{"id":797684,"date":"2026-08-01T16:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797684\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T16:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T16:27:09","slug":"bryan-kohbergers-choice-of-a-house-full-of-women-may-hold-the-key-to-the-idaho-murders-biggest-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797684\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryan Kohberger’s choice of ‘a house full of women’ may hold the key to the Idaho murders’ biggest mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryan Kohberger <\/a>took the motive for the Idaho murders to his prison cell. <\/p>\n

One filmmaker believes the answer may lie in why he chose the house he attacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that [this] was the house that he chose. This was a house that had five women living in it. The night that the murders happened, Xana Kernodle\u2019s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was over, but really, this was a house full of women, and it seems quite clear that he targeted it,\u201d Skye Borgman, director of the Netflix docuseries \u201cThe Idaho Murders: College Nightmare,\u201d told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe watched the house; he was around the house in the days, weeks and months leading up to the murders,\u201d Borgman said. \u201cSo, it seems pretty likely that he had a very low regard,<\/a> if not hatred, for women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all conjecture, but he seemed to struggle with his relationships with women,\u201d Borgman explained. \u201cAnd we look at this incel movement and the question of whether or not he was an incel, and whether or not he didn\u2019t like women.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that there was a hatred of women there,\u201d Borgman added.<\/p>\n

Kohberger, 31, is serving four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to\u00a0the 2022 stabbing murders<\/a>\u00a0of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho.<\/p>\n

Bryan Kohberger is is seen in the Ada County Courthouse after his sentencing hearing, Wednesday, July 23, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Before his arrest, former classmate Lilly Karaban recalled him as someone with a \u201chis way or the highway\u201d attitude who seemed to exist \u201cin his own world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interviews, court records and accounts featured in the documentary described a series of troubling interactions involving Kohberger.<\/p>\n

According to the documentary,\u00a0<\/a>classmates described him as \u201cnot particularly well liked,\u201d saying he frequently spoke down to women, engaged in \u201cmansplaining\u201d and became argumentative or aggressive during interactions. Several students said they found him \u201ccreepy\u201d and that he made them feel uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were just strange incidents and strange behavior,\u201d\u00a0Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger\u00a0<\/a>said in the documentary.<\/p>\n

Former Washington State University Police Chief Gary Jenkins recalled another student\u2019s account of feeling cornered by Kohberger during an aggressive encounter. She also believed he occasionally followed her to her car. Kohberger was ultimately terminated from his teaching assistant position.<\/p>\n

Final photo of the victims, pictured just hours before their untimely deaths. Instagram\/Xana Kernodle<\/p>\n

Jenkins said none of the reported incidents were referred to police because \u201cnothing that occurred rose to the level of a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Jacobson, an FBI special agent involved in the investigation, said in the documentary that \u201cwe never saw evidence that shows Bryan Kohberger is part of the incel movement,\u201d an online community of mostly men who say they can\u2019t find romantic or sexual partners and often direct their frustration toward women.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u00a0Bryan Kohberger\u00a0was very good at hiding his online activity,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

For Borgman, the biggest question surrounding the Idaho murders remains the one Kohberger has never answered: why?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to, I think, along with the rest of the world, know why he did what he did,\u201d she told Fox News Digital. \u201cBut it is one of those things that I don\u2019t think any of us will ever know. That\u2019s a frustrating thing for myself \u2026 and I know especially for the families. They wish so truly that he had been forced through the terms of his plea deal to give us more information about the why of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the documentary, Karaban said she believed Kohberger \u201chas a thing against women based on the description of what he did to those poor three girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cPeople who brutalize women the way Kohberger did dislike them, find them threatening,\u201d she said. \u201cSo they take all that anger out on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Award-winning author James Patterson, who wrote a book on the case, previously told Fox News Digital his reporting uncovered multiple accounts of Kohberger engaging in unwanted interactions with women before his arrest.<\/p>\n

