Hidden True Crime - Bryan Kohberger’s Sentencing Behavior | Psychologist Reacts

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Bryan Kohberger sat emotionless in court as victims’ families gave gut-wrenching statements—but what was really going on behind that blank stare? In this episode, forensic psychologist Dr. John Matthias and journalist Lauren Matthias break down Kohberger’s chilling courtroom behavior, the psychology behind his silence, and what his sentencing hearing reveals about the man accused of the Idaho student murders. About Hidden True Crime: What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as was I, Dr. John Matthias's thoughts, for those new to our channel, we are hidden to crime. We delve into what is hidden, the hidden motives, the things hidden behind some of the darkest crimes. We have covered this case from the very beginning. We appeared in the first Dateline episode before we knew of Brian Coburger when it was just a mystery, when you were profiling a possible person. And now here we are at the sentencing of Brian Coburger today. So surreal to be in that courtroom once again.

This time, Tusi Justice served. Throughout this case, we have asked Dr. John Matthias, a clinical and forensic psychologist who has degrees from Princeton as well as the USC. And his thoughts, he has been assessing criminals for decades and is our co-host of Hidden True Crime. So it's really important, John, that you're here. Thank you. And we'd love to know your thoughts. what an overwhelmingly emotional day. That's for sure.

And yeah, how are you, how are your thoughts watching it, Babe? I thought it was definitely one of the more interesting sensing hearings I have seen in many years, maybe ever. So it was, you know, because you had such a diversity of responses. And it was difficult, you know, It was difficult to watch because it was so emotional. And it was, you know, I thought there were a lot of very bold, strong assertive statements or victim impact statements.

And so, you know, so the statements combined with Coburger's reactions, I think, were, or lack of reaction. I'm sure most people noticed that. But I think that it was interesting to kind of just hear people's take on him, you know, their perceptions of him and their anger at him. And to kind of evaluate their own grief, their own responses to this tragedy. So, you know, I think this discussion is, first of all, this is going to be a hard discussion. I think we're going to talk about some things or I'm going to talk about some things that are going to be difficult. And for me, I don't know about it for our listeners, and I'm probably going to talk about some things that aren't going to be as obvious either.

So in just watching some of the post commentary, you know, it's kind of what you'd expect. It was, you know, these statements were amazing. you know, they really expressed themselves well. And all that's true. You know, there was so much emotion in the room. You know, there were a lot of comments to that effect. But for those who know us, you'll probably know that I'm going to, part of my job is to step back a little bit and think about this at a maybe,

maybe at a little bit of a different level. to kind of step back and reflect. And, you know, I think what was most interesting to me about this is, I think this is really about how people, how human beings respond to tragedy. This is really about tragedy. And, you know, and I could argue that all of true crime is really about tragedy in a way, everything we covers about tragedy. I think this happens to be a particularly emotional instance of tragedy,

but not unlike obviously other cases we've covered, like Dave, And so I think if, you know, when I think about tragedy, so I'm going to, people are going to just stay with me here for a minute. When I think about tragedy, I actually go back and think about like human beings doing cave drawings tens of thousands of years ago. And, you know, I think one of the difficulties of tragedy is that tragedy is largely, our response to tragedy is largely an attempt to explain the inexplicable. Tragedy really pushes the limits of human understanding. We try to represent tragedy in a way that makes sense to us because we have no other choice. We deal with tragedy all the time. The Texas floods, tragedy, right?

We try to explain it. We try to make sense of it. We try to make it rational. We try to make it fit a neat, tidy box, right? But no matter how we represent it. And when I say represented, I mean, that's what I'm, when I talk about cave paintings tens of thousands of years ago, I'm talking about human beings first attempts to represent the world in a way they could understand.

And tragedy is, it's like those cave drawings times a million. right like we all want to understand tragedy but in many ways tragedy defies representation so we have language we have art we have communication relationships like there's different ways we try to communicate about tragedy to make sense of it but i think in many ways we find that we find ourselves up against limits we find that language is inadequate in some ways to explain tragedy. In fact, there was a moment in this

in the sentencing where when Ben Logan who's Maddie's biological father he kind of paused for a minute and he said I just don't know what to say right now.

I just don't know what to say right now. I just missed her so much. You could tell that Ben, you know, Ben was very honest about, you could tell that Ben struggled a little bit, that he talked about his history with addictions, and maybe he felt some guilt about his relationship with Maddie, but he couldn't find the words. And at some point, he just had to pause and say, I just don't know what to say. Words are failing me. And I think, to me, that was a really interesting

moment because I think that's what tragedy does to us, human beings. It really forces us to figure out whether we have the words to make sense of it and whether we have the ability to make sense of it, we look at the limits of what we up, what we human beings are up against. And in spite of that, we still, we don't have a choice. We experience this tragedy, but we have to respond somehow. That's why you get cave paintings, right?

That's why you have movies and theater, and books and social groups, right? It's all, much of this is an attempt to make sense of tragedy and to explain it. And so having said that, I think a big part of this, to me, one of the most interesting elements of today was not just how emotional people were, but how this very issue of trial,

how people respond to trauma and to pain, and how they experience grief, how people respond to tragedy, and the very different ways that human beings do that. And let me say, it's not, there's no one right way. We're all going to have different ways of responding to tragedy. And I think one of the interesting things about today was we saw that on display. We saw like a very wide range of responses to this horrible tragedy

and the way that human beings cope with. that the way human beings tried to express themselves and represent this type of tragedy. I think that's what was on display today. And what was interesting is that we saw a really interesting diverse, you know, a number of diverse responses to this very tragic situation. And so I think they were all very moving, but in many ways they were also quite different. You know, some of them were involved a lot of anger and almost retribution. And some of them involved. more acceptance and more forgiveness. Some of them were quite personal and some of them were attacking Koberger.

And again, none of those responses are, there's no right or wrong. There's only, there's tragedy and then you go into the cave and you paint the pictures on the wall to try to make sense of it. So some of those pictures might be you attacking another tribe that's threatened you and some of them might be fleeing the situation, right? They might be, you know, recognizing that you don't want conflict and that you need to run away, right? So I think that what was fascinating to me about today was really you have the same tragedy, right? You have the same horrible circumstance for everyone. And yet you get all these responses. And so I really thought that was interesting.

I agree a wide range of responses today. It's overwhelming listening to each one of them. Tragedy. You're right. So, you know, let me, let's talk about some of them. I don't, I don't want to get into detail too much about some of these responses. But, you know, the opening, the opening, the opening victim impact statement was by Bethany. And, well, actually, it was Bethany's friend ended up reading her statement.

I guess she was, she must have felt. too overwhelmed. And when her friend read the statement, it was understandable about why she didn't read it, by the way. So Bethany talked about one thing I thought that was interesting, unlike the other statements today, Bethany talked about Survivor's guilt. She talked about this idea of, you know, she was in the home at the time. And she asked the question. She didn't name it as survivors guilt, by the way, but that's what it was. So as someone who's worked with a lot of veterans, combat veterans, who have experienced this, so combat veterans who,

I've got combat veterans, for example, who have been next to their fellow soldiers that were, that stepped on landmines, and they were blown up instantly. And the veteran I've been working with survived without injury, and they saw their friends die, and there's just this tremendous guilt. And Bethany asked this question. She said, why me?

