Autopsy Findings Lay Bare the Full Horror of Bryan Kohberger Attack

Even years later, the 2022 University of Idaho killings continue to send chills down the spine. On November 13, 2022 four students—Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, and Xana Kernodle—were stabbed to death in an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho. A forensic expert has said that the perpetrator, Bryan Kohberger, was trying to play out a “psychosexual fantasy” when he killed the students.

Kohberger is currently serving four consecutive life sentences in prison without parole and an additional ten years for burglary. He reportedly initially targeted Mogen, but killed everyone he found inside the house with her. “This was a targeted psychosexual fantasy probably aimed at one individual in the house,” forensic psychologist Gary Brucato said in an interview with the Daily Mail.

Brucato said Kohberger “overestimated himself and underestimated women." Detectives suspected that all the four killings occurred between 4 and 4:25 a.m. Kernodle was believed to be awake when the attacker entered the house because she collected a food order at 4 a.m. and was active on TikTok at about 4:12 a.m. Experts theorize Kohberger did not expect to find so many people in the house, let alone awake.

“He went in there thinking he was going to destroy and dominate a woman, and a woman saw him and fought with him. So he was furious with her,” Brucato said.

The New York Post reported that the attacker stabbed Kernodle 67 times, Mogen 28 times, Chapin 17 times, and Goncalves 38 times, according to the autopsy results.

Since Mogen suffered fewer wounds than the other two women, Brucato said she may have been the primary target. He expected to fulfill a sexually-motivated fantasy with Mogen, but the presence of others in the house angered him.

“You punish the ones who see you, the people who interrupt your fantasy,” Brucato told Daily Mail.

Brucato said he believes Mogen was attacked first and when Goncalves defended her friend, he got aggressive with her. “That’s why you see so much rage towards Kaylee (Goncalves). I think Maddie (Mogen) was the primary target and Kaylee was not supposed to be there,” he said.

“Looking at the order in which we think the victims died – Maddie, Kaylee, Xana and Ethan – for the women, the numbers of injuries are increasing because it’s getting more and more frenzied as he’s moving away from the initial murder. He is losing control more and more so is attacking more intensely,” Brucato said.

At the time of the killings, Kohberger was pursuing a Ph.D at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman. He was a doctoral student in criminology and had completed his first semester there just nine days before his arrest.

He also worked as a teaching assistant at WSU, and less than two weeks before the murders, faculty members met Kohberger to discuss complaints about his behavior toward women.