Hidden True Crime - IDAHO FOUR: Analysis on Moscow Motive with Forensic Psychologist Dr. John

Episode Date: January 22, 2023

(This episode was previously recorded during a Hidden Hour LIVE SHOW on Hidden True Crime's YouTube page January 20th, 2023. Every Friday night, unless otherwise posted, subscribers/YouTube channel members are able to ask forensic psychologist Dr. John Matthias questions.) Here is our Hidden Hour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbiTYZ-HKH4  Subscribe for Friday night lives, psychological analysis, and insider interviews for an in depth look at crimes.  Each Friday night we host HIDDEN HOUR, to share our night with our Hidden Gems. Please always check in to see what time our Friday night live is airing. DR. JOHN MATTHIAS is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist with 30 years’ experience in both clinical and forensic work. He serves as an expert witness for the federal government and has consulted on numerous high-profile cases for District Attorney’s offices and defense attorneys in several states. In the forensic area, Dr. Matthias has developed expertise in personality assessments, hidden behavioral motivations, complex trauma and criminal psychology. In the clinical realm, he has worked with numerous victims. He received his Master’s degree in Marriage, Family and Child counseling, as well his doctorate degree, from the University of Southern California.  Dr. Matthias graduated with honors in philosophy from Princeton University, and he won the prestigious McCosh Thesis prize while there. In high school he graduated valedictorian from a large public high school in Chicago where he was chosen to participate in a ground-breaking valedictory study that continues to this day.  Dr. Matthias has been an adjunct assistant professor in the University of Nevada Las Vegas clinical psychology doctoral program since 2007. He supervises UNLV doctoral students on forensic assessments, clinical case formulation, and various therapeutic approaches to clinical work. Your support helps us produce these podcasts/videos. We have some big plans to explore the true crime terrain in a way that no one else has attempted. HIDDEN: A TRUE CRIME PODCAST is: CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY REINVENTED. Join us on a journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind and the unconscious motivations that drive human behaviors in order to understand the world and ourselves.  WEBSITE: https://hiddentruecrime.com/ TO SUPPORT:  https://www.patreon.com/hiddentruecrime https://paypal.me/hiddentruecrime https://cash.app/$hiddenTruecrime Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Our Sponsors:* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Acorns: https://acorns.com/HIDDENTRUECRIME* Check out Armoire and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.armoire.style* Check out Effecty and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://www.effecty.com* Check out Happy Mammoth and use my code HIDDENTRUECRIME for a great deal: https://happymammoth.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hidden-a-true-crime-podcast1836/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and have kept going because we started this podcast. And many know they'll say, I have been with you from the start when you were around your kitchen table or dining room table talking at dinner. And that is exactly how we started and how we still do some interviews and how we do our unedited Patreon episodes that we share on Patreon. And now we do. these lives in different bedrooms of our house. And so we just want to thank everyone. And of course, becoming bigger this week, we've received wonderful feedback, and we've received some people complaining about audio issues.

We understand, and I hope maybe understanding our origins a little bit better helps. While we have purchased better microphones throughout this process and mixers, we don't have a nice soundproof room. We're debating. We're actually arguing back and forth about which room we're going to sacrifice to put, you know, padding or soundproof walls all over. So we have different ideas about which room. But we want you to know that we're hearing the feedback about our audio and we will work on that. Another problem we have is because we've been recording our podcast live, if there is an audio issue or a connection issue at one moment, it's hard for us to go back and we record they're a little bit more organic than they were in the beginning shall we say well they

were pretty organic in the beginning weren't they john they were organic in the beginning i just spent a little bit more time editing them in the beginning anyway we're so excited so excited that john is just smiling i can just see yeah i'm i'm just thinking about i'm thinking about our little guy and whatever choice we make about a studio he will not be satisfied so I think he'll be the most dissatisfied customer of whatever, or, you know, end user of whatever decision we make. But we'll have a little bit of negotiating to do. Right now we're deciding.

What room to convert. We were very excited this week and we just want to thank all of you. We're just a small operation in the middle of the desert. So, you know, how we correct the top 20? I don't know. I think we're still scratching our heads, but thank you for being patient with us. Yeah, and Patches is letting you know that she'd asked for your autograph. Patches is a, I don't even think she's a millennial.