Why did I live? Right. And that's survivor's guilt. You know, it's not uncommon. And so one of the things that stood out me about Bethany's statement was that it was so personal in terms of her talking about locking the doors and staying at her parents' house all the time, 24-7, not going outside. isolating herself, not sleeping. She has insomnia. To me, I can't diagnose, obviously. I've never met, Bethany, but she describes many symptoms of PTSD. She described depression. She couldn't get out of bed. I don't know if she has depression, but maybe some symptoms of depression,

certainly not being able to get out of bed. She's afraid to go out in public. And yet she recognizes that in spite of this tragedy and all this negative impact, she recognizes that she needs to, the way she puts it is, she wants to live life to the fullest for her friends that died. So she, again, you get this idea of tragedy kind of testing the limits of the human. Do we give up or do we not? You know, when you have Survivor's Guilt, and by the way, I've had a lot of veterans over the years

who have taken their lives because they couldn't live with the guilt. They felt like the guy who was next to his best friend who was blown up by a mine, landmine, he felt like he should have protected him. He felt like he should have been there more for his friend, even though he knew logically that wasn't going to be possible. He felt like he should have been the one whose life ended and not his friend. And he fell into very serious addictions. He thought about, he contemplated taking his life many, many, many times.

He attempted a few times. And that's how powerful it is. And so I think you have a lot of these symptoms of trauma, certainly, with Bethany. And to kind of lead with that was very, very emotional for me. And the other thing that was interesting about Bethany's statement is, you know, you have this kind of, she portrays Coburger. I think that it's important to see it's not just the survival. survivor's guilt that's impacting her.

But this idea, this kind of, this like Freddie Kruger character that exists in people's dreams, right? She has these nightmares, this person, this character, the boogeyman character that, that haunts you no matter what, you lock all the doors because you're afraid this person is going to come get you, right? This is kind of a figure in mythology that appears over and over again, like chop a Kubra. You know, it's that type of figure. Freddie Kruger, right?

It's a mythological figure that represents darkness or evil. Evil was brought up a lot today, by the way. Almost every one of the people giving a statement today used their term evil. And so you have this shadowy, dark figure, right, lurking in the background. It's like the stuff of every one of our worst nightmares. And I think Bethany did an incredible job of portraying that.

Not only the guilt she felt over losing her friends, surviving this tragedy, but kind of trying to hide from this dark figure that she can't escape. Because ultimately this figure is in her imagination. I mean, yes, there is a serial killer that's named Brian Coburger that's out there. but as she points out like the impact of this goes way beyond what happened that day it impacts everyone in that community who's locking their doors like bethany and thinking that this guy's going to come for them or this this this dark bogeyman type figure is going to is going to

you know find them next right so that's the kind of i think that's kind of the one of the the consequences of something like this that a lot of people don't think about. But you really see it, you see it so powerfully with Bethany and her statement. The other thing that was interesting to me there was because it was so emotional, I wanted to really zero in on Coburger's body language and his reactions. And, you know, of course, it was completely unemotional. There was no effect. And I think that's interesting because psychologists sometimes talk about something called emotional contagion.

Emotional contagion, there's, there's, so emotional contagion simply defined is when you're with someone or you're with a group of people and they're experiencing certain emotions, it could be joy, could be positive emotions. It could be negative. It could be sadness. Could be anger. When you're with a group of people and you're picking up on the same social cues, a lot of times emotion will become contagious. It'll be transmitted from person to person. In fact, it often will occur in groups like a courtroom.

And so you could see that in the courtroom. You could feel that there was emotional contagion going on in that courtroom. So some of it is social cues. And some of it, by the way, is related to brain chemistry. So we have certain neurons called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are, they had evolutionary value in the sense that they allowed us to have empathy with other people. They allowed us to kind of mimic other people's emotions so we could, we can understand them and we could connect to them. And obviously connecting to other human beings when you're human and you live in tribes, that's important for survival.

So we have these mirror neurons. And we also are very, most of us, I think, are very adept at reading social cues. And that kind of combination of the brain and people's responses and emotional reactions to certain things, that creates emotional contagion. And the reason I bring that up is because the reason why that's important is because I wanted to see. So a normal human being in a room that's filled with emotion, that's teeming with emotion. a normal human being is going to feel that emotion and they're going to respond to it. And it was pretty clear that that's what was happening in that room. There's that picture of Dylan and her mother hugging.

Such a heartbreaking photo. The emotion in that photo is so profound to me. Yeah. It's an incredible. I get emotional just looking at it, right? So that's emotional contagion. Look at the people around her. Look at the emotion between mother and daughter,

but also look at the woman next to them. Look at the people. They're all in tears. That's emotional contagion. The new week Ovi pill is now available through Weight Watchers. Powerful GLP1 results in a simple pill at the lowest price available. And with Weight Watchers, you can get doctor support and personalized nutrition programs. See if you qualify at Weight Watchers.com.

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Everybody in that room is overwhelmed with emotion. So the obvious question is, from a criminal psychological standpoint, is the defendant experiencing any of that motion? Because everybody in that room is feeling, right? So a normal human being, if I'm someone, if I'm the defendant, and I've committed these heinous crimes, and I have a shred of empathy or remorse, I would be in tears. Yeah.

Yes. And guess what? You know where this is going? You know where this is. Guess what? Brian Coburger didn't shed a tear. He didn't express any sadness. He didn't express anything.

Right? And so when you look at a room where there's emotional contagion at this level and you look at a guy like Coburger with no emotion, now you know something's a mess. right. Now you can start. And again, I'm not going to diagnose here because I've never met Coburger. So I'm not going to, you know, some of the, some of the victims, by the way, did diagnose. So I don't really have to. But it's interesting. I think one of the things I would say about Coburger, and again, this isn't a diagnosis. This is an observation is I think it seems

reasonable to say that this is a guy who's in his head. This is a guy who's all cognitive. He's purely intellectual or largely intellectual, that he uses intellectualization as a defense mechanism. There's no emotion, there's no affect, right? There's no connection to anything empathic or remorseful in that courtroom, even though the whole courtroom is in tears, even though emotion is just overspilling in this courtroom. It's overflowing.

The reason why Cobur can avoid that emotion is because he's so disconnected from his emotions and he's so overly intellectual. And you can get this, by the way, from, you can get this from some of the interviews with his friends and some previous people that we've talked to. But I think that's one possibility. You know, Olivia called him a psychopath. You know, I don't know if that's true. Again, I'm not going to diagnose him, but it's certainly, psychopaths have no affect, they have no emotion. So is it possible that that could explain his lack of emotion? Sure, that could be, that could be part of it. I know in some of the previous hearings, there were diagnoses of, there was a diagnosis of autism. I haven't seen that report,

so I can't comment on it. It would depend on how severe it is, right? I mean, at the very least he seems like he's fairly high functioning so um sometimes the lack of emotions can be associated with that sometimes it's not it depends um but but i so i point that out because you have this huge contrast between the emotion in the room and the emotion then defend in and that's to me that's always an interesting it's an interesting sign of what's going to on. A lot of people wanting to know your thoughts on his lack of emotion or any emotion he did show or his house stoic. I don't know what it is. But yeah, you're right. He was, one thing is not like the others and it was certainly him showing no emotion. Even his family, according to when this

has showed emotion. And one thing that's important to note about emotional contagion, by the way, is that it's largely subconscious. It's largely thought to be a subconscious cognitive process, that there's something called cognitive appraisal theory, which explains how people respond to certain stimuli or how they respond to emotional contagion. And it's largely believed to be subconscious, which means that it would be difficult.

