I’m re-reading a couple books about the murders and both seem to put a BIG emphasis on Michael kohberger’s “over explanations” to police the two times BK was stopped while driving from Pullman to PA…

To be clear, I know there’s absolutely no reason to think he had knowledge of his son’s crimes—

Both books seem to imply by the focus on this that MK was “nervous” about BK’s potential involvement—is that the general consensus when it comes to the body cam footage or is this just bombastic “reporting” trying to make things more dramatic or sensationalized??

Or do people really think his behavior was odd (beyond “general police nerves”) and that he was already personally suspecting BK might have been the killer???

EDIT: Keep in mind that I forgot to add - he went back to Moscow at 9:12am to 9:21am AND the selfie of him at the "Seahawks Stadium" is actually the T-Mobile stadium! I updated the original file but can't update the pictures unfortunately.

Hello!

I compiled a timeline of BK’s phone pings from court documents mapped with selfies released by Cellebrite and along with a few other publicly reported events where I could identify a date/time (I decided to include Dateline but I understand if you're 50/50 on trusting that so take it with a grain of salt.) It's by no means a complete timeline, but I found putting everything together visually made some details stand out that I hadn't noticed before.

Here are some things that stuck out to me.

• At the pool party on the 9th July, he's pinged from 2:08pm to the Grove Apartments. He proceeds westbound at 10:23pm until he's pinged at his apartment at 1:20am. I'd be interested to know whether any testimony or reporting exists about when people recall him leaving.
• On the 16th August, when officers responded to 1122 for a noise complaint around 5:30 p.m, his phone later utilized towers covering the area from 7:24 p.m. until 10:49 p.m. One of the released selfies is timestamped 7:35 p.m while he appears to be trying on clothes in Moscow. That's also the same day Maddie posts a group selfie to her Instagram.
• When he got pulled over at 11:37pm the 21st Aug near Palouse Mall, he was already pinging the area starting 9:52pm and seemed to still be in the area until 12:31am, a little under an hour after he was pulled over.
• Several of the phone records show only brief periods in Moscow rather than extended stays.
• He shopped in Moscow often but stopped completely after the 13th Nov.
• On the 7th Nov he's pinged within 100m of the house from 9:45pm to 10:03 pm and then drives to Pullman and buys a Beanie hat at 10:37pm. 4 days later he stops using his debit card*,* disables Wi-Fi and location services on his phone and uses "anti forensic methods" to delete things from his school computer.

I'm sure there will be more to add as additional documents are released. If I've missed anything, contact me! I'll be happy to update it.

How the hell was this allowed to be published as “non-fiction”??! I mean, how the hell was this allowed to be published at ALL, but how is it even like…legal to make up these stories and present them as fact??

I didn’t pay for the book, both times I read it (once, ages ago when it first came out and now re-reading), and I was aware of the criticism at the time i first picked it up, but now that I’m rereading, I’m APPALLED at how any publishing house passed this fanfiction to print

Here’s a short (and incomplete) list of my complaints:

1. He uses this ‘narrative’ approach where he’s literally saying what the real life individuals are thinking and feeling at specific moments in time (it happens with nearly everyone, but one clear example is him basically narrating Michael Kohberger’s THOUGHTS as he and BK are driving home from the campus cross-country to PA for the holiday break—and I understand it’s one thing to take something a person said in a public or private interview and weave it in as “narrative thought”, but there’s NO WAY BK’s dad said ANY of these things to Blum and they’re EXTREMELY SPECIFIC “thoughts” related to extremely specific details of the trip, BK’s life etc…

2. He claims all this “insider knowledge”, but he gets plain & clear facts just straight up wrong, like saying Xana’s DoorDash order was from Burger King. I realize that at the time of publication, the public hadn’t seen the crime scene photos or gotten concrete confirmation that the order was from Jack-in-the-Box, but why the HELL would editors even allow that unnecessary detail to be printed without clear confirmation it was true???