She's so young and hip. She's like Generation Z. I don't even think they do autographs anymore. They just take selfies. I think that selfies are the new autograph, right? So that's an extra compliment coming from our listener. Oh, thank you, Patches. Yeah, I appreciate that Patches.

But if you want an autograph, you know, I have. yet to sign an autograph for anyone. So thank you. That's flattering patches. Maybe maybe you'll be the first. I think famous people have to sign autographs at some point. So I haven't signed any. Well, not necessarily. Chad Daybell signed a lot of autographs. Well, he's pretty famous. Well, now, I don't think he's famous in the way he wanted to be. Yeah, right. We've covered the Daybell case a lot too. And we're referring to Chad Daybell, a doomsday author. and we hope that those new to our podcasts will start following that case because it is an important

case going to try on April and we'll make sure you all get caught up. So stick with us there. Chad Daywell was a doomsday author who was famous in his own mind. We even purchased all of his books on used bookstore sites and the majority of them were signed by him. So he clearly loved signing his autograph. He signed him plenty. So it just a doesn't take fame to sign autographs, my point being. True. Infamous, exactly, Eve, be infamous. And speaking of the dayball case, let's just briefly talk about that.

And then we're going to get into the Moscow case. We're going to talk motive. And right here I have the updates from today, the search warrant, what a few news outlets broke as far as what we know about Brian Koeberger contacting the victims. So we'll get into that in just a second. First, the Daybell case, there was a hearing this week where both Chad, Daybell, and Lori Vallow were there. It was very interesting.

Essentially, this is what we learned. The judge, Judge Boyce, Nix, continuing the trial, meaning the continuance on the trial, as in it's still going forward. It's planned for April 3rd. In addition to that, the judge also stating, although he wants to go forward with a date, He said if the defense, John Pryor doesn't get the information. He's asking from the prosecution transcripts that he needs, they will set the trial back. So he pretty much told the prosecution, get this stuff to John Pryor.

And then what else we learned, which is really interesting, was this request that Lori Vallow's defense has asked that the two meet, their husband and wife, can they meet? Can they talk before the trial? And I don't even know if you know this, John. I think I might be informing John right now. He said no to that, that they cannot. They cannot. Well, it makes sense because it would be highly unusual for co-conspirators to get together. I mean, essentially, that would allow them a chance to strategize.

Yes. So I've never seen that. So, I mean, you know, it's an interesting attempt in the sense that their husband and wife. It's an interesting argument because they are husband and wife. They are husband and wife. Right. They're both. They're both things.

Right, but co-conspirators aren't allowed to get together or gather together because then they can share information and change their stories. Eve B asks if there will be cameras allowed at trial. And I want to say this, at this moment, there are not cameras allowed in Rexburg, Idaho. We'll see about Boise. The judge, Judge Boyce could change his mind. And I think, I think it's common that a judge wouldn't want cameras right now to taint the jury pool. But maybe he'll change his mind on cameras for the trial.

That's to be determined. But John and I do plan to cover the trial whether there are cameras or whether there are not cameras. So we hope you'll stick with us in April. Because there are no cameras, we had an hidden gem in court in Rexberg. And she gave the most interesting description. And I just want to read that really quickly. And then we'll move on to Moscow.

But this comes from Janine Hansen. And John, I don't think you've heard this. So I want your opinion on this. She writes, what an interesting scenario to be in the same courtroom as Lori and Chad. Chad was brought in first. He sat there in his typical stoic stance, stiff, staring straight ahead, clasping his hands. As always, he appeared very nervous. It's like it's the harder he tries, the more obvious his nervous state seems to be. Then in walks Lori, slim, dressed in black slacks and a dress blouse. Her shoes didn't appear to be dressy enough for her outfit. She walked with her usual

bounce, smiling, hair neatly curled, and makeup. I was waiting for her to break out in a pageant wave. To me, it feels like this is still her stage, she writes in quotes. She doesn't come across with the fact that her children were murdered and she is facing the death penalty. As she walked in to take her seat sitting beside her team of lawyers, she flirtatiously walked behind Chad, obviously trying to get him to notice. He did not flinch. When she took her chair, she made sure it was back far enough, just in case her husband might look over her way. But he did not. She kept sending very flirtatious looks over at him while flipping her blonde locks. He still did not utter an eye in her direction. This is going to be be an interesting show once the trial starts in April. Continuance was denied. But no,