It would be difficult to control. So what's really interesting about this is that if you think of emotional contagion as something you can't really control. I mean, I guess if you really tried hard, you could put the breaks on your emotions without much emotion in a room. But it would be difficult, you know, that when things are not conscious, when they're operating at a deeper level, a lot of times you're going to get a knee-jerk reaction. You're going to get an impulsive reaction to the emotion in the room. And you don't even get that here. I think that's what makes this really fascinating. Even at the deepest, you know, subconscious levels,

he's not responding to that emotion at any level. I mean, to me, that's amazing. I mean, it's possible he could have rehearsed. It's possible that he knew going into that sentencing hearing that it was going to be very emotional. And maybe he rehearsed. Maybe he did some visualization. I don't know.

You know, there's ways he can. could have circumvented any emotional response. He could have detached completely. It could have dissociated. Those are possibilities. But all that's hard. All that takes a lot of work. I mean, he could have.

But I think, again, like this idea that this is subconscious and he still isn't feeling suggests that this is something that runs deep. His lack of affect is something fundamental to this person, to Brian Colberger. which, by the way, I could speculate, probably has something to do with the murders, right? Like, if he has no affect and no emotions and he's got this intellectual idea, let's say he wants to test out this theory

that he can murder without consequence and he can get away with it, that he's, as people kept saying in the hearing today, that he thinks he's the smartest one in the room, what if he thought all that? What if he thought he was going to test the hypothesis that he could get away with murder and it wouldn't bother him.

Yeah. Then it becomes purely an intellectual exercise. And by the way, I'm going to throw this out because I mention it all the time with Kohlberger, but he reminds me so much of the fictional character, Raskolnikov, in crime and punishment by Dosyowski, who did precisely that, by the way. Raskolnikov murdered two people

because he wanted to test the theory that he could get away with murder without feeling anything. And not only could he do it without feeling anything, but he could do it in such a way that he would never be caught. And so the similarities are... The similarities are incredible. I mean, Dos Yossi's book was written a long time ago. So I don't know if Coburger has any familiarity with it.

But he reminds me so much of that character. He really does. Yeah, I agree with you. The what-if, why not to get caught? thought. So, so that's my, those are some of my first thoughts. Let's move on to, let's talk a little bit about Dylan's victim impact statement. Hearing from Dylan and Bethany, by the way, was a really profound moment for me.

I've shared that in previous lives before you and I today, but we have heard very little from the roommates, understanding that they were in that house when it happened. And let's talk about Dylan. So the other thing, by the way, before we move on on Dylan, I'm just thinking about Bethany and her comments about being vilified a little bit, being vilified and bullied on social media for not reporting the deaths of her roommates sooner, right? And the impact that had, that really took a huge toll on her.

You know, that was sad. It really was. That was sad, too, just to see her, just to see her vilified, really, for doing nothing wrong. And actually, it was interesting because Dylan was in the same situation. Dylan encountered Koeberger in the hallway, and people were really upset with her, right, for not reporting it sooner. But she didn't mention it in her statement. So I thought that was interesting. She doesn't, you know, I can't imagine the toll that must have taken on her.

I know. I cannot imagine. But to her credit, you know, she didn't want to give that any oxygen. And she didn't talk about all the animosity directed towards her for not responding sooner. So I thought that was interesting. I thought what she left out was in some ways as interesting as what she talked about. One of the things I thought was interesting in Dylan's statement was how she portrayed what I would call the ripple effect of victimization. And that's exactly what it sounds like, which is that I think when you have a tragedy and you kind of drop the stone in the middle of the pond, and then you get the ripples moving.

out from the initial event, from the initial tragedy, I think she really portrayed that in a very moving way about how this has affected friends and family and community. And even, you know, we're talking about it now, right? It's affected in many ways. It's affected people all over the world. And so you can see kind of the, she was, I think she did a really great job of of kind of explaining that and talking about the ripple effect. The other metaphor I really like that she used was being shattered. She brought that up a couple of times, that she felt like she had just, her world was shattered.

She said, quote, it shattered me. She explained she was 19 at the time. She had panic attacks that she couldn't control at all. She was afraid of the world. Her pain and her grief, as she said, was too much to handle. And this really got me. She said, the only thing I could do was scream. You know, when she said that, when she said that,

I thought, I instantly thought, again, I'm going to talk about art a little bit here. I thought of the famous painting by the artist, Edward Munch, the scream, where you have the character that's kind of holding his face and the world is just kind of collapsing around him, right? It's, for those of you who know that painting, that's what when she said,

the only thing I can do is scream, that's what I thought of. It's just like you, right, the world is just closing down on you, and you're having panic attacks. All the time, you feel shattered, you feel torn to pieces, you're afraid of the world, you're having pain,

you can't, you've got grief that's overwhelming you. And all she feels like apparently all she can do is scream. I thought that was just an incredible moment and very visual to me because I thought of the scream, the painting, and how that must have been like for her. One of the things, getting back to this idea of tragedy, one of the things I thought about with her

and the way she described being shattered is this idea, I think the tragedy oftentimes really undermines our basic assumptions about the world. and it really, whatever we thought the world was, after tragedy, that changes. The world is no longer that safe and secure place that we thought that in many ways we lose some innocence. Like when we undergo a tragedy like this, she describes this. She's 19 years old.

She feels shattered, all she can do is scream. That sense of safety and trust that a 19-year-old should have in college is gone. the world can never be the same for Dylan at that moment. And she, for her, she explains that in terms of somatically, in terms of her bodily reaction. She explains it in terms of her emotional and psychological reaction. She describes some symptoms of trauma and PTSD. Towards the end, she says, although I had shattered parts, I'm still putting myself back together.

So in other words, again, like with any tragedy, there's this idea of do you give up or do you try to put the parts back together? And I mean, all of these people are, all of the victims giving statements today were obviously very strong and committed to the idea of putting the pieces back together in their own way. And that, I think we have a clip

that I want to play. towards the end. So then she said something at the very end that I thought was really profound. Do we have that clip? Yeah, we do right here. Okay. A year ago, I had a... One second. Yeah, I can't hear it. About a year ago, I had a dream about them. I got to say goodbye. I told them I won't be able to see you again. So I need to tell you goodbye. They all kept asking why. And all I could say was, I can't tell you, but I have a lot. to. When I woke up, I felt shattered and heartbroken, but also strangely grateful, like maybe in some way that dream gave us the goodbye we never got. Still no dream can replace them, and no goodbye will ever

feel finished. He is a hollow vessel, something less than human, a body without empathy, without remorse. He chose destruction. He chose evil. He feels nothing. He tried to take everything for me. My friends, my safety, my identity, my future. He took their lives, but I will continue trying to be like them to make them proud. Living is how I honor them.

Speaking today is to help me find some sort of justice for them. And I will never let him take that from me. He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice. He will never take the memories I had with them. He will never erase the love we shared, the laughs we had, or the way they made me feel seen and whole.