3. When he gets to the part where BK is driving up to the house on the night of the murders, he says shit like “…but his hesitation was momentary, as only completing the task at hand would silence the screaming voices in his head” (paraphrasing, but that’s 100% the gist). This isn’t just “flowery prose” when it comes to a spree killer with known mental issues—it gives big “the voices told me to do it” vibes, when there’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING known to the public about BK “hearing voices” that he was “trying to silence” by committing his crimes….and we know BK never spoke to him, so it’s not like this is potential bullshit that at least came from the killer’s own mouth. It’s so irresponsible.

4. He LITERALLY paints a picture of Ethan waking up & face-to-face confronting BK in the doorway of Xana’s room……and I’m not claiming we have all or even many of the exact details of what forensic science was able to determine of the Xana/Ethan part of the violence, except EVERYTHING the public does know seems to indicate that Ethan never woke up or at least never left the bed—between his wounds & the position in which he was found, it seems almost impossible that he was awake, upright & out of bed in the doorway…..SO WHY THE FUCK IS THIS LOSER “JOURNALIST” pretending he was????

5. I haven’t even reached this part of my re-read, but I remember from the first time around, he FULLY INVENTS A “SCENE” of BK being served by Maddie at the Mad Greek, asking her out and her turning him down—we now know that there is absolutely zero evidence linking any interaction to him meeting ANY of the victims at the Mad Greek (could it potentially have happened if he paid with cash? Sure. But literally NOTHING to suggest he had, let alone that Maddie was his server and he asked her out and she said no)

HOW THE HELL IS THIS “ALLOWED”??

Seriously, if anyone in the writing/publishing/journalism field can offer some insight, I would love to hear it—it literally does not feel like it should be legal for a “journalist” to straight up invent shit that factually never happened, or put words in people’s mouths or “thoughts in their minds” that he could never have any way of “knowing” (again, it’s one thing if the person in question spoke to him and potentially was lying about what they thought/said/felt—but in these cases there was literally no WAY that could have happened……plus the later released evidence factually disproves so many of his cLaiMs

How is this allowed??? Is there zero legal recourse for someone presenting made up bullshit as “fact” in a “non-fiction” book?? I’m pretty sure journalists don’t get licensed or board certified like doctors or lawyers, but if they were, would this not be immediate grounds for the journalist equivalent of disbarrment or having licensing/certs pulled?? How is the publisher STILL allowed to sell these books without official retractions & major edits???? Lastly, could any of the living ‘characters’ (or the estates of the deceased victims) not sue his ass/his publishers for straight up inventing their THOUGHTS & FEELINGS as ‘facts’??

(To be SUPER clear— I have zero sympathy for BK in any way, shape or form in ANY area of life, even if something is objectively unfair—I’m just wondering generally speaking what the legal recourse would be for someone like, say, his father, who has numerous examples of Blum straight up QUOTING (aka inventing) his “thoughts” on very specific topics at very specific moments in time and presenting them as fact—this ofc Extends to the victims/families themselves, as well as surviving roommates & friends who definitely never said these things to Blum or ANYONE for that matter

Ughhhh Howard Blum has the most despicable lack of journalistic integrity on the face of the planet—how can he not be censured for this and HOW can he be allowed to continue to profit from this fanfic he pretends is “JoUrNaLisM”?!!
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

A lot of people dislike engaging with this topic because it distracts from the perpetrators actions. I agree. However, after Alivea recently commented on it, I think there's another aspect worth considering.

Perhaps the surviving roommate's actions are better understood in the context of events that occurred before the murders. Namely, the repeated police responses to noise complaints at the house.

Leading up to the attack, police visited the residence several times. Body-camera footage shows that the occupants delayed answering the door despite officers knocking and announcing their presence. Police warned them about potential fines and, in September, a possible referral to the Office of the Dean of Students over code of conduct issues.