Lori and Chad do not get to meet in person with their attorneys. What do you think about that? It is interesting. I think that is the continuation of a narrative that began a long time ago in the sense that if some of our listeners recall the Daybell kids appearing on 2020, essentially Emma Daybell said during their appearance and she was one of the spokespeople. for spokesperson for the family. She basically said Chad was framed that Lori and Alex and or Lavis Cox probably had something to do with it, but she certainly implied that Lori had framed Chad. And so I think that was the beginning of giving us a glimpse into Chad Daybell's defense, which is presumably Chad's talking to his kids quite a bit. We know that.

They visit the jail. Presumably, the defense is getting involved. It's seems like it's going to involve throwing Lori under the bus. And in the body language, if that's accurate, we weren't there, obviously, but Janine's a great source for us would suggest that Chad is distancing himself from Lori and his defense is probably going to involve some type of betrayal of Lori, perhaps. And that would be indicative of that. But I think that story or that narrative began a while ago when the kids essentially said, our dad was framed. He didn't know anything about this. And he's been steadfast in his story that he didn't know anything about this and that he was shocked to learn that he was arrested and charged and he couldn't believe it. That would be consistent

with someone who's going to blame other people for his problems. Yes. For those that want to get caught up on the daybell case, because it is going to be a case that John and I cover extensively in 23 due to the trial being planned for April. John was part of the Netflix documentary. Sins of our mother, sins of our mother tells the entire story that we're discussing. John played a part in that. And then another podcast you can listen to is Dateline's mommy Doomsday for a really great thorough telling of the story. And then once you finish either of those, come to our podcast and listen to our first season, Beyond the Veil for the psychological breakdown and hidden motives. It's actually why we named our podcast hidden because we talk about those hidden motives.

Jemma, thank you. Thank you so much for your support. She's asking, have you read the sociopath next door? That's a great read. So relationship story now between John and me. Our first phone call was two hours long. We talked about crime. We talked about I think everything you're not supposed to talk about on a first date.

We talked about past unhealthy relationships. shared all these things about me that I didn't like and, you know, he still called me the next night, thank heavens. But as we started dating, one of the first books he recommended to me was that. So yes, we've read it. Julie Holdenwright's Lauren has definitely read that book. It's a classic. I feel like it's a very accessible book, but the research is maybe a little outdated. The Freestone book, I think, is also very accessible, but probably. probably a little better with current research. Question.

Our first question, are you ready, John? Okay. Lee Perry writes, I would love some time to hear how you both met and what brought you so close. Was it because of such an interesting crime? Yeah, my cousin was like, Hey, Lauren, you love true crime.

I know a guy that loves true crime. I should introduce you two crime lovers. No, that's not how it went actually. We did get set up by my cousin, but I don't think she understood our mutual interest in crime. We learned that about each other on our first phone call, though. Right. When we talked, we discussed a triple homicide case that you were covering up in Idaho at the time. And that certainly cemented our connection. And it wasn't a, it wasn't a, hey, do you like talking about crime? That wasn't how the conversation.

It was mostly, I'm talking to a psychologist, and I'm dealing with a little bit of trauma myself because I had been on a story. Some of our stories are easier to report on than others. And there was a story that I was reporting on and I'd been reporting on it since the day it happens since the bodies were found about a family, whole family who had been killed, break in. And so here I am on the phone being set up by my cousin with a forensic psychologist who works with criminals and I was like, all right. So I'm working on a story. Help me understand this.

And I think actually the day you came to meet me too, because we were long distance, so the day you drove up to meet me, I was also reporting on a murder that day too. And I was a reporter in Boise, Idaho. So murders didn't happen every day. This wasn't, you know, New York City or Chicago. So that's why we've been talking about. crime since the day we met. Yeah, and we still occasionally talk about that first crime that we discussed years ago. Evan writes, cousin is the best. I need a cousin like that.