At Seven Sirens Brewing Company\u00a0in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,\u00a0Kohberger would push his way into unwanted conversations with female bartenders and patrons. He went as far as asking for their addresses. Some women, according to the book, complained to the brewery\u2019s owner about \u201cthe creepy guy with the bulging eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much everybody we talked to just said, \u2018This is a strange man with a strange look \u2014 couldn\u2019t look people in the eye,’\u201d Patterson said. \u201cIf he did look you in the eye, sometimes people wished that he hadn\u2019t. And his impression of himself was totally out of whack with the way other people perceived him.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a police report obtained by Fox News Digital, an exotic dancer said a man she now believes was Kohberger visited the club where she worked in 2019, about two hours from his family\u2019s Pennsylvania home. She told investigators that while she was performing, the man remarked that he wanted to kill people. When she jokingly asked who, she said he replied, \u201cWhoever I want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dried blood stains the foundation under the bedroom where Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found stabbed to death. Kai Eiselein for NY Post<\/p>\n

Believing he was trying to get her attention, she alerted bouncers to keep an eye on him. She said the encounter didn\u2019t stand out again until she saw Kohberger\u2019s photo on television after his arrest and became fairly certain he was the man she had encountered.<\/p>\n

Borgman believes Kohberger was trying \u201cto commit the perfect crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe failed in doing that,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think his silence is a way of attempting to keep the spotlight focused on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borgman said police are also \u201cgrappling with the why.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spoke to one of the FBI agents who worked the case, and he essentially says, \u2018You\u2019ve got to be OK with not knowing,’\u201d Borgman said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s really hard for humans to do: be OK with not knowing. And to crawl inside somebody\u2019s mind and figure out the whys \u2026 it\u2019s impossible. And I think that\u2019s one of the reasons people followed this case for so long. \u2026 That question of the why still lingers with just about everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

After years of searching for answers, the victims\u2019 families are no longer waiting for them, Borgman said. Instead, they\u2019re focused on honoring their loved ones\u2019 legacies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they expect the perpetrator to talk,\u201d she said. \u201d \u2026 The families now are looking forward, not backward. \u2026 Every one of them is committed to trying to help families who may be going through something like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo while I don\u2019t want to say they\u2019re hopeful, every one of them is taking this tragedy and trying to make something good out of it because that\u2019s the only thing they can do,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can\u2019t carry around the hatred in their lives, or else it\u2019ll just consume them. So they carry the love forward. And the love is really with Ethan, Maddie, Kaylee and Xana.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kohberger recently tried to withdraw his guilty plea for the Moscow, Idaho murders, alleging coercion. James Keivom for NY Post<\/p>\n

Just two days before the documentary premiered on July 29, Kohberger made a dramatic bid to withdraw his guilty plea. He asked a judge to let him stand trial instead, alleging his attorneys pressured him into accepting a plea deal by promising better prison conditions and warning him about life on death row.<\/p>\n

In his request, Kohberger said his attorneys didn\u2019t adequately represent him and that his guilty plea wasn\u2019t knowingly or voluntarily entered because it \u201cwas induced by unkept promises\u201d and threats, The Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Kohberger said he was pleading guilty \u201cfreely and voluntarily.\u201d In doing so, he agreed to waive his rights to appeal, confirm that he understood the penalties for the crimes and assure the court that he wasn\u2019t coerced by his attorneys or anyone else to enter the plea. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Borgman said some investigators involved with the case were so\u00a0shaken by the crime\u00a0and its impact on Moscow that \u201cthey don\u2019t work in law enforcement anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that was too much, and they ended up leaving the police force,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s important, I think, to really factor into what happened, the incredible toll it takes on law enforcement and the incredible toll it takes on the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people felt fear,\u201d she said. \u201cThe fear was so deep that they weren\u2019t leaving their homes. And that fear, along with the arrest of the perpetrator, also led to this amazing feeling of community. It brought people together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryan Kohberger took the motive for the Idaho murders to his prison cell. One filmmaker believes the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[45941,88,38137,336397,194],"class_list":["post-797684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bryan-kohberger","tag-entertainment","tag-murders","tag-university-of-idaho-murders","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}