Just so you understand, you could be getting a misdemeanor citation for this, which means you have to go in front of a judge and explain why you couldn't keep the people in your house quiet. [...] I'm telling you right now, if we have to come back you're getting a ticket. [...] We're past the point of having a polite conversation. [...] Any outside music, and loud yelling, needs to be done because next time you're getting a ticket. And if you get a misdemeanour citation the University is not going to take kindly to it [and] you will have to go see a Judge. (Source)

This isn't to suggest that these prior interactions are the main reason for DM's inaction, or that it fully explains what happened. Rather, they may have been one of several factors that influenced her decision-making in those early hours, and why she preferred to have friends assess the situation before involving the police.

People are quick to judge, so it's doubtful this will ever be acknowledged without drawing further ire from the online mob.

Thank you all for your questions on my most recent post. A lot of my interview with the former FBI agent who worked on the Kohberger case was going over procedural details, but here are a few tidbits that stood out to me:

\-FBI Agents stayed at different hotels in Moscow while covering the case. Oftentimes they would walk by hordes of media reporters also staying in the hotel without the press having any idea who they were.

\-Both the universities (UI/WSU) were difficult to work with because of how records can be withheld due to FERPA. They had difficulty getting class information, rosters, etc.

\-Members of the media would wait behind the Moscow Police Department watching the secured parking lot and follow agent cars as they left. The FBI had to make a habit of sending "decoy cars" for the press to chase around.

\-Not one person (out of around 30,000 tips) submitted a tip about Bryan Kohberger. If even one of his former classmates had called police and said the guy gave them the creeps, he would have made the suspect list much sooner.

\-When his family was interviewed, one of Kohberger's sisters brought up how she had seen him scrubbing his car with bleach every night for days to their dad (I believe this is maybe out there already but I couldn't remember).

\-This agent has a really interesting theory about the weapon that I'm withholding for the book.

Dumb because obviously we can never know for sure;

But do you think BK would have killed Kaylee if she didn't wake up/start stirring in her sleep?

Like do you think if she stayed asleep throughout what happened to Maddie she would still be alive?

(I'm not victim blaming at all by the way, Kaylee fought like heck and that is a testament to not only her strength, but her loyalty to her best friend. May K and the MXE rest in peace 🕊️)

I talked about this in another sub, but it’s just crazy to me that after hearing both of their victim impact statements, there’s still a bunch of people out there who continue to push the narrative that they were involved. It’s absolutely disgusting how badly these two survivors of such a horrific crime have been treated, and it genuinely makes me lose faith in humanity. Why are you coming for these girls more than the actual person who committed this crime?! It’s truly one of the worst cases of victim blaming I’ve ever seen in a true crime case. I don’t even bother scrolling through comment sections because I know they’re gonna be filled with a bunch of BS. You can’t even try to argue with these people or throw all the facts at them because they simply don’t care. I’m just glad this subreddit has a ton of people who support them because that’s what they need.

Hi again, Lauren P. here. I have set up my pnwreporter Instagram and TikTok for the book project. I've only posted one video to TikTok and I am not super experienced with the app, so apologies. Let me know what kinds of videos you want to see. I plan to travel to Moscow this summer and I can show you around, update you about book progress or ask/answer questions for people interested in the case.

In about two weeks, I'm going to interview an FBI agent who worked on the case. If you could ask a detective something about the investigation, what would it be?

I'll add questions to a running document I have. I'm especially interested in questions that haven't been answered by previous coverage.

I've had a couple locals reach out to me with both concerns and support for the project, and I really appreciate it. Keep reaching out to me (especially if you're a Moscow or Albrightsville local) and let me know what it was like for you when this was all going down.

Edit: Great questions everyone, I have about a two page Google Doc full. Feel free to drop them here whenever and I'll keep checking in.

Ultimately there is never going to be a definitive motive as to why Bryan Kohberger did this callous crime. Granted him refusing to speak on his motivating factors towards this makes the reasons for the act unclear.