It's true. In fact, she worked with John. She worked with John. And then she called my aunt, who then called me. And she was like, all right, he's this and he's this and he's this. You good? And, you know, I was, I'd just been through so many bad relations. I'm like, yeah, what do you got, Aunt Kathy?

What do you got for? And I said, sure, why not? I'll talk to him. And then love it for his phone call. So glad we're here together on a split screen, babe. I love you. In separate rooms of our house. I love you too.

Yeah, nothing speaks romance more than a triple homicide on your first crawl. Yeah. No, it was a traumatic thing for me to cover it. And so I just went right in and talked to him. And I thought, wow, he really, he's a, he's a listener too. That's what I realized to. He's a listener. He's kind.

I was at a friend's house when he called because, you know, someone's setting me up. I just said, hey, I'm going to take a call really quickly. Sarah, is that cool? She said, yeah, that's fine. And I went into the bedroom and I was gone for two hours. So we talked for two hours and we talked every night since. We'll share more of it on Patreon. How about that?

People are asking. Does that work, John? We're going to share our dating story and our origin story on Patreon for a Patreon episode soon. we've had a lot of requests. Yeah, I would just say that there is an American philosopher, his name is Stanley Caval, and I'm going to get this quote a little bit wrong. I'm going to paraphrase it, but Stanley Caval essentially says that the basis of friendship is an ongoing lifelong conversation.

And I feel like that's what we have. Thanks, babe. I love you. It is true. When we finish these lives, we just go and continue talking. and we have the after show. Yeah. Which we are starting to do those for our Patreon members too.

So inviting you guys to our after show as we keep talking. Thanks, babe. I love you. That was sweet. I love you too. Back to Moscow, Idaho. Just more and more keeps coming out. True crime sluts are incredible what they're bringing to the table.

Thank you for everyone's support this week as we shared our investigation and the wonderful job that our team did. And we appreciate all you have. done for us. It means a lot. We'll keep you posted on any updates there. So this week, what came down was a search warrant where we learned some of the things that they found, including a

Walmart receipt with a diggy's tag, two Marshall's receipt, a dust container, eight possible hair strands, one possible animal hair strand, which is interesting if that is Murphy, quite a few possible hairs, a computer tower, a collection of dark red spot. It's collected without

testing, an uncased pillow of reddish-brown stain, two top and bottom of mattress covers packaged separately, both labeled. Those are a few things. And we'll delve into that in a moment. You forget the nitrite type black glove, by the way. That was the first element. That could be a really important finding. So yeah, the first one, the most important. Thank you. There you go. I did skip right over that. Number one, black glove. Yeah, thank you, John. And it's important to mention, too, that they also, he had an office at Washington State. he was a graduate student, so he was teaching. And they searched his office as well, but they did not disclose the evidence they found

that they did not disclose what they seized from his office. They only disclosed what they seized from his apartment. So we don't know. There could be, I think you and I envision, you know, pictures of the victims on his walls and strings attached to them and all kinds of crazy, obsessive memorabilia related to the victim. But it doesn't seem like they found that. The other thing that came down is reports a leak that Brian Coburger, who is charged with the murders of Zana, Kaylee, Ethan, and Maddie, that he did follow the three women on Instagram and that he tried, according to these news outlets, to get in contact through a direct message with one of the girls. It's not known if she saw the message on Instagram.

If you're not following someone and they're not following you, the messages get sent to a message request folder. So unless she's checking her message request, we don't even know if she saw the message. But according to People magazine, the most recent article today from people, he'd actually not received a reply and became persistent and the questions were along the lines of, hey, how are you?

How are you? Nothing too extreme, nothing too personal, except that they state that he was persistent. And I would like to start there because that's some very compelling news to learn, something we've all been wondering. And I'd like to ask you what this means. John, let's start there. Is that an okay place to start? Yes.

I think that's a great place to start. because I think the question everyone's asking these days is what's the motive? And if you go back to, even prior to knowing the suspect, if you go back to some of our earlier discussions, I was developing the idea or the theory or the profile that the motives seem most likely to me to involve some type of rejection and some type of revenge. That's not rocket science, by the way. The reason I believe that is because of research on mass murderers and school shooters.

