderson, a forensic psychologist
and your host of the show. Killer Psychologist is for
true crime fanatics and anyone intrigued.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
With the dark side of psychology. On November thirteenth, twenty
twenty two, four University of idahost students Kaylee Congalvus, Madison Mogan,
Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapman were brutally murdered in their
off campus home in Moscow, Idaho. Investigators found a crucial
(00:41):
piece of evidence, the knife sheath left near one of
the victims, with DNA linking it to suspect Brian Kolberger.
But the weapon itself, the knife, it's still missing. So
today we're asking where is the knife? Did he throw
(01:08):
it out the window in a moment of panic? And why?
Does this sound like another infamous case Ted Bundy, who
also ditched a weapon during a police pursuit. So joining
me is private investigator Jason Jensen, who is launching a
real world search to find what law enforcement hasn't the
(01:31):
missing murder weapon.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Welcome Jason, good to see you guys. I appreciate you
having me on. Yeah, this is a very interesting case.
We all three have history. This is how we met
is under the discussion of Brian Cooberger for a TV
program we filmed a couple years ago. Amazingly enough, the
case as it resolved is still penning for trial, I
believe in August. And what they don't seem to have
(01:57):
is the murder weapon, although they know the cause of
death is by a knife attack. You know they're slashing
and stabbings involved. So as you pointed out, Dana, the
knife sheath was left behind in the bed of Madison Mogan.
So we really want to find the knife. I don't
(02:17):
know if it's gonna improve the trial process, but it
certainly can't hurt. It's my understanding. They understand what kind
of knike it was. We've always understood because of the
type of knife sheath left behind. It was stamped USMC
and it's a keep our knife, so we know what
it looks like. We know you know what type of
sheet it would go into. So it's a matter of
(02:40):
just finding it. And if it's left in the wilderness,
it's not gonna have fingerprints, it's not gonna have DNA
because all that likely washed away. It's just good for optics.
And it's probably safe safer to get it off the
streets or out of the hillside or wherever we lay
since there is a order, and certainly after the police
(03:02):
got in trouble with the recent Dateline TV show, there's
not going to be any divulging of information. Nothing has
been publicly shared about them actually doing a search for
the knife, although I can't imagine they wouldn't try to
what extent I don't know, But as we know from
(03:24):
the data points identified from his phone, we know that
he traveled south out of Moscow on Highway ninety five.
South of Moscow. In between, as you're taken a long
way to Pullman, it intersects with Highway one ninety five
and then goes north. So that seems to be the
(03:47):
travel route that everybody has been aware of. So what
we believe likely is the place to go look would
be along the roadside either side going from Moscow going
south on ninety five and up one ninety five to Pullman.
So the reason why I feel that that's significant is
(04:10):
he's a criminologist major and he was darting his doctorate
program in psychology. Given the fact that he has the
same type of education that I have because I have
a master's in criminal justice as well studying crime, studying
criminal behaviors, serial killers and the like. You look for patterns.
(04:30):
You look for old cases to reveal what may cause
future crime for prevention sake, or reveal behavior to identify
key components to solve an unsolved case. So, given the
fact that we do know that he's studied Dennis Raeger,
(04:52):
you know BTK, I would imagine that he also studied
Ted Bundy, and we know from the Google searches that
he even looked up Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy being a
prolific serial killer from the seventies as good as he was,
ultimately he got caught and one of the things that
(05:12):
he was caught with was a burglary kit, duct tape, handcuffs, gloves,
a rope, and his seat was missing from his beetle.
So that was when he got pulled over that day
in Utah. In fact, in West Valley City where I
currently live. They knew that they had somebody planning to
(05:36):
do something. Later on, during his interviews, Ted Bundy confessed
that after these crimes, he would start throwing stuff out
of his car out of panic. You know, if he's
caught with it if someone had seen, for instance, I'll
give you an example of someone had seeing that the
missing person was with somebody that had a briefcase or
(05:59):
had a cast on, and they pull him over and
he's got a briefcase or a cast in his vehicle.
That instantly makes him a suspect. So certainly, in his panic,
Ted Bundy said that he would throw these items out
of the car. So after he buried a body, there
goes the shovel, there goes the tire iron that used
(06:19):
to knock her out, There goes the handcuffs and whatever.
So those things would be found later on littering the
side of the rose, but people probably didn't know how
they connected or even that they connected to a crime.
And I'm not personally aware that they ever recovered and
identified any of those things relating to Ted Bundy, because
(06:42):
when he would dish these victims, they were miles and
miles away, so, you know, like hundreds of miles for
his victims here in Utah. Had Brian Koberger had that
same mindset, that panic set in. I got to get
rid of these things is that you know I have
in my possession, whether it be his black mask, whether
(07:06):
it be his black attire that he was seen leaving
the home in, or if it's the knife, even he
threw them out of the vehicle. And so that's what
we're hoping to find out. And I would believe that
would be something that he would panic and throw out
right away. And so then you've got to ask yourself
what makes you think he was in a panic. Well,
(07:29):
we know from surveillance footage of the doorbell camera his
car was seen speeding away. You know that is somebody
characteristic that felt like he's caught or going to be caught,
so he needs to make a quick getaway. That wasn't
his drive and behavior. As he was proceeding to the
(07:50):
residence on eleven twenty two King Road. On his way there,
he was seeing a few times looks like he was
either casing the place or even just finding placed apart.
But it didn't look like he was driving in a hurry.
But as he's seen driving away from the home, it's
at a high rate of speed. And so if he's
(08:11):
panicked because he just got caught trying to rape Maddie
and it went completely wrong, I believe it was an
organized trying that quickly went disorganized when he did not
anticipate Kaylee in the broom with Maddie when he entered
the room. So the fight's on. He has to fight
his way out of the room. Two girls innostantly find
(08:33):
themselves dead. He's now escaping down the stairwell and gets
into another encounter with Ethan Chapin that sees him and
has to get through him. And then all of a sudden,
we know that Xenna was her over her crying after that,
and he tries to console her, saying, don't worry. If
(08:53):
get help, then you know she's you know, on her
path to dying. So I believe we'll find his knife
along that route, as long as you know it's not
overlook or if overgrowth or something has covered it somehow.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And so getting back to this knife sheath, he brought
a knife sheath to the crime you know, but crime
scene and left it there. Do we think it was
an accident?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yes, In fact, it's not like a gun that a
holster is optional. A knife sheath, especially a finely tuned
caper knife, is very sharp, very dangerous. You're not going
to want to carry it around with the bare blade exposed.
You're going to have it sheath just for your own protection,
(09:48):
let alone those around you. And if he had it
done properly, it has a loop that would securely around
his waist on a belt. But I I believe he
entered the room. Frankly, I believe he entered the room
but naked planning to commit a rape.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And do we have any information about him being clothed
y'or not at that time?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
They've never reported that they recovered his clothes, so it's
entirely possible he ditched his clothes. It's highly likely that
he had a spare set a clothes in the car.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And so I know we've talked about this before too
with Craig and feel free to jump on in here.
But people have asked if they think this was Brian's
first crime scene or if he had prior experience. What
are your thoughts on that? And maybe Craig can jump
(10:47):
in on this one well.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Given the fact that this crime went wrong very fast,
it doesn't seem like he's experienced as a criminal. Maybe
as a student of crime, it would sound like he
had enough experience academically of what he was planning to
do how he thought it would go. But you know,
(11:11):
we don't live in an ideal world. Things always go awry,
especially something like this where you're dealing with the dynamics
of other individuals. He couldn't anticipate that another was in
the room with Maddie. He couldn't anticipate that others might
react to sound, or that Kayley's dog was going to
(11:32):
alert the others in the house. There's always that X
factor that's going to come into play, and you can't
overplan for a perfect world, for a perfect crime. And
given the fact that he returned the following morning at
I believe it was nine to twelve am, I think
he went back hoping to find the knighte Sheath, because
(11:55):
you couldn't find it in his car, he didn't have
it on his person. My thinking was he thought he
was going to go back to the house see it
in the driveway or along the sidewalk, and that didn't happen.
