Brian Koberger — The Internet is Obsessed with an Idaho Killer who Looks like Ted Bundy

In the English—speaking segment of the Internet, passions have been raging for several months around Bryan Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology from the United States. He is accused of murdering four students in Idaho in November 2022. But he became a hero of the world Wide web not because he is beautiful as a god and not because he killed because of high ideas. It's just that Koberger's persona and the circumstances of his case themselves are so mysterious that they cannot but excite minds.

In November 2022, three girls and a guy died on the campus of Moscow, Idaho. They were mercilessly stabbed right in the house by an unknown person who managed to escape. The victims were 21-year-old friends Madison Mogen and Kylie Gonsalves, 20-year-old Zana Kernodl and her peer Ethan Chapin, with whom she was dating.

The girls rented a house while studying at college, and Ethan came to visit his girlfriend. There were two other students in the house on the night of the murder, but they were not injured. The murder shocked American society, but the police kept everything a secret. Users of social networks built hypotheses and shared rumors. They didn't have much at their disposal—an excerpt from a surveillance camera in the city center. It shows Kylie, Madison and a man.

A month after the murder, it became known that the police were looking for a man in a white Hyundai Elantra car. She can be seen in the footage from several cameras in the campus area on the night of the murder. At the same time, it remained a secret whether they suspected him of committing murder or wanted to interrogate him as a witness.

And just before the New year, the news reported that a suspect in the case had been detained. It turned out to be a 28-year-old graduate student of the Department of Criminology at Washington State University, Brian Koberger. The man lived near Moscow, in the town of Pullman. But he was detained not at home, but on the other side of the country, in the state of Pennsylvania. He was staying at his father's house, and he came to him in a white Hyundai Elantra.

But the car wasn't the only reason to suspect Koberger. One of the neighbors of the victims, who was in the house at the time of the tragedy, still saw the killer. She woke up at night from a noise under the window and decided that it was coming back from a walk with her dog Kylie. The girl even heard her voice saying to someone, "There is someone here." She looked out into the courtyard, but there was no one there.

A few minutes later, she heard a woman crying from Zana's room and a man's voice. He calmed the girl and said that he would help her. Interested in these voices, the girl came out of her room and saw a man in the hallway. He was tall, of strong build and in dark clothes. Most of his face was hidden by a mask, but his eyes and thick eyebrows were clearly visible.

This superficial description suited Koberger. That night, an unknown person just walked past a neighbor and quickly left the house. The police asked the mobile operator for information about the suspect's phone and found out another interesting detail. It turns out that Koberger's gadget was turned off that night from 2:47 to 4:48. It was during this period of time that someone dealt with the students.

Everyone was waiting for the main clue. The killer left a hunting knife case at the crime scene. When the DNA analysis was ready, there was an iron reason to suspect a graduate student criminologist. The samples completely matched those taken by the police in a trash can near the house of Koberger's father in Pennsylvania.

In January, a Pennsylvania court decided to extradite the suspect to Idaho. Currently, Brian Koberger is awaiting trial, which is scheduled to take place in the summer of 2023. Despite the serious evidence, the graduate student continues to make statements about his innocence through his lawyer.

The investigation strictly keeps a secret, so journalists do not know anything about whether the killer was familiar with his victims. The lawyer of the Goncalves family said that Koberger once wrote something to Kylie in the Instagram direct, but they most likely did not see each other personally.

The lack of reliable information further provoked netizens and many enthusiasts began to investigate. And they managed to discover something interesting. Homegrown detectives found a Facebook account with the nickname Papa Rodger. They assumed that with a high degree of probability it belonged to the killer. The user was a member of the University of Idaho Murders — Case Discussion group, where high-profile murders were discussed and was an active participant in it.

One detail attracted the attention of curious users. Anonymous Papa Rodger in one of the posts suggested that the killer lost a knife case at the scene of the crime. But official information about this appeared in the local press later. The screenshot clearly shows that the post was published on November 30. At that time, Koberger was still walking free.

In December, the same mysterious user already assured everyone that the white car from the surveillance cameras had nothing to do with the case. And on the day of Koberger's arrest, Papa Rodger's account was blocked. It is still unknown whether it belonged to the killer or it was just a series of strange coincidences. Later we found another post, already on Reddit. There, a man who introduced himself as Brian Koberger, a student, addressed people who had committed crimes:

Now this post is no longer there, and the account from which it was published has been deleted. There were several other users who actively speculated about the murder in Idaho and also seemed suspicious. But what made the most noise was not the correspondence in social networks, but the photo of Koberger from the courtroom.

In the pictures, the suspect looked very much like serial killer Ted Bundy. After that, Internet users found other similarities between Bundy and Koberger. Both were in fraternities, attended the University of Washington, and both considered themselves smarter than investigators.

There was also a cult of the killer. Groups dedicated to Koberger have appeared online, such as Brynation on Reddit. In them, users discuss the identity of the criminal, make assumptions and even create postcards and memes with him. It got to the point that one of Koberger's fans, 35-year-old Kentucky resident Brittney Hipslop, wrote him a letter in prison with declarations of love and offered to marry him.

In one of the posts on the social network, a woman reflected on how her relationship with a likely killer would have developed:

Of course, Brittney got into a real tornado of Haight. Someone assumes that she is just being promoted, someone - that she suffers from hybristophilia, attraction to villains.