Those things are mine. They are sacred. And he will never touch them. I get to feel sadness. I get to feel rage. I get to feel joy even when it's hard. I get to feel love even when it hurts. I get to live.

And while I will still live with this pain, at least I get to live my life. He will stay here, empty, forgotten, and powerless. Wow. That's one of the most profound powerful victim, Matt Pack statements I've ever heard how it's affected me.

I don't want to like, it's just so sad. Yeah, that was one of the most moving moments for me today. A couple of thoughts on that. The dream part is, so one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the difficulties of tragedy and tragic events is, is trying to find some sense of closure, right? trying to find some sense of resolution.

And I think that the difficulty or the challenge of tragedy is oftentimes you're seeking resolution for something that has no resolution. In the sense that when we lose people closest to us, friends and family, we can't bring them back. There's no resolution. There's only grief, right? And so the dream, as she says in the dream part, she's trying to say goodbye. She's trying to seek some type of resolution or closure. But she recognizes it's a lifelong process.

Like there's no such thing as absolute closure. And so I think you see that here. She's really struggling with this, trying to find saying goodbye, seeking some closure, some resolution, and yet knowing that that's going to be really hard to do. And the other part of that I think that was really moving to me was that she says,

He will never take my voice. He will never take my memories. He will never take the love that we shared. And I think that sentiment is so important for going on, for grieving, recognizing that whatever else someone takes from you, you have your memories. You have your love with those people. Right.

You have your voice. And in fact, of course, she's expressing her. her voice. She's doing the very thing that she says is important to do. She's giving voice to the unnameable. She's giving voice to the unbearable. She's giving voice to the thing that makes tragedy the most difficult is when we can't give voice to something and she's doing it. And so I think that was really profound is that even though I don't think she would say that, I'm just, that's my interpretation, but when we come up against the limits of human understanding and human representation, we need to figure out a way to go on. And that's what she's doing. She's giving voice. She's

trying to represent this experience in a way that allows her to grieve and to go on. And I think she does it beautifully. Well said. John, I agree. She is. it beautifully. It was heartbreaking. I wish you're the best of luck moving forward. And I know she'll make her roommates proud. When it comes to weight loss, you don't need more advice. You need more of what works. That's Weight Watchers, with real tools designed to take the guesswork out of what to eat, how to move, and how to build habits that actually last. That's why Weight Watchers members lose more weight. Real people, real results. Weight Watchers Core Plus, get started at at Weight Watchers.com.

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Add not reviewed or approved by Novo Nordisk. Let's talk a little bit about the, um, Gonzalves family reactions to Coburger. Yeah. I think that the interesting thing, so again, you know, I just want to preface this by saying that we all have very different responses to grief and pain and suffering and tragedy.

And I think it's interesting to me that after some of the initial impact statements. We started seeing more anger, right? We started this theme of anger and maybe even retribution started playing out a little more. And that, by the way, of course, is a very normal response to tragedy. You know, the little guy who just poked his head in my door, you know, if somebody took him from me, I can't, my theory. and my anger would be unquenchable. I don't know what I would do. So I understand that Gonzalves's response is a very normal response.

I think that there was a lot of anger. There was this almost, you know, there was this desire to really confront him and to really, you know, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to tell him obviously what they kind of give him their version of the unvarnished truth. And that, you know, I thought that was interesting because you don't, we know, I don't, you don't see that. I haven't seen that a lot in victim impact statements. I mean, I've seen it some, but, but I think this is a family that's, that's really, that still has a lot of residual anger. And I think they're really struggling, you know, to make sense of what happened, understandably.

Every tragedy is senseless. And it really, as I said earlier, it really, it's inexplicable. And it really kind of forces our hand to figure out how we can make sense of it and how we can explain it. And even though we never fully can, we try. So I think this is, you know, this is a. this is kind of a, this is a normal response to grief. It's a bit of a different response. Steve, who's Kaylee's father, said, quote,

nobody cares about you. We will forget you. You picked the wrong family, right? He's letting him know that he's kind of letting him know that this is a family that was proactive. this is a family that was going to find out the truth. They were going to find out who committed these murders. And, you know, that was a theme here of this family in terms of just letting him know that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Olivia, who spoke after Steve, that's Kaylee's sister.

She says, I'm angry. She tells us she's angry. She says, I'm angry. I'm shouting inside my own head and everything I could say to you. Oh, but she wasn't done. She goes on. She says, do we, I think we have, do we have the, do we have the, the clip from Olivia?

We do. We do hear you what you want. I won't offer you tears. I won't offer you trembling. Disappointments like you thrive on pain, on fear and on the eludiation. and on the illusion of power. And I won't feed your beast. Instead, I will call you what you are.

Sociopath, psychopath, murderer. I will ask the questions that reverberate violently in my own head so loudly that I can't think straight most any day. Some of these might be familiar, so set up straight when I talk to you. How is your life? right before you murdered my sisters.

Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your apartment? Please detail what you were thinking and feeling at this time. Why did you choose my sisters? Before making your move, did you approach my sisters? Detail what you were thinking and feeling. Before leaving their home, is there anything else you did? How does it feel to know the only thing you failed more miserably at than being a murderer is trying to be a rapper. Did you recently

start shaving or manually pulling out your eyebrows? Why, November 13th? Did you truly think your Amazon purchase was untraceable because you used a gift card? How do you find it enjoyable to stargaze with such a severe case of visual snow? Where is the murder weapon? The clothes you wore that night, what did you bring into the house with you? What was the second weapon you used on Kaylee? What were Kaylee's last words? She doesn't stop there, by the way. So some of the things she continued to say was that she said, quote, you thought you figured out the human psyche. You thought you were smarter than anyone else. You're a wannabe. You're not profound. You're pathetic. No one is impressed by you. You're pitifully.

average, don't convince yourself that you matter. Wow. So, obviously, this is someone who's very angry, and rightfully so, by the way. Rightfully so. And so this style of victim impact statement, which is very confrontational, is a little unusual. I mean, it's something I haven't seen too much over the, years. And so, you know, I applaud her for being so assertive and so honest. As someone who's worked with people like Koberger, I do have concerns that this is the type of

thing they thrive on. Yeah. This is the type of thing that like Kovberger's going to really remember and he's going to be, this is sort of like throwing red meat, you know, to, to, to, to a caged lion, right? Like, he's the type of guy, I think, that would really feed off of this. I, you know, so the question for me, looking at something like this, the question is, you know, I hope that it benefited Olivia. I hope she felt like this helped her, right? because at the end of the day, that's what it's about.

I just kind of have concerns that this type of response to somebody like Koberger is precisely what he wants. And unfortunately, by the way, I think, you know, when you tell someone that they don't matter and they're pathetic and their average, I mean, the problem with that, and I'm not detracting from the statement. The problem with that, I think, is that, you know, obviously there's a mixed message there, right? The message is that he's obviously not average enough or he matters enough that the whole world is talking about him, right? like she's kind of saying to him, you know, you're pathetic, you're a wannabe, blah, blah, blah, but on the other hand, like, everybody's watching this. Like the whole world's paying attention.