A lot of people have speculated that he went back
to see and you know, and it soak in the
moment of all the police activity. But I find that
idea to be foolish because he's exposing himself. A cop
(12:19):
might see his car or him galking and take note
of it. I think he went back there hoping that
it was before police attention was brought to it, and
that he was hoping to find his knife sheath, and
that didn't happen, so he ended up going back home
empty handed.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
One of the factors or you know this is factual
you know, information or data that the police obviously have
that lead me to suspect that he's not or wasn't
a sophisticated criminal, is that he turned his cell phone
off at that point in time in the morning, and
that cell phone was off during the period in which
(13:00):
these murders occurred. And then he turns his cell phone
back on right before or you know after. This is
not you know, a sophisticated serial killer would have one
used a burner phone if he needed a phone, you know,
that to go to and from the crime scene. And
then his actual phone that was registered to him, that
(13:22):
was in his name, would remain on at his residence,
so that it would suggest that he was there the
whole time. And then there was the phone didn't go anywhere, right,
it wasn't tracking and pinging on any of the cell towers.
That's a lack of sophistication in planning in my.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
In my estimation, what do you think, Jason, Oh, I
agree with you fully. In fact, I would have my
phone at the house active. I'd either turn on a
YouTube channel video that's at least an hour long or exactly.
Or perhaps I'd even do an open phone call to
another burner phone so it looks like I was oh
(13:59):
that whole time while I was on the phone with
my cousin.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah, Or have manus a I do, you know, start
working on tasks for you on your phone, you know,
and leave it going while it's working on a project
for you, and it looks like you're active and you're engaging.
So you know, this is what a sophisticated serial killer
would do.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
But that's just me.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Well, this makes me think of a sort of people
with narcissistic traits. They think they're more clever than they are,
So that happens a lot. But then in a lot
of cases we have criminals that leave little bread crumbs
behind to either taunt the police or like just play
this game. And you mentioned Kolberger researching Dennis Radar, the
(14:46):
BTK killer, Well he is narcissistic and sadistic, but leading
this sort of double life, like he's this church family man,
but he toyed with police. He he wanted to claim
credit after years of silence or needed attention that he
(15:07):
even called them and asked him about if a floppy
disc could be traced, and then he sent them one
like so he just played this game, but they want
to do it on their own terms. So, like Colberger,
he's stuck where he's at right now. He's been arrested.
He probably saw this going very different and maybe he
thought he was going to toy with police for a
(15:27):
while or play this game. What do you think is
going through his head right now, Craig, He's facing trial.
This has been going on years.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well, you know, this whole issue of the autism diagnosis,
I think is quite interesting because I think I recall
that when we were on the show a few years ago,
we had kind of I don't know, that was kind
of thrown out there. Obviously at the time we didn't
there was no diagnostic, you know, work up on him.
(15:58):
But apparently now at least from what I see in
the in the public, you know, in the discourse and
then the media, is that you know, now he's got
that diagnosis. Now all of a sudden, it's he's got
an autism diagnosis. And that's interesting because again, the defense
might be using this as a you know, as a
mitigation strategy, although I think in Idaho that's not going
(16:21):
to negate the death penalty. But if he truly has
an autistic brain, and I think I think he was
diagnosed with level one autism, which is not you know,
that's that's the least severe in terms of severity. So
he's clearly you know, he's one of the what we'll
call higher functioning, right, So, yeah, what's going through his head?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
When we are ordered to do psychological evaluations for the court,
we're asked to answer a certain legal question. And if
the court orders us to do a psyche valle, like
if we were ordered to see Colberger, it might be
for competency or insanity or some other reasons. And we
don't know that thoughts happen. We don't know that he
(17:04):
was evaluated for competency by the court. But if the
defense hires a forensic psychologist and has him evaluated, I
would be curious what testing they used and what other
diagnoses came up.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I would love to see this report that so they
had a neuropsychologist evaluate him. Now, I've done hundreds of
neuropsychological evaluations. In part of those evaluations include effort testing
and testing to ensure that there's no malingering going on,
and so that would be great to take a look
at that report because that apparently the findings of this
(17:40):
report when he was diagnosed, the only diagnosis that they offered,
at least from what I see, what has been reported
is that he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder level one.
And like I said before, level one is you know,
these are the high functioning folks who they need limited support,
but they do still have those deficits in social reciprocity
(18:03):
and not reading social cues appropriately and.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
All of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
So they have trouble with you know, back and forth conversations,
They have trouble in you know, sharing emotions and that
kind of stuff, and they really have a big problem
with developing and maintaining relationships, which if you remember, there
was a lot of struggle there right in terms of
getting into an intimate relationship. And I even remember talking
about that on the show about you know I'm wondering
(18:29):
about That's why I was wondering about autism two years ago,
and look at what we've got. But I don't see
any other diagnoses. In other words, you know, they didn't
diagnose antisocial personality disorder, they didn't diagnose any clinical syndromes. Necessarily,
autism is not a mental illness, it's a neuro developmental disorder.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Well yeah, and why'd you brought that up, Craig. I mean, clearly,
given the fact that he had issues or problems with
establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationship and ships with girls, we
had come up in real time during the whole opening
of his investigation that times women were put off by him.
(19:10):
He was asked to leave a drinking establishment because he
made the staff feel uncomfortable. So this tends to lead
somebody with that kind of a developmental problem with relationships fantasize,
and it may lead them to window peeping, which may
lead them to a stalker lifestyle. And if that fantasy
(19:33):
takes over, next thing, you know, they're invading homes and
committing you know, lured crimes such as rapes and kidnappings
and the like. So it's certainly within the pattern of
behavior that makes him a candidate for that type of behavior.
And you know, for him to study criminology might be
(19:55):
his attempts to understand himself. And then you lose control
over that as over time and you can find yourself thinking, well,
I can beat the odds, I can learn to satisfy
my desires and get away with the crime. He got
away with it. He got away with it. How he
got caught was he got arrogant and opened his mouth.
(20:19):
He started sending letters to the paper, He toyed with
the police. I just won't do those things. You know,
it's possible that somebody like that could think that they
can outsmart even their own egotistical drive for you know,
or a narcissistic attention. But here we are. He it
didn't take long for him to get caught.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Well yeah, And I do want to clarify too that
the autism itself doesn't necessarily equate to him engaging or
automatically makes him vulnerable to being you know, someone who
becomes a sexual predator per se. But there's other personality
factors that are likely intersecting that. In other words, the
(21:01):
narcissistic antisocial we call the cluster vista. If there's that
architecture and then there's also an autism component that obviously
is going to drive one. It aggravates the ability to
maintain a healthy relationship because now you've got personality pathology intermixed.
So that's why I'm curious about what other things might
be going on with him that are beyond just the autism, right,
(21:23):
And that's why this evaluation is interesting because again, the
defense ordered this. I don't know that the prosecution has
done the same because generally, in a lot of these cases, if,
for example, if we're going to say NNGR is not
available in Idaho, but if NGRI was available, you know,
and the defense orders of an MGR evaluation, which is
a criminal responsibility evaluation at the time of offense. We
(21:44):
do these all the time, you know, Dana and I
do these evaluations all the time. We come to the
opinion that he meets with the standard. In other words,
he was legally insane, which is a legal construct. But
due to dada dah, whatever it is, it's usually a
serious mental illness, or it could be a serious intellectual
disability as well. But the question of whether autism would
qualify has more to do about the severity of the
(22:04):
what we call the levels you know, a more severe
profound presentation might qualify, but in this case there's no NNGRI,
but they can still try to use it as potentially
as mitigation. That then raises, Okay, is the prosecution going
to order an evaluation by a neuropsychologist or like for
(22:25):
a forensic neuropsychologist would be more appropriate, because you know,
we're going to be looking more again at a lot
of these other areas too, So I'm curious about whether
you know, Okay, great, you did an autism evaluation on him,
you gave him the A you know, these measures we
use to determine whether someone is autistic, but did you
also assess for personality pathology and other problems and other
(22:46):
clinical you know, syndromes, things like schizophrenia and that kind
of stuff. So we don't know that because they're not
sharing the report with us. I don't know, Jason, if
you've seen anything about what this report and what this
neuropsychologist found other than auto or if they reported anything
other than that. But that's all I see being reported,
So that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I haven't seen a report. But since you were just
talking about curiosity, is the one thing that comes to
my mind is given the fact that in his history
there was a reported history of heroin use. So I'm
wondering if the heroin abuse would actually contribute to some
of these neurological setbacks that may, you know, create some
(23:31):
problems with behavioral issues. Are you guys familiar with anything
like that in your histories?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yes, I mean so opiates and you know, people using
opiates obviously highly addictive substances, as we all know. Interestingly, opiates,
of all of the sort of illicit compounds or drugs
that are out there, actually are kind of the most benign.