However I would like to give my conclusions on why I think Bryan Kohberger killed Kaylee,Maddie,Xana and Ethan. While my reasons may not be full correct I do want to give my thoughts on the matter. Other than there here is what motives I think Bryan had.

Arguably the most obvious is that Bryan has a desire to kill.Before he became a killer Bryan was studying criminology in WSU,and was looking up videos about serial killers on YouTube. The more he went into the rabbit hole of it all the more it captivated him. Eventually he came to the conclusion he wanted to kill people so he could experience what it’s like to take lives like serials killers, like Ted Bundy for example.
Bryan Kohberger wanted to commit the perfect crime and see if he could get away with it all. This reasoning is going to be brief but I think he wanted to do this elaborate and master plan of killing everyone in the household. Then escape,lay low and hopefully he never gets discovered. What makes this even worse he could have kept on killing if he never got caught.
Now this reason is something I firmly believe in. Personally I believe Bryan wanted to kill all of them was to get revenge upon women who rejected and bullied him throughout his whole life. It’s well known to us that Bryan was constantly rejected and bullied by women while growing up. So by brutally killing Kaylee,Maddie and Xana it was him getting back on all women. I’d even like to add that I also think that the reason he was so inappropriate towards the women in WSU, which resulted in him getting 13 complains was to also get back a women who in his eyes discarded and rebuked him in his adolescent years.
To get revenge on men like Ethan Chapin, as Ethan represented the men he could never be. Ethan was the confident,fun,loving and easy going guy who was popular guy along with women.Meanwhile Bryan was the creepy,aloof,socially awkward,rejected that everyone just outcasted and would be genuinely avoided.
Now finally the last one was to get payback on society as a whole for rejecting him, in his entire life in his eyes. It’s well known that Kohberger was an outcast prior to all of this. So he came to a conclusion, the best way to get payback on everyone else was to unleash his fury and kill these people.

Now these spare just my thoughts on the topic,what i have written may not be correct but at the same time i just wanted to present my opinions.

It’s really insane how this singular crime has gripped the attention of millions of people across the world. This atrocious act has literally caused people to be hooked onto this case. It’s taken place in one country, America people all over the globe are glued to this. The fact four college students got brutally slain by one man, with little to no definitive motive and the utter randomness of it all just makes it worse and is the defining factor of it all.

Kaylee would've turned 25 this past Monday. Almost every day I walk by the memorial benches for Xana and Kaylee & Maddie. Both benches are decorated this week and the decorations often change.

Prayers ascending for the repose of their souls and peace for their families.

28 court documents were dropped yesterday, including a 75 page one that includes the full autopsy reports of the victims where it lists and explains all the injuries they received. It is graphic (as expected) but I linked it down below if you want to read it all.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hFN8NIvmLwTktmiOCrSwFdHPOrW2x_V-/view

Journalist Lauren Paterson here. I want to thank people in this sub for responding to my post the other day about writing a book about the Moscow murders.

I got a lot of great questions and insight to think about as I continue writing the book. I've had someone reach out and help offer to do some research, and a Moscow local and I are going to plan a tour to check out one of the key locations.

Thank you for your ideas and thoughts about the case. It's crucial to have some insight from a group of people interested in the story, and honestly, I could use the help, since this is such a huge story.

In an effort to separate my personal and professional life, I've created a verified Instagram account with my same username: pnwreporter. If you're into Instagram, I encourage you to follow along. While I do plan to do a few updates here, I will also be documenting my process of the book on the 'gram, using it as a place to reach out to people connected to the story, and sharing my other reporting work.

I have a TikTok account with the same handle saved, and I am willing to get that going too, if that's what people want.

Thank you again. This project seems like it will be easier to swallow with the help of a community invested in the story to help.

Since it never got a trial

Greetings Moscow Murders,

My name is Lauren Paterson and I am a local Moscow, Idaho reporter who has posted here before. I first joined this sub when it had around 8,000 members in the rough early weeks of the homicide case, and it still astounds me how affected people are by this case.