He's mattering now. He's mattered more tonight than he ever has. And I know people are saying, let's not give any oxygen. Let's forget about him. Let's ignore him, right? That was a theme from today. But that's easier said than done. there's a in in psychology there's something called psychological reactants which is

that when people perceive a threat to their freedom they actually do the opposite so this is kind of the idea so there's been research for example showing that when you put up do not touch signs people want to touch it if there's there's there's been some research like when you when you say don't touch this people touch it way more than they would otherwise and that that's psychological reactance when you tell people not to do something or you threaten them with taking away something from them, they're typically going to respond the opposite, or not always, but they may respond the opposite way.

So I see the value of this type of statement to the victim and to the victim's well-being. But I wonder about how it's going to land with Kohlberger, for example, whether he's going to be affected by that. And I kind of wonder about the message there, that if you say that someone is really average, well, clearly he's not average because he's got your attention

and he's got the whole world's attention, right? Clearly he's, you say he doesn't matter, but obviously he matters because he's got our attention. We're talking about him right now. We're talking about victims, but we're talking about victims because of him. And so I don't know. You know, I think time will tell how something like this plays out, right?

I mean, I hope for her, I hope it allows her to heal, and I hope it allows her to move past it. But I'm not sure that this is going to, like, this is going to affect people's capacity or interest in Brian Kohlberger. In fact, I think I would worry that this type of reaction to Kohlberger actually kind of consolidates and amplifies the myth that is Brian Kohlberger. The myth that, you know, in some ways, like if you tell people he doesn't matter, people become more interested in him. People want to know more about him. So people that today, you know, that watched this that knew nothing about Kovberger,

they're probably Googling Kovberger tonight and trying to figure out more about Brian Kovberger. So it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of, you know, if you say you don't want someone to get attention or you want to move on from them and then you're kind of promoting them, you know, I worry about where that goes. We have a question here. And it's actually my question, too. Before we get into this question, though, I do want to say I empathize with Olivia, whose grief is anger. I've had a lot of grief this last year. I didn't have a family member that was murdered. I'm not comparing my grief to hers at all.

I'm just talking about some personal grief that I have dealt with because of a loss of a sibling. And I've talked a lot about it with John because I never knew that grief. could be so angry. And I felt a lot of anger this past year. I've had to talk to John about it. So I do understand when she stood up and she said, I am so angry. Grief is often anger, and I've learned that a lot this year.

But Felicia is saying this, and I have a question for you, John. Lisa is saying, Dr. John, I am confused. Olivia said what everyone says the killer thrives on. So to deny him, in other words, to deny him the sorrow, deny the killer tears, the grief of the victim's loved ones. She's saying, isn't it true that the killer thrives on, tears, grief? And we denied him that? No? No, I disagree.

I disagree. He's not thriving on grief and tears. He's thriving on attention. He might thrive on that, but he's also thriving on anger. This is, I mean, he's loving it. Like, he thrives on conflict. He thrives on anger. I mean, yeah, there's no, there's no easy, I don't,

there's no easy answer here in terms of how to give a victim statement. You give a victim statement in the way that you think is the most healing for you. whatever that is. If it's anger, acceptance, forgiveness, retribution, whatever, like, that's what you should do, right? But, like, what somebody like Coburger thrives on is, I think, is attention. And by confronting them in that manner, you're probably giving them more attention. And again, I don't have, I don't know what the right victim impact statement is.

I don't know what I would have said. I'm sure I would have been angry as hell. I could relate to Steve. He was angry as hell. I'm sure I would be. I don't know if, I don't know if, you know, I don't know if the bailist would have to intervene if I'm given a victim impact statement because I would be so angry. So, but on the other hand, like, I know a guy like Koeberger is going to feed off of this type of emotion.

He's going to feed off of all these emotions, but he's, I think, more so the ones that are, critical of him, more so the ones that, because at some level, for a guy like Koberger, at some level, in his mind, die, he doesn't think that's accurate. You can say he's not smart, but he thinks he is. Like, he's always going to think he is. You're not, like, in many ways, you're just, for him, you're just being more provocative. You can say he's pathetic, you can say he's average. He knows he's not, or he thinks he's not. I mean, he got caught. That's true. but he was a really good student and he was praised up endlessly by his professors.

He was getting his PhD. I mean, he had really poor social skills. But like he was always the top of his class. He was always getting the best grades. Like getting caught, I mean, in his minds, like getting caught doesn't mean he's average. It just means he pulled off something that most people couldn't pull off.

And he's going to think, I think, hey, you know, I pulled this off. I was always the best student, right? He's not going to think of himself as average. Just because, you know, somebody tells him he's average or somebody's critical of him or somebody belittles him, I don't think it's going to change his perception of himself. In fact, I think it's just going to make him angrier and it's going to feed his narcissism, right? And so if the goal here was to shame Koeberger, and if the goal here was to somehow put Kovberger in his place, I mean, he, you know, this family doesn't have to worry about that because he's going to do multiple life sentences. So the judge took care of that for them. But if the goal is to somehow, I don't know, you know, belittle him and put him in his place, I'm not sure that's going to work for a guy like Coburger. I think it may work for this family in terms of how they want to feel and help them to express their anger in a way that's healthy.

But I don't, you know, if the end game is to like end this and make him feel ashamed and less than average, I'm not sure it's accomplishing that. In fact, I think it's the opposite. I think Colberger is actually emboldened by these types of statements and he's going to go back to his cell tonight because he's still in jail. He's going to go back to his cell and he's going to think, wow, that was, I did great. you know, I really, I really inflame these people like, man, I'm, I'm, I'm something special.

But I don't know. You know, I could be wrong. I mean, I don't know Koberger. I haven't talked to them, obviously. So, but I know, I know people like Kohlberger. And I know after hearing these types of things, they're, they're actually quite empowered by it. So I don't know. Right. And as C. West says, Olivia's words were cathartic for her and for a whole lot of people that watched it. And that's what is important, not that fool. We agree. Yeah. We concur.

Right. Exactly. I think for for her, for Olivia and Steve and the family, it matters a lot. And for the community, for the people listening, it matters a lot. But in terms of like, I think there's a paradoxical effect here, which is that if we want to, you know, the judge said this towards the end and the prosecutor said this. Basically, let's forget about Coburger and move on, right? You're asking us to forget about something. I think if that's the goal, unfortunately, I think these types of statements, although they can be cathartic to the victim and to the audience in the short term and the long run, these types of things, I think, tend to. to only enhance the mythology of a serial killer like Coburger. They kind of feed the mythology of this guy. They feed interest, potentially.

Thank you, Olivia, though, for expressing your anger, your grief, and what so many are feeling, I believe. She nailed Coburger, that's for sure. I see you looking at your notes. Yeah, let's, so let's, let's, let's, let me, move on. Let me move on to Jeff, Zana's dad. He says, he didn't give a very long statement, but he said something. He talked about memories just as, he talked about memories just as some of the other. Dylan talked about that obviously a little bit. But he says, quote,

memories are what, memories are what really count. That's what I can go on. with. Right. And I mean, and again, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's another way of dealing with grief. You know, that you, you, you, you kind of accept that the person is, is gone. And they're not coming back.

But you also know that you have these memories. You also, so memories are what preserve history. Memories are, are, right, the way we remember someone in their story and their impact on us. And, um, in many ways, is that's really all we can cling to when someone passes away. I mean, we have pictures and, right, but all of that's just a function of memories. And I think, you know, I think Jeff really gets that.