They do the least amount of damage, so to speak,
to the central nervous system. But what they do create
(23:59):
is vere dependence and then addiction basically, or you know,
tolerance and then but when someone's withdrawing off of something
like that, yes, behaviorally, they can become very unstable. You know,
they can become frantic in terms of that drug seeking
behavior because the all the only thing they're focusing on
is I got to get my next fix. You know,
(24:20):
they're trying to find their next fix, and it you know, yes,
it can lead to you know a lot of psychological problems.
You know, when someone is withdrawing they can become aggressive
and they can become you know, they're desperate in those instances.
You know, once they you know, they get through the
initial withdrawal phase. But yeah, so I I mean meth
(24:41):
would be more of a problem, you know, because with
meth someone who and I don't know that there was
any evidence he was using stimulant drugs like methamphetamine. But
I'd be more worried about meth only because you know,
prolonged use of methamphetamine does can lead to psychosis. Uh.
And then if you have that psychosis and then you've got,
like I said, personality stuff going on too, that's a
(25:04):
bad mix.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know, that's not good.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, And more often than not, when we're doing these evaluations,
we find out that defendants on trial do have a
substance use history, and it's not always mitigating, and there's
usually is a personal personality disorder or other mental health
issues that come up. And what will be brought up
(25:30):
at the trial. Who is hired to do these evaluations?
And I know sometimes we're hired and our reports never
see the light of day, or they keep our information
and use it as a strategy, right, And I'll be
very interested to see who actually testifies a trial. Typically,
(25:52):
if there's one forensic psychologist that does a report, there
should be, like Craig said, the prosecution can get their
own expert with and have them evaluated, and they should
right because was the defense seeking out that specific diagnosis,
just that diagnosis, so that that happens, we know that happens. Okay,
(26:15):
So I'm just saying, well, usually when Craig and I
do the vout, we're assessing for everything, so we can
there might be a number of diagnoses, and we can
also see if they're lying, they're lingering or feigning certain symptoms.
It's not uncommon for someone to have no memory of
certain events or they have some psychosis that comes up
(26:40):
they think it's going to help mitigate them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
The neuropsychologists that the defense hired doctor Rachel Or, So
I just looked her up to so she is board
certified in neuropsychology. It looks like so she's a you know,
she's got a lot of experience in brain behavior relationships
and that kind of stuff. So I can see why
the defense hired her because she's board certified, so you know,
she's going to have good credibility in terms of her
ability to offer an expert opinion about you know, this diagnosis.
(27:09):
But again, like I said, I want to know, show
me the report. I you know, again the report. Yes,
he's the mental health has been put at issue with
you know, in front of the court. So now it's open.
It's fair game, right in terms of the prosecution can
now also get a similar evaluation done by their own expert,
and perhaps their own expert might come up with a
(27:29):
different opinion about what's going on here. Maybe that that
expert says, I'm not sure autism is really what's that
play here? We think it's this maybe you know, like
we say, like we're looking more at these cluster b
sort of personality disorder traits that you know, these are
the things that lead to people engaging in criminal behaviors
for the most part, and that's usually the antisocial piece.
(27:51):
But but it can you know, include narcissism as well.
So I expect that we might see that, you know,
we might see you know, the prosecution now you know,
motion and getting a you know order, getting the court
to order a second evaluation, but you know, to let
you know, let's confirm this diagnosis, you know, especially if
(28:12):
they're going to be using it as a mitigation strategy,
and that's probably going to be in the penalty phase,
you know, if it gets the penalty phase, if he's
found guilty, that's when they're probably going to try to
use that. That would be my educated guess, although I
don't know all the you know, rules of criminal procedure
in Idaho, because Idaho is very like, you know, they're
one of the states, like they're pretty hardcore when it
comes to they don't allow the death penalty is not
(28:34):
you know, on in statute in Idaho, so they can't
even use that. So I'm be curious to see how
how they're going to use a mental health or any
kind of diagnosis, whether it's neurodevelopmental or mental health to
mitigate this.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So Jason, tell me about this knife hunt. When is
this going to take place? And who is invited to
go with? You? Can Craig and I go with you? Like,
how do people get on board with this? How can
we got supports?
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Can I bring the RV with the dogs and I
can I can train one of my dogs in you
know search, let's search for the knife.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Great great loveday have you? The search is literally in
two weeks from yesterday, so it is set for June
twenty first and twenty second, which is Saturday and Sunday.
I will be planning to go up there on that
Friday and you know, case the place out and look
(29:34):
for stronger points to search and prioritize searches because you know,
there's no point setting somebody to look at an area
that is inaccessible. So I already majored the distance of
that route. It's thirty five miles. My best thought was
assign everybody a mile stretch of road where they search
(29:57):
the right side of the road, and then they return
to their vehicle on the left side of the road.
And you're not going to be looking too far because
I would think that it was thrown while he was driving.
He didn't stop and whale it, you know, one hundred
feet away, so within reasonable distance. And I think that
everybody can search their mile quadrant within an hour or two,
(30:20):
depending on how thoroughed they're trying. But yeah, I originally
assessed the search to be I need thirty five people
do thirty five miles. I posted the information requesting for
volunteers to help on social media. I've gotten a lot
of people interested. Most of them are from out of
(30:44):
the area, so I don't know how many people. When
it comes down to it, we'll actually book a flight
and travel that far or find a hotel room or
whatever and make it happen. So I don't know how
many people will show up, but YouTube are more than welcome.
We've hung out before, so as we get closer, I
(31:05):
hope to firm up guaranteteed commitments. And that's actually what
I'm engaging to do in this upcoming week is work
out the logistics.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Okay, very interesting. Yeah, do we want to shift our
focus to another case that you've been posting on social media?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Jason, that's quite up to you. It's your show.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
So I saw you posted about Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
The other day. Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yes, Look all these cakes. People can get in arguments
on the internet about what they think is happening or
the evidence that's presented, and you know, I really haven't
been following it closely like everyone else's. So I saw
your post about potential wounds to the arm that you'd
(32:04):
mentioned that looked like canine lacerations, and then there seemed
to be a strong opinion about against that. So just
tell me your thought process of these wounds. And you
know Karen Reid's accused of killing her her what was boyfriend? Right?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
They weren't married, right, Well, I think you have a
great panel to address this because both me and Craig
are German shepherd owners, and that is one of the
arguments that is specifically the defense claim that the injuries
to John o'keep's arm were injuries from being assaulted by
(32:47):
a German shepherd named Chloe, which belonged to the owner
of the residence. That John o'keef's body was found that
while he was dying on his front lawn, and this
man was actually a police officer, so none of the
case in my opinion thinks I think it makes much
(33:08):
sense because, okay, you're a police officer. The woman that's
there finds John o'keeper, who knows he's also a police officer,
is lying in the snow on your front lawn dying,
and rather than running to your door and getting you,
which is her brother in law saying hey, come on
(33:29):
out and help, let's call nine one one and wait
ten minutes for the police to show up, and then
you don't bother to wake up your brother in law
at all. And then for starts that does not make sense,
and then they claim that the injuries to his right
arm were the shards of plastic to the tellight assembly
(33:52):
of Karen Reid's lexus. Now, the types of lacerations are
inconsistent in my opinion, to shards of plastic, because they're
going to be superficial. The light assembly is neither in
a vacuum or pressure ups so you're not going to
have an explosion of shards. And since it's shallow in
(34:17):
depth to the bulbs and the reflective components behind the plastic,
it's not like he could put his arm into the
assembly and then withdraw it, creating deep lacerations like if
you went through the panel window of a bank or
a storefront. That's completely different. These lacerations, some of them,
(34:41):
like on his forearm, actually start at a wider angle
when they're shallow, and they narrow in distance as they
go deeper, which is consistent with the angle of German
shepherd teeth. They angle out from below, and they angle
out this way from above. So the further the contact
(35:02):
point of the teeth, the whiter it is, and if
you narrow up, it's going to go narrow on the
on the wounds, so they're like perpendicular in a way,
but they will never intercept. And the other lacerations are
completely parallel, like the two centered clause of my shepherd's pause.