Colberger looks a lot to me like a school shooter. School shooters are essentially a type of mass murderer, by the way. So mass murder is defined as a murderer who kills three or four people at the same time. My initial hypothesis was that there was probably some type of rejection, which led to some type of revenge, typically. And that's consistent with the research in this area. The DMs are fascinating because now we have a connection to the victims. You know, we haven't vetted it. People claims to have the Instagram account.

They claim to have definitive proof that he was following three of the victims, three of the female victims. Now we're starting to see that idea, I think, play out a little bit more, that if it's accurate that he was messaging one of the victims repeatedly and she wasn't replying, now we're getting closer to this idea of rejection. A lot of times in mass murderers, you will see some type of, it's called different things, but you'll see a crisis point or a triggering event. And a lot of times that might involve rejection.

In fact, I'm actually going to read a little quote from Peter Langman. This book, School Shooters, it's by Peter Langman. This book was written in 2015. Peter Langman has done a lot of research on mass murderers and shooters in particular. And this is his latest work. I'm going to reference Langman on page 171, I believe. He's identifying motives for mass murderers. Here's what he says.

When I say shooter, by the way, you can think that Koeberger is a lot like a shooter, except he exchanges his gun for a knife. You know, most mass murderers use guns because they're more efficient and you can get in and out quicker, right? And honestly, I mean, I know this sounds grotesque. I don't mean it to. But a gun will kill more people much faster. So a knife would not be your preferred method of killing if you're trying to kill a lot of people.

That might also lend credence to the fact that perhaps he was targeting one person. The other people, just the other victims happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Matt would say he was targeting Kaylee, for example. I've already theorized that. But if he was targeting Kaylee, for example, and Natty was in the. bed with her, then in some ways he probably felt compelled to kill two people. And Zana apparently was awake. So if he went to the bedroom, it went to Kaylee and Maddie's bedroom first and killed them. Zana was apparently awake. Ethan may have been awake. And he probably killed them because they were in the way.

Here's the quote. This is from Langman. School Shooters, page 171. Most shooters either failed to establish any romantic or sexual relationships or else suffered breakups or rejections that contributed to their anguish and anger. These failures were often devastating. Next page 172. Multiple shooters suffered breakups or rejections shortly before their attacks. Some perpetrators were consumed with anguish

over their inability to have a girlfriend. For most shooters, intimacy was one more domain in which they failed, unquote. Notice that Langman says most. Langman is identifying the fact that, huge motive behind mass murders and school shooters is rejection. It's failures to develop romantic relationships. It's important there is the fact that he reached out to them. They apparently didn't respond. He felt rejected. People might say, well, you know, how could they

reject him if he didn't even have a dialogue with them or if there was no communication? And the answer is because that's his perception. He doesn't have to have a dialogue with him. He has to simply reach out multiple times. They don't respond or at least one of the victims doesn't respond. And he feels like a failure. He feels immensely rejected. And hence, you start this whole process of stalking, leading to murder. I think the DMs are a really critical component of our knowledge so far because they would now

begin closing in on this motive of relationship failure, relationship failures. and rejection, which ultimately would lead us to the murders. Shout out to Peter Langman. Thank you for your work. This is Langman's first book or first well-known book from 2009. It's called Why Kids Kill. I've referenced this. That is sort of a classic work now in terms of mass murders and school shooters.

And the second book I mentioned, School Shooters, is a little more of a typology and it's a little more detailed. why kids kill, I think is probably a little bit of a better read in terms of just getting the overall picture of school shooters and mass murderers and why they do it. So actually, I'd probably recommend the book I just held out why kids kill. A lot of people are mentioning books that you're citing. Thank you for citing your work. Okay. A little. Yeah, I always cite my work. We always cite our work. Yeah. People are also mentioning how much they enjoy your books. I think now might be a good time to mention that in 2023, we are also starting or have started, Dr. John or Dr. Babes Book Club. He did not name it. We did. I did. Our team did. Dr. Babes Book Club.

And that is on Patreon, patreon.com slash hidden true crime. And what do you tell them what we're reading right now and what your plans are for our first meeting? The book we're going to talk about is called Making a Psychopath. It is by Mark Freestone, and we're going to be discussing it. It'll be the first book we're going to discuss. We'll discuss it on January 31st, which is a Tuesday. That'll be our first book club meeting that will occur at 6 p.m. Pacific time. For anyone who wants to participate, we'll all meet on Zoom and we'll have a big group discussion about the book and psychopaths and what psychopaths look like and it'll be a fun discussion. Ozzie Tad says thanks for not making us read crime and punishment first, making it an easy read.