And Jeff, I thought that I really appreciated Jeff's insight into that, that he's, you know, he's reminding us that he's got these positive memories and that's enough for him to go on with. And so that's how he's dealing with grief. Another type of statement was Zana's aunt. This was after Jeff spoke. And she said, quote, I'm always looking for the positive thing

because evil and hate can destroy people. She said she started off being really angry, but she realized that that was being destructive. So I really appreciated her, kind of desire to kind of find some of the positive. Do we have the clip from her? I believe we do, yeah. Okay. Can we play that?

Which part did you want to play, John? I have a couple. This is the part about the tragedy has brought us closer. Yeah, Zana Zan. Yeah, Zana Zan. But how I look at it now is, this tragedy, this horrible tragedy on all of our, the four children, has brought us closer. You united us with your actions.

We're united now and we're stronger than ever. We have family and friends now that we never knew we had. And you know, this is probably going to bother everybody, but Brian, I'm here today to tell you, I have have forgiven you because I no longer could live with that hate in my heart and for me to become a better person. I have forgiven you. And anytime you want to talk and tell me what happened, get my number. I'm here.

No judgment because I do have answers or questions that I want you to answer. And I'm here. I'll be that one that'll listen to you. Okay? Thank you, Your Honor. Wow. It actually reminded me, I want to say this, too. There was another victim impact statement that I heard in court that sounded very similar to this.

And that was Libby's mother in Delphi, Indiana. Libby's mother said the same thing. If you're ever willing to talk, let me know. I'll listen. Those. And so, you know, I said at the beginning, that this is about a tragedy, and it's about how we make sense of tragedy and how we respond to it. And so here again, you know, I presented different versions of victim impact statements

and what they're trying to convey. And here again is a very different response, right? This is someone who she's trying to be as positive as she can. And she says she's forgiven him. I've forgiven you because I could no longer live. with that hate in my heart. And she's even willing to listen to him, right? I mean, and again, like, I don't,

none of these are better than the others. And I don't know, like, I don't think I could do what she did. I don't think I could be this forgiving of someone like Coburgor if he took my child's life. So this is, this is a pretty remarkable moment for me because she genuinely seems to have forgiven him and to have accepted it.

That doesn't mean she's moved on. I'm sure she's still grieving every day. But she certainly hasn't. She says she has so many questions for him. But she wants to listen. She wants, as she said, she wants to sit down and listen to what his version of events are and to make sense of it in that way.

And an only way she can do that is because she's forgiven him. Right. She can't sit next to him in a room. if she's so enraged that she feels like tearing his heart out, which I probably would feel. But, but I mean, again, one of the interesting things about today was just this diversity of responses, Bethany, right? Talking about Survivor's Guild. And here you get Kim talking about forgiveness and acceptance. You know, you, you know, then we have the Gonzalez family talking about their anger and, and just being so enraged at Koberger, you know, you don't, you just, you don't see this gamut of responses that often in, in these types of cases.

And so I thought that was, that was really interesting and touching, by the way. It was quite moving for her to get to the point where she can forgive him or can forgive him at that level, I think was very, it was very moving to me. Because I don't know if I could do that. I'd probably want to piggyback on Olivia's response, by the way, or some version of her response. Randy, just quickly, Randy is Zana's stepdad. He gave a fairly short speech. One of the things I like that Randy said is that he just wants to get through it. He just wants to get through it, right?

And I think a lot of people, when tragedy strikes, that's how they feel. Like, they're overwhelmed, they're emotional and psychological and even physical, well-being is just overwhelmed. And just functioning is very difficult. And, you know, one of the big questions in any tragedy is, is how do we cope? How do human means cope with the unimaginable? How do we cope with the unbearable? You know, one of my favorite plays of all time is Samuel Beckett's waiting for Godot,

which is, although it's a comedy, it's also kind of a tragedy. And it's about these two tramps that it's hard to describe for people that don't know this play. These two tramps that just kind of they bully each other, they love each other. Like it's a really peculiar play. But there's a really famous line in that play. And Randy reminded me of it. There's a really famous line in that play where one of them, one of the tramps says, I can't go on

and then he pauses for a moment and he says I'll go on right and that's this idea of life can be really hard at times it can be really painful it can throw some real tragedies at us but in some ways we just have to find a way to go on

for people we love for ourselves right and that's kind of what Randy said and it was a moment that reminded me very much of Godot. And then here's another response. Karen, who's Anna's mother, Karen made an appeal to Jesus and to, she referred to Jesus as her Lord and Savior.

And she said that she forgave Coburger because of Christ. And she hopes that he reads the Bible to comprehend what happened. And she reads the Bible to comprehend and make sense of it. And so, again, this is a different response, right? Christianity offers a very compelling narrative about how to deal with suffering and how to cope with suffering. And Karen exemplifies that, and Karen was quite vocal about that today. So again, this is, we're seeing, you have this very large gamut of responses to tragedy and to responding to tragedy and to coping with tragedy. And so Zana's mother was another example of a very different response.

And then I think last but not least, I would say that Ethan, Ethan's family provided another, even different response, which was that they didn't speak. They wanted to, they felt like they didn't need to express their grief publicly. They wanted to ring private, right? And so, again, that's quite different than saying that you forgive someone or expressing your rage towards someone, right? Or saying that, you know, you're dealing with your suffering through Jesus or through Christianity. Right.

Again, like, I've never seen this, this so much, so much diversity in terms of how victims are responding to one particular tragedy. So I thought that was, and again, so Ethan's family, for whatever reasons, just presumably some of it has to do with them wanting to stay private and they want to deal with their grief privately and in their own personal way. And so they don't want to make a public statement, right? That says volumes too. Yes.

That suggests to me that they're still coming to terms with it, or maybe they have come to terms with it, maybe there's a certain level of self-acceptance there. I'm not sure. But I think we can't leave Ethan's family out of this because them not making a public statement also is a response to grief that should not be neglected. And I want to mention Ethan because he too is obviously a victim.

And he deserves to be mentioned. And so my heart goes out to Ethan's family. Thank you for whatever reasons. you didn't respond or want to show up and make a public statement, I understand. And in many ways, by not doing that, you're sending a message about how you're grieving with this. And thank you for, you know, thank you to them for doing what they're most comfortable with. Yeah. Thank you, Gossip, Rumor, and Induendo, who, by the way, I love your channel.

And she wrote, I love that we can all process our grief here to, Thank you, Lauren and Dr. John. Thank you. Yeah, and again, I know, I wish I could say that there was a uniform response to grief, but, you know, there's not. And to me, that's, that was, again, that was probably the most fascinating thing about the, the sentencing hearing today was just the way that a number of different victims and human beings and were coping with this tragedy and responding to it

and how they felt that their public statements would impact not only themselves, but the people in that room and even Koberger. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else? I know the judge spoke, prosecutor spoke. Yeah, the prosecutor spoke. You know, it was interesting.

I thought the prosecutor and the judge gave some very, very touching statements. But, you know, I don't know how to, I don't want to be, I don't want to be, I'm trying to figure out a way to talk about this without kind of stirring the pot here. You pot stir, you. Do you want to save that for Patreon?

Do you have any of the clips from the prosecutor or the judge? Let's see if I pulled those. I do have both. I don't remember. What's the clip you have? Why don't you play the clip from the prosecutor, please? Okay, prosecutor. I have one last thought.