So if Chloe's pause are also that same configuration, it's
(35:28):
going to have that same kind of pattern in the lacerations.
It's like a tool marking from the dog to the human.
It's going to have those same characteristics because there's going
to be a match. If they actually have the canine available,
they can measure the distance of the clause and measure
(35:48):
the distance on the injuries to see what match what.
But as we know from hearing through the trial, they
got rid of the dog. They re home the dog.
Why would you rehune your family pet, you know? And
they sold the home and they which they had for decades,
Why would you sell your house? And coincidentally during the process,
(36:11):
he gets rid of his phone to buy a new phone.
I mean, all these things. Where as trained law enforcement,
you know not to dispose of things that may potentially
become relevant to a proceeding. So I go to jail, right,
So if I go to jail for obstruction, if I
(36:33):
don't produce evidence. Why don't please? You know, it's just
a weird situation. All those coincidences, if innocent, have just
helped make the defense claim. But the only thing that
got my attention, only thing that really got me in
that mindset that Karen Reid should be acquitted not because
(36:55):
she's innocent, but because the state's theory the commonwealth is
so nonsensical to the actual evidence. There's no way that
that's from her telllight assembly, No way, just absolutely not,
especially since the pattern, you know that's like fifteen inches,
(37:16):
the telllight assembly is like a total of nine inches.
Your injury span is going to be bigger than the
pattern of the weapon. So just like when like a
medical examiner measures your injuries. If you know your stab
and the blade goes six inches in, you know you're
(37:36):
dealing with a six inch blade. That just common sense.
It's not ever going to be bigger than the actual
evidence because it's impossible to make that bigger than what
it really is. And getting hit one time by a
car is going to have multiple injuries, like a repeated attack.
(37:56):
So you got a period, you got the bite mark,
you got calaw marks, you got a series of bites.
Here that actually look like it's the back maulers of
a canine, and then got more down here on the forearm.
Craig'll agree with me. Your dog, especially a German shepherd,
picks up on the energy in the room. If you're calm,
(38:19):
your shepherd's calm. If you get excited, your shepherd gets excited.
If you make eye contact, he's on alert. He's staring
you down. If you're in a fight, that dog is engaged.
That's what looks like to me, as an experienced shepherd owner.
I have to I think Craig has two right too.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Yep, I got too and yep that's correct. Yeah, they
read the room very accurately, and obviously they're you know,
they're scent based primarily, so they can actually read anxiety
before it even just shows in terms of the behavioral presentation,
they already pick up on it.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Good addition, Craig, Yeah, they pick up the scent. They
know what's going on before you know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
So what really happened to John o'keeth that.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Night, Well, I mean we're left to speculate, but what
it looks like to me is, you know, a bunch
of ego driven cops. They're at the bar, they're drinking heavily.
They go to one of the people's house for an
after party. I think it was Brian Albert's place. Brian
Higgins was with. There was apparently some conversations, some text messaging,
(39:32):
some flirting going on between Karen Reid and Brian Higgins.
So maybe testosterone starts to fly. Someone says something and
next you know, two drunks are having a fight. Happens
all the time. Doesn't mean it can't happen to a cup.
They just have a batch. There's still a human in
that uniform. I mean that, you know. It takes their
(39:53):
clothing off, just like everybody else. So if they get
in a fight because of alcohol induced that's not uncommon,
you know. And cops are human too, So they're in
a fight. After the fight's over, they throw his ass
out and he stumbles off into the snow. They may
not think, oh wow, he's gonna die outside. They may
(40:15):
just simply think that he's gonna snap out of it
in a few minutes, call his girlfriend and get the
f out of here. So they're back in the house.
They don't know what's going on. A few hours go by,
and another there's a oh shit moment we're guilty of something.
It's a fight. I don't see how it's intentional murder
(40:36):
for anybody if it's a fight. So you're embarrassed you've
got in a fight with a cop. Big deal. You know,
it's unfortunate someone dies, but that's you know, how life rolls.
Sometimes there's death involved in life. We all will meet
our death sooner or later.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
So just throwing the Karen Reid under the bus, Yeah,
that's that's a convenient art.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
He's the boyfriend. She used the girlfriend. Blame it on them. Oh,
she must have hit him with her car. We'll make
apples out of oranges and they'll buy it because they're scratches,
but not if the types of scratches are inconsistent. They're
clearly bite marks. Any idiot can tell they're bite marks,
(41:22):
and trust me, I'm an idiot. They're bite marks.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Jason, always a pleasure. You are working on a number
of other I would say high profile cases. So which
ones do you want to mention that you would like
to come back on and talk about, because I know
sometimes you're in the middle of an investigation and you
don't want to share the details yet, But what cases
can we look forward to hearing about from you in
(41:46):
the future.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Sure, I mean at some point I would love to
be open about the investigation that I've spent last year
on the death of Kirk Kopain. It's clear from the
evidence and the review of the documents that are relating
to the question suicide note that they were a forgery.
(42:08):
I went so far as to obtain my private investigator
license in the state of Washington just so that I
can go to the next level in the investigation. We're
in the process of trying to get the case reopened
by the local authorities. This was a Seattle PD case.
(42:29):
It was closed thirty one years ago as a suicide.
But it was an easy mistake to do so because
all of the forces at play led to that conclusion.
His wife at the time reported him missing, said he
had a shotgun, said he was suicidal, and then you
find him dead with a shotgun. That's an easy conclusion
(42:52):
to draw if you don't do professional analysis on the
suicide note to determine that it was a So I
looked at the suicide note. You can clearly tell that
the upper portion has a different writing style than the bottom.
So you either are looking at a document that has
(43:15):
writing that was written in two different time frames, under
two different stressors, or by two different authors. And it
was that bottom portion that was identified to be the
suicidal indicators. If you will, you know that had that
overtone of suicide. That fix to the top portion of
(43:37):
the letter was talking about breaking up the band, and
then there was a sign off, and then all of
a sudden, there's a new portion of the bottom. That's
a little weird. But you know, if someone looks at
and says that it's a suicide note without deep analysis,
it's an easy conclusion. But since then a lot of
(43:58):
details come out that really reinforces the notion that it
was not a suicide. So that's where we're at. But
I'm at the moment, I'm on the moms about the
details because I really am in the process of working
with the Seattle PD to reopen it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Okay, I'm excited. And when you come back on for
the episode of Kurt Cobain, maybe we can have your
FORENSA canwriting expert join us to discuss that suicide note.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I'm sure they'd enjoyed that.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Okay, that's awesome. So coming up Crime Con, Jason Jensen,
you're going to be there. I'm going to be there,
and we don't know about Craig. We've invited Craig.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
He needs to be there. The gang's got to get
back together.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
I'm trying to get it. Yeah, I'm trying to get
it set up.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You do that, Craig, because we have a lot of
fun together and I'm really excited to see you guys
in person because we only talk over the internet. We
really never see each other in person. So we got
to hang out and then I'm excited to meet other people.
Jason has a lot of connections and talk about some
of these cases. I think there's going to be some
(45:12):
you know, all the other podcasters out there that are
doing true crime, and so that's coming up in September.
So if you're going to Crime Con, give us a
shout out. Let us know you're going to be there
so we can connect and do some clouts in the future.
But Jason Jensen, always a pleasure to see you, and
of course Craig Wetter So I can't wait for our
(45:35):
next discussion. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
It's great to hang out with you. Too.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Again, thank you for listening to Killer Psychologist. To watch
full video episodes or if you want to interact with me,
you can find Killer Psychologists on YouTube. You can also
get notified of new episodes by signing up in my
stand store Now. If you want to work with me,
(46:00):
you can book a console. My website is psychologydoctor dot com.
That's Psychology d R dot com.