Some people are saying they've started it and other people are saying they just got the book. Yes, come join us. Thanks, Ozzie Tad. Yeah, I had to really restrain myself from not recommending crime and punishment because I love that book. There's a literary critic, Harold Bloom, we taught at Yale for many years and he was widely beloved by a lot of readers, Bloom has said that he felt crime and punishment is by far the best detective crime novel ever written. And I tend to agree with that. But yeah, we won't start there.

So I'm glad you agree with that. One thing that I want to start with discussing some of the questions and comments we've received in the last couple weeks. So thank you again, everyone, for sharing your questions and comments on YouTube and on Patreon. I know that a few weeks ago I shared that we read every single one of them. And I didn't know that we would then have a YouTube video with almost 3,000 comments. So I was like, oh, wait a minute, maybe not. But I want you to know that actually I have, I think,

read almost all of them the past few weeks. So thank you. And John and I went through a lot of them today. We picked a few that we wanted to discuss tonight. So again, always leave your questions and comments on the comments of YouTube or on Patreon if you're on Patreon. on, we do read them all. So if we can't get to your excellent questions, tonight, we will the following week.

So I want to start actually with probable scenario, if that's okay, from Sarah. Sarah Grissetti. One of the constant dialogues we have is where did the murderer, let's assume it's Kohlberger, where did he begin? Who were the first victims? And I have generally said that I think that the murders started on the second. floor, but thanks to our community and a lot of comments we've received over the last week, I've changed my mind. And I now, I agree with a lot of our viewers that he began the murders

on the third floor. And I think that's interesting because I think that would have been harder to pull off. But the evidence seems to indicate that. And our community is really astute. And you guys gave us some great evidence, or me, some great evidence. Thank you, Hidden Jems, for helping me understand that the most probable scenario is that the killer went to the third floor looking for presumably Kaylee. Look at our community changing Dr. John's mind. Yep. So, yes, we do love our community.

And you pointed out all the right evidence that we needed to say you're right. But I think also you're right. It actually makes it seem even more so that the target was on the third floor because. Right. nothing stopped him from going directly there. And so it would seem that based on the DMs, that he seemed to be invested in one victim in particular, the anonymous source hasn't disclosed who that was, but you'd have to assume that it was either Kaylee or Maddie, and Maddie was in a relationship.

So it would seem like it would be Kaylee that was the primary target. But we don't know. And Kaylee had, we know that Kaylee sustained more injuries, more severe injuries, which would also be indicative of Kaylee being. the primary target. Again, we don't know for sure. So this is Sarah Grissetti, one of our hidden jams sharing her scenario. My understanding, she says, is that the dog was closed in Kaylee's old room upstairs. If that's true, then I think the killer went straight upstairs, open that door looking

for Kaylee, which woke the dog. I think that is what DM heard, DM in the in the affidavit probable cause, the roommate. That is what DM heard when she thought she heard Kaylee playing with the dog. I think the killer closed the door after encountering the dog and realizing Kaylee wasn't there, I can't imagine he'd want the now excited dog running free around the house. I think he then attacked the girls before returning downstairs. I'm not entirely sure what I think happened next, but I wonder that perhaps Zana, who was awake, heard commotion upstairs and she or Nathan went to see what was going

on and encountered the killer. Dr. John, thank you for what you said about the importance of looking at both sides of a crime. As an aspiring profiler, I certainly believe in putting the victims first, but I also strongly believe that understanding perpetrators helps to solve and prevent violent crime. I think the fact that so many of us who watch your channel are survivors, ourselves, says a lot. I think you strike the right balance between seeking to understand killers while not glamorizing them. Every crime has multiple motives, but few offenders understand those motives. I definitely agree with what you said. I think that's a very possible scenario. And thank you, Sarah. In addition to Sarah's comment, other people had mentioned some of the

timelines and the fact that the video of the thud occurred later, closer to Kovberger's departure from the home. There were a number of facts. actors, I think, that make it clearer that he started these murders on the third floor, which is where Kaylee and Maddie were sleeping. Question. Our first question, are you ready, John? Okay. I love this question.