After Your Honor imposes judgment and sentences the defendant to spend the rest of his life in prison. In other words, sentence the defendant to die in prison. He's going to stand up in the belly chains and leg irons that he's wearing today. And he's going to be escorted into the custody of the Idaho Department of Department of correction and the door will close behind him forever. That is the closure that we seek that all of these people, these loving friends and family deserve so we can move forward. You thought this was your run club era. Turns out it was more of a thinking about run club era. The good news someone's marathon training is about to start. Sell your workout gear on Deepop. Just snap a few photos and we'll

take care of the rest. They get their race day fit and you get a payout for trying. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now. Deepop where taste recognizes taste. So I get that statement and you know I was I was quite touched by the fact that that he was so emotional. You know, the prosecutor was in tears for a bit. And that, again, that too is highly unusual. Usually prosecutors and DAs try to keep their emotions in check. In fact, I can't remember a prosecutor in tears that I've seen in a long time. You know, so I appreciate what he said.

The statement, though, about the door will close behind him forever, and that is the closure that we seek and that all of these people deserve so that we can move forward. I think I was slightly put off by that statement in the sense that if we think about grief, everything we've talked about in the show today has been about different responses to grief,

right, in different reactions to tragedy, and different ways of grieving tragedy. it felt to me like he was a little too eager to this idea of shutting the door and seeking closure. It just felt like he was a little too eager to shut the door on all of this. And somehow, you know, Coburger's going to, he's going to be put in shackles and they're going to shut the door. And then we can all move on. I mean, I think to some degree that's true. But grief is a very personal, individual, idiosyncratic process.

And I feel like, you know, how I grieve and how the families grieve and how you grieve and how our audience grieves, they're all going to be different. And I don't know that it's as simple as just shutting a door and getting closure and moving forward. I mean, of course, we all want to move forward. And of course, we all want closure. But, you know, I don't know if there's such thing in a case like this or even like, let's think about the Texas floods. I don't know that there's ever total closure in these situations. And I don't know if somebody can dictate what that closure should look like and how it should happen and when it should happen.

And that somehow if Koeberger is put in shackles and the door shut that somehow we're all going to find closure, I don't think it's that simple. If there's any point I'm trying to make tonight is the tragedy is incredibly complex. We're testing the limits of human understanding and the limits of human comprehension we're trying to explain the inexplicable, right? Like that's what tragedy does. I don't know that closure is that simple. So while I appreciate what the prosecutor said,

I just felt like to me, and again, I'm speaking personally here, I felt like in a way, I felt like he was trying to push me towards that or push people towards that that should be up to us to decide. It should be up to the audience to decide. And it would be very hard for someone to kind of dictate the terms of that closure.

That's not how grief works. That's not how tragedy works. So I think, I, again, I appreciate his sentiment. I appreciate the emotions. He was obviously very emotional. It was a very heartfelt statement. But it wasn't, you know, I'm giving him a lot of leeway here. But it wasn't something I felt like.

that was necessarily his prerogative to determine. And what about the judge? I want to say something about Judge Hippler. I really like Judge Hippler. And I feel like people have been really hard on him. I've always liked Judge Hippler. He follows the rule of law. I do see him having compassion.

I have seen him fight for the roommates. I've seen him fight for victims. I've seen him to keep order in his courtroom. it seems like he has a lot of compassion and empathy. I think that some people saw a little bit more of that today. But I applaud Judge Hibbler, not just like today, but like this case since it has come to Ada County. I think he's done an excellent job keeping order in his courtroom

and the rule of law while also showing empathy and compassion. But let's talk about his final statements because you felt some mixed feelings about those too. I think so, okay, I, again, let me just say this. I was quite moved by Judge Hiffler's final statement, and he too, he was getting emotional, which is very unusual for a judge. He was very, very emotional when he gave that statement,

and that was highly unusual. I appreciated a lot of, what he said. I think there was there was a little moment in there where I felt like like the prosecutor. I think he was kind of pushing for closure. Let's call it premature closure. I don't know what else to put like for me, you know, you and I, we get emotionally invested in a lot of our cases. And there are cases where I think you and I can, I'll speak for myself, where I can find some degree of closure after you and I kind of get invested. there are some cases where it's much harder to find closure.

There are some cases we cover that I don't think I'll ever find any emotional closure. And I'm not family, right? I'm not like you and I are covering stuff. I'm not a direct victim. I'm not. So I can't even imagine what it would be like for family to find closure if such a thing as possible. But there was a little bit of this theme of, you know, the judge said at one point something like, it's time for his 15 minutes of fame to end or something like that.

And again, I don't, you know, it kind of felt like the prosecutor, I get the need for closure and the need to move on, and everybody wants to do that in every criminal case. But I just don't know if, I don't know if someone can tell us that. I don't know if someone in a position of authority can, can tell us to when we should find closure or how or how we should grieve, right? And so I understand the sentiment, but I don't know if I totally agree with that message. You know, the other thing that kind of bothered me a little bit is the judge did talk about, he called,

he talked about, he mentioned that Coburger was evil, he talked about unspeakable acts of evil. He said, he's the word slithered. He slithered through the door. So we kind of compared Coburger to a snake. You know, and I mean, okay, you know, I get that the judge is upset and I get that, you know, I agree with them. These were heinous acts. But I don't, you know, I don't know. I would never, in one of my evaluations, use the term slithered in a professional

capacity. I would never say that someone committed an act of evil. And that's not to say a judge can't do that or should. didn't do it. So I'm not, I don't know the right answer here, but I think like, again, if we get back to this idea of tragedy and how human beings interpret tragedy and how we try to explain tragedy and make sense of tragedy, I think in some ways it's easier. It's easier for us as human beings to try to label something as evil or label something reductively or say that someone's like a snake and slithered through the door so that it simplifies what happened.

It makes it easier for us to understand. And I think, by the way, the motif of the evil coming up again and again in this sentencing hearing by the victims, I think almost every one of them called him evil. And they have every right to do that. Right. But if we're stepping back a little bit in thinking about this in broad terms, it's a way to simplify this. It's a way to take a tragedy that's really difficult to understanding complex, and as I said, kind of test the limits of human understanding and make it understandable.

Make the easy, the way, if you want to reduce tragedy to its most simplistic level, just call somebody evil, wrap it up, put it in a package, wrap it up in a neat little bow, and now we're done. Now we can move on. Now we've got closure. He's evil. Let's move on. Don't worry about this. We've just solved this, right? And I think my point, has been today in the show that resolution and closure are very, very difficult when it comes to tragedy, if not impossible. And so I don't know if things are that simple or they work that easily. And again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't move on. I'm not saying that we shouldn't see closure. I'm just saying like the judge, even the judge and the prosecutor are resorting kind of these

overly simplistic, reductive strategies to put a little, you know, a nice little bow. on this package and call it evil and make it simple so that we can just walk away tonight and feel good about ourselves and not worry about that this would ever happen to us or our children or our families or our communities and somehow we can find closure and I just don't think it's that simple we've had a little bit from the judge did you want us to play that oh sure okay in the end the more we struggle to seek explanation for the unexplainable the more we try to extract a reason, the more power and control we give to him. In my view, the time has now come to end Mr. Colberger's 15 minutes of fame. It's time that he'd be consigned to the ignimony and

isolation of perpetual incarceration. That was an interesting thing. Happy Robot says Dr. John doesn't want to be reductive. He said, the more that we tried to understand why. I'm laughing because I feel like I think. I feel like there's a little bit of humor in that because that's like going over and over that tonight. But yeah, I mean, I hope one of my takeaways tonight is that grief is very complex and tragedy's complex and people have different reactions to it. And they're all fine. But I want to talk about what the judge just said. Yeah.