Welcome to Killer Psychologist. I'm Dana Anderson, a forensic psychologist
and your host of the show. Killer Psychologist is for
true crime fanatics and anyone intrigued.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
With the dark side of psychology. On November thirteenth, twenty
twenty two, four University of idahost students Kaylee Congalvus, Madison Mogan,
Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapman were brutally murdered in their
off campus home in Moscow, Idaho. Investigators found a crucial
(00:41):
piece of evidence, the knife sheath left near one of
the victims, with DNA linking it to suspect Brian Kolberger.
But the weapon itself, the knife, it's still missing. So
today we're asking where is the knife? Did he throw
(01:08):
it out the window in a moment of panic? And why?
Does this sound like another infamous case Ted Bundy, who
also ditched a weapon during a police pursuit. So joining
me is private investigator Jason Jensen, who is launching a
real world search to find what law enforcement hasn't the
(01:31):
missing murder weapon.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Welcome Jason, good to see you guys. I appreciate you
having me on. Yeah, this is a very interesting case.
We all three have history. This is how we met
is under the discussion of Brian Cooberger for a TV
program we filmed a couple years ago. Amazingly enough, the
case as it resolved is still penning for trial, I
believe in August. And what they don't seem to have
(01:57):
is the murder weapon, although they know the cause of
death is by a knife attack. You know they're slashing
and stabbings involved. So as you pointed out, Dana, the
knife sheath was left behind in the bed of Madison Mogan.
So we really want to find the knife. I don't
(02:17):
know if it's gonna improve the trial process, but it
certainly can't hurt. It's my understanding. They understand what kind
of knike it was. We've always understood because of the
type of knife sheath left behind. It was stamped USMC
and it's a keep our knife, so we know what
it looks like. We know you know what type of
sheet it would go into. So it's a matter of
(02:40):
just finding it. And if it's left in the wilderness,
it's not gonna have fingerprints, it's not gonna have DNA
because all that likely washed away. It's just good for optics.
And it's probably safe safer to get it off the
streets or out of the hillside or wherever we lay
since there is a order, and certainly after the police
(03:02):
got in trouble with the recent Dateline TV show, there's
not going to be any divulging of information. Nothing has
been publicly shared about them actually doing a search for
the knife, although I can't imagine they wouldn't try to
what extent I don't know, But as we know from
(03:24):
the data points identified from his phone, we know that
he traveled south out of Moscow on Highway ninety five.
South of Moscow. In between, as you're taken a long
way to Pullman, it intersects with Highway one ninety five
and then goes north. So that seems to be the
(03:47):
travel route that everybody has been aware of. So what
we believe likely is the place to go look would
be along the roadside either side going from Moscow going
south on ninety five and up one ninety five to Pullman.
So the reason why I feel that that's significant is
(04:10):
he's a criminologist major and he was darting his doctorate
program in psychology. Given the fact that he has the
same type of education that I have because I have
a master's in criminal justice as well studying crime, studying
criminal behaviors, serial killers and the like. You look for patterns.
(04:30):
You look for old cases to reveal what may cause
future crime for prevention sake, or reveal behavior to identify
key components to solve an unsolved case. So, given the
fact that we do know that he's studied Dennis Raeger,
(04:52):
you know BTK, I would imagine that he also studied
Ted Bundy, and we know from the Google searches that
he even looked up Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy being a
prolific serial killer from the seventies as good as he was,
ultimately he got caught and one of the things that
(05:12):
he was caught with was a burglary kit, duct tape, handcuffs, gloves,
a rope, and his seat was missing from his beetle.
So that was when he got pulled over that day
in Utah. In fact, in West Valley City where I
currently live. They knew that they had somebody planning to
(05:36):
do something. Later on, during his interviews, Ted Bundy confessed
that after these crimes, he would start throwing stuff out
of his car out of panic. You know, if he's
caught with it if someone had seen, for instance, I'll
give you an example of someone had seeing that the
missing person was with somebody that had a briefcase or
(05:59):
had a cast on, and they pull him over and
he's got a briefcase or a cast in his vehicle.
That instantly makes him a suspect. So certainly, in his panic,
Ted Bundy said that he would throw these items out
of the car. So after he buried a body, there
goes the shovel, there goes the tire iron that used
(06:19):
to knock her out, There goes the handcuffs and whatever.
So those things would be found later on littering the
side of the rose, but people probably didn't know how
they connected or even that they connected to a crime.
And I'm not personally aware that they ever recovered and
identified any of those things relating to Ted Bundy, because
(06:42):
when he would dish these victims, they were miles and
miles away, so, you know, like hundreds of miles for
his victims here in Utah. Had Brian Koberger had that
same mindset, that panic set in. I got to get
rid of these things is that you know I have
in my possession, whether it be his black mask, whether
(07:06):
it be his black attire that he was seen leaving
the home in, or if it's the knife, even he
threw them out of the vehicle. And so that's what
we're hoping to find out. And I would believe that
would be something that he would panic and throw out
right away. And so then you've got to ask yourself
what makes you think he was in a panic. Well,
(07:29):
we know from surveillance footage of the doorbell camera his
car was seen speeding away. You know that is somebody
characteristic that felt like he's caught or going to be caught,
so he needs to make a quick getaway. That wasn't
his drive and behavior. As he was proceeding to the
(07:50):
residence on eleven twenty two King Road. On his way there,
he was seeing a few times looks like he was
either casing the place or even just finding placed apart.
But it didn't look like he was driving in a hurry.
But as he's seen driving away from the home, it's
at a high rate of speed. And so if he's
(08:11):
panicked because he just got caught trying to rape Maddie
and it went completely wrong, I believe it was an
organized trying that quickly went disorganized when he did not
anticipate Kaylee in the broom with Maddie when he entered
the room. So the fight's on. He has to fight
his way out of the room. Two girls innostantly find
(08:33):
themselves dead. He's now escaping down the stairwell and gets
into another encounter with Ethan Chapin that sees him and
has to get through him. And then all of a sudden,
we know that Xenna was her over her crying after that,
and he tries to console her, saying, don't worry. If
(08:53):
get help, then you know she's you know, on her
path to dying. So I believe we'll find his knife
along that route, as long as you know it's not
overlook or if overgrowth or something has covered it somehow.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And so getting back to this knife sheath, he brought
a knife sheath to the crime you know, but crime
scene and left it there. Do we think it was
an accident?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yes, In fact, it's not like a gun that a
holster is optional. A knife sheath, especially a finely tuned
caper knife, is very sharp, very dangerous. You're not going
to want to carry it around with the bare blade exposed.
You're going to have it sheath just for your own protection,
(09:48):
let alone those around you. And if he had it
done properly, it has a loop that would securely around
his waist on a belt. But I I believe he
entered the room. Frankly, I believe he entered the room
but naked planning to commit a rape.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And do we have any information about him being clothed
y'or not at that time?
Speaker 3 (10:13):
They've never reported that they recovered his clothes, so it's
entirely possible he ditched his clothes. It's highly likely that
he had a spare set a clothes in the car.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
And so I know we've talked about this before too
with Craig and feel free to jump on in here.
But people have asked if they think this was Brian's
first crime scene or if he had prior experience. What
are your thoughts on that? And maybe Craig can jump
(10:47):
in on this one well.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Given the fact that this crime went wrong very fast,
it doesn't seem like he's experienced as a criminal. Maybe
as a student of crime, it would sound like he
had enough experience academically of what he was planning to
do how he thought it would go. But you know,
(11:11):
we don't live in an ideal world. Things always go awry,
especially something like this where you're dealing with the dynamics
of other individuals. He couldn't anticipate that another was in
the room with Maddie. He couldn't anticipate that others might
react to sound, or that Kayley's dog was going to
(11:32):
alert the others in the house. There's always that X
factor that's going to come into play, and you can't
overplan for a perfect world, for a perfect crime. And
given the fact that he returned the following morning at
I believe it was nine to twelve am, I think
he went back hoping to find the knighte Sheath, because
(11:55):
you couldn't find it in his car, he didn't have
it on his person. My thinking was he thought he
was going to go back to the house see it
in the driveway or along the sidewalk, and that didn't happen.