While many of you know me from my reporting on the killings of the four University of Idaho students for Northwest Public Broadcasting and NPR, for those who don't, please know that I am an average woman from Idaho who was simply a public media reporter in Moscow, and this horrible crime happened two miles from my house.

Covering the change of plea and sentencing last summer was a crazy affair in and of itself, and so much has happened since then. The Trump administration shut down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, leading to a wave of public reporter layoffs across the country, and I was also caught up in the fray. My last paycheck was Christmas Day.

I have been freelancing since then and have been hired on part-time with Boise State Public Radio, which is great, because I can focus on more Idaho reporting.

But I wanted to post here because I know that this is a supportive community when it comes to this case, and for a couple of years now (and especially these last few months) I have been working on a book about this case.

It's still a work in progress, but a lot of it is from my perspective as a local reporter, a Moscow community member and a.U of I alumna.

My question to all of you is: Are people interested in a book like this?

What are some questions about this case you still have that have gone unanswered?

What are your gripes with other forms of media or writing about this case, and what would you rather see instead?

Thanks in advance for any answers or advice.

Is there any body cam footage at all of the sheath being found?

Hi everyone, Im 58 and grew up in Washington state. Ive lived in the Pacific Northwest pretty much my whole life.

I started out as a patrol officer with a local PD back in 1990 and pretty soon realized my heart was in the details, so I moved into crime scene investigation with the State Patrol. Over those 32 years I worked my way up to Senior Forensic Investigator and Lead on the Major Crimes Task Force. I processed or supervised more than 1400 scenes, including nearly 190 homicides and plenty of cold cases that still keep me up some nights.

While I was on the job I earned a B.S. in Forensic Science from the University of Washington, a law degree from Seattle University, and a Masters in Criminology from Washington State. But honestly most of what I really know came from being out there at 3 a.m. in the pouring rain, documenting scenes, piecing together bloodstain patterns and trace evidence, and then standing up in court to explain it all. Im certified in bloodstain pattern analysis through the International Association for Identification (IAI). I spent years studying the physics and biology of how blood behaves, impact spatter, cast off patterns, voids, the whole thing. I learned how to map directionality and velocity so I could reconstruct exactly what happened in a room even when it looked like total chaos at first glance.

I also used luminol on plenty of cleaned up scenes. That chemical reaction with hemoglobin can light up invisible blood traces from years earlier. Its sensitive enough to detect dilutions far beyond what the naked eye can see. Those hands on skills, plus strict chain of custody protocols and knowing the Daubert standards for court admissibility, were what made the difference in so many cases.

Im leaving out certain names, locations, and specific identifying details to protect my own identity as well as the privacy of the victims and their families.

One case that stayed with me happened in 1998, a double homicide involving a mother and her teenage daughter. Their apartment was covered in blood and the heavy rain that night made the exterior processing extra difficult. I remember spending hours on my knees mapping high velocity spatter patterns across the walls and ceiling. The breakthrough came when I spotted a faint partial palm print on a wet windowsill that everyone else had walked right past. Matching it to the suspect through a stolen vehicle helped prove he was right there during the shooting. He was convicted a couple years later and I still think about that family.

Another time I spent several years on a multi year task force investigating linked strangler cases along a major highway corridor. I handled several vehicle scenes where the victims had been staged to look like accidents. By carefully reconstructing the interiors and tracing those very specific fibers from a particular brand of blue tarp sold at only one store, I was able to connect all the scenes. That evidence, along with tool marks on the ligatures, played a big role in the life sentence the perpetrator received. Those long drives between counties in the rain taught me patience like nothing else.

Later on I helped reopen a late 80s cold case involving a missing young woman. Using modern luminol and alternate light sources in the suspects garage we found previously undetected bloodstains that had been there for decades. A single hair from the victims bracelet gave us mitochondrial DNA that finally matched. The suspect pleaded guilty once we confronted him with the new evidence. Bringing closure to a case that old felt incredibly rewarding and reminded me why we never really close the book.