That the more we focus on an explanation, the more we feed into. Brian Koberger and we are called Hidden True Crimes. This was a confusing moment for me. To hear the judge, to hear the judge say, we delve into, you know, the why.

We always say we're a Y done it channel, not a who done it, we're a why. We want to understand. And we get pushback a lot. And we got pushback from one of my favorite judges today, Judge Hippler. I love Judge Hippler,

who said to us all that if we focus on an explanation to try to understand we're feeding into this criminal and it has 15 minutes of fame and that was a moment for me I wanted to talk to you about it

I want to talk about this because again Judge Hippler is no bigger fan than me yeah and that was hard for me I don't know I took it personally because this is what I do. This is what I do with you. We try to understand the why. We try to explain. We try to

delve into the explanations that are really difficult sometimes. And I feel passionate about our work and what you and I do. And I don't know if I agreed with him in that moment either. Well, you can disagree with someone and still respect them. I do respect him. Right. You can disagree with someone and still agree with a lot of what they say. So I don't, like, I think, again, not being overly reductive. Like, it's fine. You know, I'm sure people are disagreeing with some of my analysis tonight. I said this is going to be a hard discussion, you know. Yeah, and it's okay to disagree with John. A lot of people, yeah, will disagree with you and us on the, yeah. Yeah, please disagree with me. You know, I'm offering a perspective. Like, I'm not exactly. Like, I don't, this is a hard discussion

because I think there were certain victim impact statements that, you know, that, you know, that, that touched me more than other ones and that probably resonated with me more than other ones. And that's just a personal thing. But I think people might look at the show tonight and go, well, why didn't he

say more about this statement or that? Why didn't he find this statement to be more effective? Right? I don't know. But we can, you can disagree. You can disagree with the judge and still respect him and still agree with a lot of what he says. That's fine. That's, that's being

human. We don't need complete agreement. I don't. I don't either. So let's talk about, yeah, let's talk about we just said that by trying to seek an explanation, we're only empowering him or empowering criminals, right? I just, I absolutely disagree with that, not only in terms of you and I trying to explain the criminal psyche, but also in terms of the the whole theme of what we're talking about in the show tonight, which is that in many ways, tragedies defy understanding, but no matter what,

we're still going to try to understand. There's nothing wrong. Human beings need and want to understand. And even if we can't fully understand something, we still want to try to represent that. We still want to, that's why we have art. that's why we have all different types of art right we have visual art we have podcasts we have audio

art we have books we have literature we have different disciplines like sociology like physics all of those are different ways to try to understand and interpret the world that's what human beings do especially in the face of the inexplicable and the senseless and things that to challenge our capacity to understand. Now, having said that, I don't want to oversimplify. Right? My goal, the goal for, I think, so I disagree with them. I think that as human beings, we're always going to keep trying to explain. We're always going to keep trying to explain. And we're going to do it over and over and over because so many tragedies that occur in our lives are not explicable. But in order for us to go on and to cope and to grieve and they

sense of that we have to explain or try to explain as best we can. And I think that's the purpose of our channel. So if I don't disagree with them, I think we're out of business. Your mic is off. One more question. I want everyone to know, by the way, that the James Craig script that we've been working on is nearing. As soon as I am off, I'm going to finish, you know, I'm going to go over some of it. then we will be doing a live James Craig trial update after this. I might, you know, change my shirt and brush my hair. But here's a question by Misty. I've been pinning a lot of your questions, by the way, but Misty,

I want to ask part of Misty's question because I ask you this a lot. You ask criminals this. So Dr. John is the one that stands in front. of criminals privately or sits in front of them privately with them with a pen and a paper and says why did you do this which is what everybody's wanting to know which is what judge hitler said let's stop asking why but all of us here at injury crime want to understand why and you're the you're the you're the one that sits in front of these criminals and says why and you tell me a lot about what they say so misty is asking why does dr john think bk didn't tell us

What happened today? You respectfully declined. You respectfully declined to do any sort of a statement. Why do you think he didn't tell us what happened? So many people want to know. We want to know the why. I know what you've told me the criminals say to you when you asked them why. But why didn't he tell us today?

And why do you think? That's really loaded. We can save the why for maybe another season. But why didn't he tell us today? Well, that's a really complex question. We could spend three hours on. But most criminals don't know why. So it's a short answer to the question is I will do a six-hour evaluate.

I'll sit in a prison or a jail cell all day for six, seven hours. And at the end of that, I always ask one question. Tell me why you think you did this. Tell me why you think you committed this crime. And 98% of the time, they will say, I have no idea. The reason I do that is because I want to see the level of self-awareness and self-insight they have. However, even when they do give me answers, and I've gotten some really good ones, by the way, that I think shows some degree of insight, even the ones, even the answers they give me are still a small part of the story.

So if I get back to crime and punishment by Dosyesky, one of Doski's points or one of his motifs, I think, in that book is that there's really no simple explanation. There's never going to ever be a simple why. There's always going to be multiple factors involved in explaining the why. And for example, Coburger's not going to know. Let's say that there's a chemical imbalance in his brain or so. Let's say there's a structural issue in his brain. Let's say that his amygdala is much smaller than the normal persons, right? He's not going to know that.

But there's research showing that a smaller amygna, not always, but oftentimes a smaller amygdala is correlated, not in a causal way, but it's correlated with psychopathy. So the question of why you have to approach from a lot of different angles, and it's never going to be as simplistic as saying that person's evil. It's usually going to be nature, nurture, upbringing, attachment, brain structure, brain chemistry, personality disorders. It's usually going to be a huge array of different elements that come together to create that particular crime. If I know 12 possible reasons or wise for a crime, I can probably narrow it down.

to like three or four that make the most sense that have the most explanatory power. But at the end of the day, this idea that there's a why, a single why, is misleading. And criminals don't know the why. Again, like Raskolnikov and Dostoevsky's crime and punishment is a great example of someone who really doesn't know the why. He commits these murders because he thinks he wants to show he can get away with murder. and he has all these different theories about why he's doing it. But at the end, like in the end, he doesn't really,

not only does he not understand himself, but he doesn't understand his motives. Motives are never totally transparent to a criminal. Your Mike. I get it. Thank you. Thank you. Somebody said that you're inspiring them to

classic literature and I want to say yes, he would, John would be inspired that you're inspired by that because he believes. I love that. Thank you. Yeah, I love that because I believe strongly that there's no profession that has all the answers. So whether that's psychology or sociology or English literature or physics, like any field of study, they're not going to offer. for the answer. They're just going to give us a version of reality. So I think for me, literature is one of my go-toes because it really, literature displays the complexity more so than many research studies in psychology. It shows us the complexity of human interactions and relationships and the human psyche, more so than many other areas of study for me personally.

Thank you so much for being here today. We appreciate all of you. And thank you. And again, I'll see you guys shortly. We'll see you. How good night. Good night. Most people don't realize how much their personal information is being bought and sold every day.

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