A lot of people have speculated that he went back
to see and you know, and it soak in the
moment of all the police activity. But I find that
idea to be foolish because he's exposing himself. A cop
(12:19):
might see his car or him galking and take note
of it. I think he went back there hoping that
it was before police attention was brought to it, and
that he was hoping to find his knife sheath, and
that didn't happen, so he ended up going back home
empty handed.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
One of the factors or you know this is factual
you know, information or data that the police obviously have
that lead me to suspect that he's not or wasn't
a sophisticated criminal, is that he turned his cell phone
off at that point in time in the morning, and
that cell phone was off during the period in which
(13:00):
these murders occurred. And then he turns his cell phone
back on right before or you know after. This is
not you know, a sophisticated serial killer would have one
used a burner phone if he needed a phone, you know,
that to go to and from the crime scene. And
then his actual phone that was registered to him, that
(13:22):
was in his name, would remain on at his residence,
so that it would suggest that he was there the
whole time. And then there was the phone didn't go anywhere, right,
it wasn't tracking and pinging on any of the cell towers.
That's a lack of sophistication in planning in my.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
In my estimation, what do you think, Jason, Oh, I
agree with you fully. In fact, I would have my
phone at the house active. I'd either turn on a
YouTube channel video that's at least an hour long or exactly.
Or perhaps I'd even do an open phone call to
another burner phone so it looks like I was oh
(13:59):
that whole time while I was on the phone with
my cousin.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Yeah, Or have manus a I do, you know, start
working on tasks for you on your phone, you know,
and leave it going while it's working on a project
for you, and it looks like you're active and you're engaging.
So you know, this is what a sophisticated serial killer
would do.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
But that's just me.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Well, this makes me think of a sort of people
with narcissistic traits. They think they're more clever than they are,
So that happens a lot. But then in a lot
of cases we have criminals that leave little bread crumbs
behind to either taunt the police or like just play
this game. And you mentioned Kolberger researching Dennis Radar, the
(14:46):
BTK killer, Well he is narcissistic and sadistic, but leading
this sort of double life, like he's this church family man,
but he toyed with police. He he wanted to claim
credit after years of silence or needed attention that he
(15:07):
even called them and asked him about if a floppy
disc could be traced, and then he sent them one
like so he just played this game, but they want
to do it on their own terms. So, like Colberger,
he's stuck where he's at right now. He's been arrested.
He probably saw this going very different and maybe he
thought he was going to toy with police for a
(15:27):
while or play this game. What do you think is
going through his head right now, Craig, He's facing trial.
This has been going on years.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well, you know, this whole issue of the autism diagnosis,
I think is quite interesting because I think I recall
that when we were on the show a few years ago,
we had kind of I don't know, that was kind
of thrown out there. Obviously at the time we didn't
there was no diagnostic, you know, work up on him.
(15:58):
But apparently now at least from what I see in
the in the public, you know, in the discourse and
then the media, is that you know, now he's got
that diagnosis. Now all of a sudden, it's he's got
an autism diagnosis. And that's interesting because again, the defense
might be using this as a you know, as a
mitigation strategy, although I think in Idaho that's not going
(16:21):
to negate the death penalty. But if he truly has
an autistic brain, and I think I think he was
diagnosed with level one autism, which is not you know,
that's that's the least severe in terms of severity. So
he's clearly you know, he's one of the what we'll
call higher functioning, right, So, yeah, what's going through his head?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
When we are ordered to do psychological evaluations for the court,
we're asked to answer a certain legal question. And if
the court orders us to do a psyche valle, like
if we were ordered to see Colberger, it might be
for competency or insanity or some other reasons. And we
don't know that thoughts happen. We don't know that he
(17:04):
was evaluated for competency by the court. But if the
defense hires a forensic psychologist and has him evaluated, I
would be curious what testing they used and what other
diagnoses came up.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I would love to see this report that so they
had a neuropsychologist evaluate him. Now, I've done hundreds of
neuropsychological evaluations. In part of those evaluations include effort testing
and testing to ensure that there's no malingering going on,
and so that would be great to take a look
at that report because that apparently the findings of this
(17:40):
report when he was diagnosed, the only diagnosis that they offered,
at least from what I see, what has been reported
is that he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder level one.
And like I said before, level one is you know,
these are the high functioning folks who they need limited support,
but they do still have those deficits in social reciprocity
(18:03):
and not reading social cues appropriately and.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
All of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
So they have trouble with you know, back and forth conversations,
They have trouble in you know, sharing emotions and that
kind of stuff, and they really have a big problem
with developing and maintaining relationships, which if you remember, there
was a lot of struggle there right in terms of
getting into an intimate relationship. And I even remember talking
about that on the show about you know I'm wondering
(18:29):
about That's why I was wondering about autism two years ago,
and look at what we've got. But I don't see
any other diagnoses. In other words, you know, they didn't
diagnose antisocial personality disorder, they didn't diagnose any clinical syndromes. Necessarily,
autism is not a mental illness, it's a neuro developmental disorder.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Well yeah, and why'd you brought that up, Craig. I mean, clearly,
given the fact that he had issues or problems with
establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationship and ships with girls, we
had come up in real time during the whole opening
of his investigation that times women were put off by him.
(19:10):
He was asked to leave a drinking establishment because he
made the staff feel uncomfortable. So this tends to lead
somebody with that kind of a developmental problem with relationships fantasize,
and it may lead them to window peeping, which may
lead them to a stalker lifestyle. And if that fantasy
(19:33):
takes over, next thing, you know, they're invading homes and
committing you know, lured crimes such as rapes and kidnappings
and the like. So it's certainly within the pattern of
behavior that makes him a candidate for that type of behavior.
And you know, for him to study criminology might be
(19:55):
his attempts to understand himself. And then you lose control
over that as over time and you can find yourself thinking, well,
I can beat the odds, I can learn to satisfy
my desires and get away with the crime. He got
away with it. He got away with it. How he
got caught was he got arrogant and opened his mouth.
(20:19):
He started sending letters to the paper, He toyed with
the police. I just won't do those things. You know,
it's possible that somebody like that could think that they
can outsmart even their own egotistical drive for you know,
or a narcissistic attention. But here we are. He it
didn't take long for him to get caught.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
Well yeah, And I do want to clarify too that
the autism itself doesn't necessarily equate to him engaging or
automatically makes him vulnerable to being you know, someone who
becomes a sexual predator per se. But there's other personality
factors that are likely intersecting that. In other words, the
(21:01):
narcissistic antisocial we call the cluster vista. If there's that
architecture and then there's also an autism component that obviously
is going to drive one. It aggravates the ability to
maintain a healthy relationship because now you've got personality pathology intermixed.
So that's why I'm curious about what other things might
be going on with him that are beyond just the autism, right,
(21:23):
And that's why this evaluation is interesting because again, the
defense ordered this. I don't know that the prosecution has
done the same because generally, in a lot of these cases, if,
for example, if we're going to say NNGR is not
available in Idaho, but if NGRI was available, you know,
and the defense orders of an MGR evaluation, which is
a criminal responsibility evaluation at the time of offense. We
(21:44):
do these all the time, you know, Dana and I
do these evaluations all the time. We come to the
opinion that he meets with the standard. In other words,
he was legally insane, which is a legal construct. But
due to dada dah, whatever it is, it's usually a
serious mental illness, or it could be a serious intellectual
disability as well. But the question of whether autism would
qualify has more to do about the severity of the
(22:04):
what we call the levels you know, a more severe
profound presentation might qualify, but in this case there's no NNGRI,
but they can still try to use it as potentially
as mitigation. That then raises, Okay, is the prosecution going
to order an evaluation by a neuropsychologist or like for
(22:25):
a forensic neuropsychologist would be more appropriate, because you know,
we're going to be looking more again at a lot
of these other areas too, So I'm curious about whether
you know, Okay, great, you did an autism evaluation on him,
you gave him the A you know, these measures we
use to determine whether someone is autistic, but did you
also assess for personality pathology and other problems and other
(22:46):
clinical you know, syndromes, things like schizophrenia and that kind
of stuff. So we don't know that because they're not
sharing the report with us. I don't know, Jason, if
you've seen anything about what this report and what this
neuropsychologist found other than auto or if they reported anything
other than that. But that's all I see being reported,
So that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I haven't seen a report. But since you were just
talking about curiosity, is the one thing that comes to
my mind is given the fact that in his history
there was a reported history of heroin use. So I'm
wondering if the heroin abuse would actually contribute to some
of these neurological setbacks that may, you know, create some
(23:31):
problems with behavioral issues. Are you guys familiar with anything
like that in your histories?