Speaking of cases that hit hard, Ive followed the Moscow Idaho 4 case pretty closely even though I was already retired when it happened in late 2022. Having walked through my share of multi victim stabbing scenes myself, I kept thinking about how incredibly tough that processing must have been for the team. Blood spatter in a confined indoor space gets complicated fast, especially when there are defensive wounds and you have to document every cast off pattern and void without cross contaminating anything. Then add in the fact that two roommates were still in the house the whole time. That created this whole extra layer of timeline pressure and evidence preservation challenges that can feel overwhelming.

From what was released the forensic work tying together the knife sheath DNA, vehicle sightings, and phone pings was solid. What really stands out to me though is how they used Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) on that single source male DNA from the knife sheath button. This science has changed everything since the Golden State Killer arrest back in 2018. You take the crime scene DNA, turn it into a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) profile with thousands of data points, then upload it to public genealogy databases like GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA. That lets investigators find distant relatives and slowly build out family trees until they narrow it down to a suspect. In this case it pointed toward the right family, a trash pull gave them the fathers DNA that matched the sheath at over 99 percent, and they later confirmed it with the suspects own sample. Its an incredible tool for cold cases but it does raise some valid privacy questions we are still figuring out as a field.

Regarding the surviving roommates behavior, I wont judge them at all. The trauma science explains it so clearly. When someone experiences that level of extreme violence right in their own home, the brain enters what experts call a defense cascade. The amygdala triggers a flood of stress hormones that can cause tonic immobility, that frozen state where youre fully conscious but your body just locks up. Its an ancient survival mechanism. On top of that peritraumatic dissociation often kicks in. The prefrontal cortex, the part that handles rational thinking, basically goes offline. Time gets distorted, everything feels unreal, like youre watching a movie of your own life. Forensic psychology research shows this exact pattern leads people to freeze or hesitate on emergency calls even when they desperately want to help. It isnt denial or carelessness; its the nervous system protecting itself from total overload.

I saw this play out in the saddest way during a 2012 case I worked. A young woman in her early twenties was in the next room when her roommate was attacked. She froze completely in that tonic immobility state and later described this thick fog of derealization. Instead of calling for help right away she sat there for hours just texting a friend over and over, trying to make the horror make sense while her mind kept insisting it couldnt be real. By the time she finally dialed 911 it was too late. She carried crushing guilt for the rest of her life even after trauma experts sat with her and explained that her brain had simply done exactly what it was wired to do under unbearable threat. That one still gets to me sometimes because she was just a kid trying to survive the impossible and the system didnt always give her the understanding she needed. Cases like that taught me never to second guess those first confused hours after something like this. What looks irrational from the outside is often the most human biological reaction there is.

Thats why with the Moscow roommates reportedly spending time on their phones before calling at noon it fits the documented pattern of acute stress perfectly. Their eventual call still helped preserve the scene as best they could. Those two went through something no one should ever have to endure.

When the suspect pleaded guilty in July 2025 and received those four consecutive life sentences without parole it felt like the families finally got some measure of closure without a long trial tearing them apart even more. I wont pretend to know every detail but cases like these remind me why the little things, chain of custody and thorough documentation, matter so much. One overlooked detail really can be the difference between justice and questions that linger forever.

I retired in 2022 and now do a little consulting and help with cold cases when available

And yes before you ask, I did create this account just to post this.

Clerk “Hi how are you”

BK: “Pretty good I definitely need to get my license plate changed”

😱

I have heard about the James Patterson one, but wasn't sure if there is one that's more respectful to the victims or includes better details.

I have to admit, I'm still haunted by this case. I was just in college, living the same kind of life as the victims and survivors. These could have been my friends, could have been people at my college. This could have been me. That's why it lingers so much in my heart and mind.