Speaker 4 (23:38):
Yes, I mean so opiates and you know, people using
opiates obviously highly addictive substances, as we all know. Interestingly, opiates,
of all of the sort of illicit compounds or drugs
that are out there, actually are kind of the most benign.
They do the least amount of damage, so to speak,
to the central nervous system. But what they do create
(23:59):
is vere dependence and then addiction basically, or you know,
tolerance and then but when someone's withdrawing off of something
like that, yes, behaviorally, they can become very unstable. You know,
they can become frantic in terms of that drug seeking
behavior because the all the only thing they're focusing on
is I got to get my next fix. You know,
(24:20):
they're trying to find their next fix, and it you know, yes,
it can lead to you know a lot of psychological problems.
You know, when someone is withdrawing they can become aggressive
and they can become you know, they're desperate in those instances.
You know, once they you know, they get through the
initial withdrawal phase. But yeah, so I I mean meth
(24:41):
would be more of a problem, you know, because with
meth someone who and I don't know that there was
any evidence he was using stimulant drugs like methamphetamine. But
I'd be more worried about meth only because you know,
prolonged use of methamphetamine does can lead to psychosis. Uh.
And then if you have that psychosis and then you've got,
like I said, personality stuff going on too, that's a
(25:04):
bad mix.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
You know, that's not good.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, And more often than not, when we're doing these evaluations,
we find out that defendants on trial do have a
substance use history, and it's not always mitigating, and there's
usually is a personal personality disorder or other mental health
issues that come up. And what will be brought up
(25:30):
at the trial. Who is hired to do these evaluations?
And I know sometimes we're hired and our reports never
see the light of day, or they keep our information
and use it as a strategy, right, And I'll be
very interested to see who actually testifies a trial. Typically,
(25:52):
if there's one forensic psychologist that does a report, there
should be, like Craig said, the prosecution can get their
own expert with and have them evaluated, and they should
right because was the defense seeking out that specific diagnosis,
just that diagnosis, so that that happens, we know that happens. Okay,
(26:15):
So I'm just saying, well, usually when Craig and I
do the vout, we're assessing for everything, so we can
there might be a number of diagnoses, and we can
also see if they're lying, they're lingering or feigning certain symptoms.
It's not uncommon for someone to have no memory of
certain events or they have some psychosis that comes up
(26:40):
they think it's going to help mitigate them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
The neuropsychologists that the defense hired doctor Rachel Or, So
I just looked her up to so she is board
certified in neuropsychology. It looks like so she's a you know,
she's got a lot of experience in brain behavior relationships
and that kind of stuff. So I can see why
the defense hired her because she's board certified, so you know,
she's going to have good credibility in terms of her
ability to offer an expert opinion about you know, this diagnosis.
(27:09):
But again, like I said, I want to know, show
me the report. I you know, again the report. Yes,
he's the mental health has been put at issue with
you know, in front of the court. So now it's open.
It's fair game, right in terms of the prosecution can
now also get a similar evaluation done by their own expert,
and perhaps their own expert might come up with a
(27:29):
different opinion about what's going on here. Maybe that that
expert says, I'm not sure autism is really what's that
play here? We think it's this maybe you know, like
we say, like we're looking more at these cluster b
sort of personality disorder traits that you know, these are
the things that lead to people engaging in criminal behaviors
for the most part, and that's usually the antisocial piece.
(27:51):
But but it can you know, include narcissism as well.
So I expect that we might see that, you know,
we might see you know, the prosecution now you know,
motion and getting a you know order, getting the court
to order a second evaluation, but you know, to let
you know, let's confirm this diagnosis, you know, especially if
(28:12):
they're going to be using it as a mitigation strategy,
and that's probably going to be in the penalty phase,
you know, if it gets the penalty phase, if he's
found guilty, that's when they're probably going to try to
use that. That would be my educated guess, although I
don't know all the you know, rules of criminal procedure
in Idaho, because Idaho is very like, you know, they're
one of the states, like they're pretty hardcore when it
comes to they don't allow the death penalty is not
(28:34):
you know, on in statute in Idaho, so they can't
even use that. So I'm be curious to see how
how they're going to use a mental health or any
kind of diagnosis, whether it's neurodevelopmental or mental health to
mitigate this.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So Jason, tell me about this knife hunt. When is
this going to take place? And who is invited to
go with? You? Can Craig and I go with you? Like,
how do people get on board with this? How can
we got supports?
Speaker 4 (29:04):
Can I bring the RV with the dogs and I
can I can train one of my dogs in you
know search, let's search for the knife.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Great great loveday have you? The search is literally in
two weeks from yesterday, so it is set for June
twenty first and twenty second, which is Saturday and Sunday.
I will be planning to go up there on that
Friday and you know, case the place out and look
(29:34):
for stronger points to search and prioritize searches because you know,
there's no point setting somebody to look at an area
that is inaccessible. So I already majored the distance of
that route. It's thirty five miles. My best thought was
assign everybody a mile stretch of road where they search
(29:57):
the right side of the road, and then they return
to their vehicle on the left side of the road.
And you're not going to be looking too far because
I would think that it was thrown while he was driving.
He didn't stop and whale it, you know, one hundred
feet away, so within reasonable distance. And I think that
everybody can search their mile quadrant within an hour or two,
(30:20):
depending on how thoroughed they're trying. But yeah, I originally
assessed the search to be I need thirty five people
do thirty five miles. I posted the information requesting for
volunteers to help on social media. I've gotten a lot
of people interested. Most of them are from out of
(30:44):
the area, so I don't know how many people. When
it comes down to it, we'll actually book a flight
and travel that far or find a hotel room or
whatever and make it happen. So I don't know how
many people will show up, but YouTube are more than welcome.
We've hung out before, so as we get closer, I
(31:05):
hope to firm up guaranteteed commitments. And that's actually what
I'm engaging to do in this upcoming week is work
out the logistics.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Okay, very interesting. Yeah, do we want to shift our
focus to another case that you've been posting on social media?
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Jason, that's quite up to you. It's your show.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
So I saw you posted about Karen Reid.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
The other day. Oh yeah, oh.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Yes, Look all these cakes. People can get in arguments
on the internet about what they think is happening or
the evidence that's presented, and you know, I really haven't
been following it closely like everyone else's. So I saw
your post about potential wounds to the arm that you'd
(32:04):
mentioned that looked like canine lacerations, and then there seemed
to be a strong opinion about against that. So just
tell me your thought process of these wounds. And you
know Karen Reid's accused of killing her her what was boyfriend? Right?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
They weren't married, right, Well, I think you have a
great panel to address this because both me and Craig
are German shepherd owners, and that is one of the
arguments that is specifically the defense claim that the injuries
to John o'keep's arm were injuries from being assaulted by
(32:47):
a German shepherd named Chloe, which belonged to the owner
of the residence. That John o'keef's body was found that
while he was dying on his front lawn, and this
man was actually a police officer, so none of the
case in my opinion thinks I think it makes much
(33:08):
sense because, okay, you're a police officer. The woman that's
there finds John o'keeper, who knows he's also a police officer,
is lying in the snow on your front lawn dying,
and rather than running to your door and getting you,
which is her brother in law saying hey, come on
(33:29):
out and help, let's call nine one one and wait
ten minutes for the police to show up, and then
you don't bother to wake up your brother in law
at all. And then for starts that does not make sense,
and then they claim that the injuries to his right
arm were the shards of plastic to the tellight assembly
(33:52):
of Karen Reid's lexus. Now, the types of lacerations are
inconsistent in my opinion, to shards of plastic, because they're
going to be superficial. The light assembly is neither in
a vacuum or pressure ups so you're not going to
have an explosion of shards. And since it's shallow in
(34:17):
depth to the bulbs and the reflective components behind the plastic,
it's not like he could put his arm into the
assembly and then withdraw it, creating deep lacerations like if
you went through the panel window of a bank or
a storefront. That's completely different. These lacerations, some of them,
(34:41):
like on his forearm, actually start at a wider angle
when they're shallow, and they narrow in distance as they
go deeper, which is consistent with the angle of German
shepherd teeth. They angle out from below, and they angle
out this way from above. So the further the contact
(35:02):
point of the teeth, the whiter it is, and if
you narrow up, it's going to go narrow on the
on the wounds, so they're like perpendicular in a way,
but they will never intercept. And the other lacerations are
completely parallel, like the two centered clause of my shepherd's pause.
So if Chloe's pause are also that same configuration, it's
(35:28):
going to have that same kind of pattern in the lacerations.
It's like a tool marking from the dog to the human.
It's going to have those same characteristics because there's going
to be a match. If they actually have the canine available,
they can measure the distance of the clause and measure
(35:48):
the distance on the injuries to see what match what.
But as we know from hearing through the trial, they
got rid of the dog. They re home the dog.
Why would you rehune your family pet, you know? And
they sold the home and they which they had for decades,
Why would you sell your house? And coincidentally during the process,
(36:11):
he gets rid of his phone to buy a new phone.
I mean, all these things. Where as trained law enforcement,
you know not to dispose of things that may potentially
become relevant to a proceeding. So I go to jail, right,
So if I go to jail for obstruction, if I
(36:33):
don't produce evidence. Why don't please? You know, it's just
a weird situation. All those coincidences, if innocent, have just
helped make the defense claim. But the only thing that
got my attention, only thing that really got me in
that mindset that Karen Reid should be acquitted not because
(36:55):
she's innocent, but because the state's theory the commonwealth is
so nonsensical to the actual evidence. There's no way that
that's from her telllight assembly, No way, just absolutely not,
especially since the pattern, you know that's like fifteen inches,
(37:16):
the telllight assembly is like a total of nine inches.
Your injury span is going to be bigger than the
pattern of the weapon. So just like when like a
medical examiner measures your injuries. If you know your stab
and the blade goes six inches in, you know you're
(37:36):
dealing with a six inch blade. That just common sense.
It's not ever going to be bigger than the actual
evidence because it's impossible to make that bigger than what
it really is. And getting hit one time by a
car is going to have multiple injuries, like a repeated attack.
(37:56):
So you got a period, you got the bite mark,
you got calaw marks, you got a series of bites.
Here that actually look like it's the back maulers of
a canine, and then got more down here on the forearm.
Craig'll agree with me. Your dog, especially a German shepherd,
picks up on the energy in the room. If you're calm,
(38:19):
your shepherd's calm. If you get excited, your shepherd gets excited.
If you make eye contact, he's on alert. He's staring
you down. If you're in a fight, that dog is engaged.
That's what looks like to me, as an experienced shepherd owner.
I have to I think Craig has two right too.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Yep, I got too and yep that's correct. Yeah, they
read the room very accurately, and obviously they're you know,
they're scent based primarily, so they can actually read anxiety
before it even just shows in terms of the behavioral presentation,
they already pick up on it.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Good addition, Craig, Yeah, they pick up the scent. They
know what's going on before you know what's going on.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
So what really happened to John o'keeth that.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Night, Well, I mean we're left to speculate, but what
it looks like to me is, you know, a bunch
of ego driven cops. They're at the bar, they're drinking heavily.
They go to one of the people's house for an
after party. I think it was Brian Albert's place. Brian
Higgins was with. There was apparently some conversations, some text messaging,
(39:32):
some flirting going on between Karen Reid and Brian Higgins.
So maybe testosterone starts to fly. Someone says something and
next you know, two drunks are having a fight. Happens
all the time. Doesn't mean it can't happen to a cup.
They just have a batch. There's still a human in
that uniform. I mean that, you know. It takes their
(39:53):
clothing off, just like everybody else. So if they get
in a fight because of alcohol induced that's not uncommon,
you know. And cops are human too, So they're in
a fight. After the fight's over, they throw his ass
out and he stumbles off into the snow. They may
not think, oh wow, he's gonna die outside. They may
(40:15):
just simply think that he's gonna snap out of it
in a few minutes, call his girlfriend and get the
f out of here. So they're back in the house.
They don't know what's going on. A few hours go by,
and another there's a oh shit moment we're guilty of something.
It's a fight. I don't see how it's intentional murder
(40:36):
for anybody if it's a fight. So you're embarrassed you've
got in a fight with a cop. Big deal. You know,
it's unfortunate someone dies, but that's you know, how life rolls.
Sometimes there's death involved in life. We all will meet
our death sooner or later.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
So just throwing the Karen Reid under the bus, Yeah,
that's that's a convenient art.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
He's the boyfriend. She used the girlfriend. Blame it on them. Oh,
she must have hit him with her car. We'll make
apples out of oranges and they'll buy it because they're scratches,
but not if the types of scratches are inconsistent. They're
clearly bite marks. Any idiot can tell they're bite marks,
(41:22):
and trust me, I'm an idiot. They're bite marks.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Jason, always a pleasure. You are working on a number
of other I would say high profile cases. So which
ones do you want to mention that you would like
to come back on and talk about, because I know
sometimes you're in the middle of an investigation and you
don't want to share the details yet, But what cases
can we look forward to hearing about from you in
(41:46):
the future.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Sure, I mean at some point I would love to
be open about the investigation that I've spent last year
on the death of Kirk Kopain. It's clear from the
evidence and the review of the documents that are relating
to the question suicide note that they were a forgery.
(42:08):
I went so far as to obtain my private investigator
license in the state of Washington just so that I
can go to the next level in the investigation. We're
in the process of trying to get the case reopened
by the local authorities. This was a Seattle PD case.
(42:29):
It was closed thirty one years ago as a suicide.
But it was an easy mistake to do so because
all of the forces at play led to that conclusion.
His wife at the time reported him missing, said he
had a shotgun, said he was suicidal, and then you
find him dead with a shotgun. That's an easy conclusion
(42:52):
to draw if you don't do professional analysis on the
suicide note to determine that it was a So I
looked at the suicide note. You can clearly tell that
the upper portion has a different writing style than the bottom.
So you either are looking at a document that has
(43:15):
writing that was written in two different time frames, under
two different stressors, or by two different authors. And it
was that bottom portion that was identified to be the
suicidal indicators. If you will, you know that had that
overtone of suicide. That fix to the top portion of
(43:37):
the letter was talking about breaking up the band, and
then there was a sign off, and then all of
a sudden, there's a new portion of the bottom. That's
a little weird. But you know, if someone looks at
and says that it's a suicide note without deep analysis,
it's an easy conclusion. But since then a lot of
(43:58):
details come out that really reinforces the notion that it
was not a suicide. So that's where we're at. But
I'm at the moment, I'm on the moms about the
details because I really am in the process of working
with the Seattle PD to reopen it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Okay, I'm excited. And when you come back on for
the episode of Kurt Cobain, maybe we can have your
FORENSA canwriting expert join us to discuss that suicide note.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
I'm sure they'd enjoyed that.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Okay, that's awesome. So coming up Crime Con, Jason Jensen,
you're going to be there. I'm going to be there,
and we don't know about Craig. We've invited Craig.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
He needs to be there. The gang's got to get
back together.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
I'm trying to get it. Yeah, I'm trying to get
it set up.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You do that, Craig, because we have a lot of
fun together and I'm really excited to see you guys
in person because we only talk over the internet. We
really never see each other in person. So we got
to hang out and then I'm excited to meet other people.
Jason has a lot of connections and talk about some
of these cases. I think there's going to be some
(45:12):
you know, all the other podcasters out there that are
doing true crime, and so that's coming up in September.
So if you're going to Crime Con, give us a
shout out. Let us know you're going to be there
so we can connect and do some clouts in the future.
But Jason Jensen, always a pleasure to see you, and
of course Craig Wetter So I can't wait for our
(45:35):
next discussion. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
It's great to hang out with you. Too.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Again, thank you for listening to Killer Psychologist. To watch
full video episodes or if you want to interact with me,
you can find Killer Psychologists on YouTube. You can also
get notified of new episodes by signing up in my
stand store Now. If you want to work with me,
(46:00):
you can book a console. My website is psychologydoctor dot com.
That's Psychology d R dot com.
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