It was so short and to the point, and I thought profound. Caroline Siano states, greed, lust, and revenge. Sure, your typical motives. Where would you assign fantasy among the three? that we're talking about it. Yeah, so we had talked about, I don't remember if it was our last show, but we had talked about what I call the true crime trio. The true crime trio are the three basic motives for crime,

for criminal acts. And the true crime trio consists of greed, lust, and revenge, which is what Caroline mentioned here. I also talk a lot about how fantasy plays such an impotent role in crime. She's asking, where does fantasy fit in among these three, since I didn't mention it? And the short answer is that each of these motives, greed, lust, and revenge involves fantasy. So I think fantasy is not a separate category.

You wouldn't say greed, lust and revenge. You would say greed has certain fantasies, lust has certain fantasies, revenge has certain fantasies attached to it. If you think about greed, and I'll just run through each one quickly, but I think when you think about greed, I think the underlying motive is what I would call acquisition. People want money and they're greedy because ultimately they want to acquire stuff. And most people want to acquire a lot of stuff, including money, because they want to feel secure. I think the underlying motive for greed tends to be security. But if you actually dig a little deeper, when you think about greed, I think a lot of people are greedy because they seek social status.

And social status is in some ways about admiration. So social status is about driving a nicer car. your neighbor. I think that people seek social status because they want admiration. And people want admiration because they want to feel important and ultimately they want to feel loved. So I think when you really break down this motive of greed, I think on the surface it's about security and acquiring stuff to feel secure. But if you dig deeper, I believe that greed has more to do with social status and seeking approval and admiration from others, which then is much more related to something like seeking love.

And as far as lust goes, lust on the surface, I think lust is about possession. I think of classic lust scenarios of like jealousy, domestic violence. Jealousy is about possessing someone controlling them. Possession too is about security. So I think security in the sense that many people that are lusting or end up feeling jealous, their goal is to get the partner to stay. It's to get someone to never leave. It's to control their behaviors and to control them so that they feel secure with that person.

In some ways, the fantasy behind lust is security, which is in a way similar with greed. So I think there's some commonalities there. And of course, I guess if you dig deeper with lust, you get into the same idea. You get into that people seek lust because they want to feel some sense of belonging. longing or they want to feel some sense of unconditional acceptance and love. In a way, you kind of land in the same area. If you go deeper, lust is mainly about love and wanting to feel unconditional love. That's obviously a peculiar way. Like lusting after someone and trying to control them is a peculiar way to get that. But nobody said that criminals were rational.

Ozzie Tatt says there's nothing like jealousy to make someone want to stick around. That's the irony, isn't it? That if the goal have lost this possession, then possession is probably the last thing you want to do to develop a healthy relationship. Again, these are criminals we're talking about. So that's why they commit these acts. It may not make sense to a lot of us, but it makes sense to them. And the final one is revenge. Revenge is about seeking justice. And I think revenge for many criminals, the fantasy is that with revenge, something has upended the world for these people and they want to set the world right. Revenge is about setting something right. And so that's a version of justice. Many criminals, even though their sense

of justice may be highly skewed, that's how they see it, that they want their perception of the world to be true and accurate, and so they'll resort to violence to prove that it is. So ultimately, I think if you dig deep enough on revenge, you're looking at something like power and control. Let's say Coburger's revenge was that he felt rejected, that he felt in some way, well, let's go back. with Koberger in his childhood, there's supposedly, we've talked to a few sources that have confirmed this, but it's not entirely clear how bad this was, but there was a lot of bullying. And bullying is very consistent with the profile of mass murderers and school shooters. There was a great deal of bullying.

And I think because of that, I think Kovberger developed a lot of revenge fantasies. So this is someone that from a young age is probably thinking about revenge. He's probably really sensitive to rejection. Flash forward to last year when these murders were committed, he's DMing the victims or one in particular. They're not responding. He feels slighted. He feels rejected.

I think that's where revenge comes into play here. He wants to establish some sense of power and control. In some ways, he's seeking some justice, I guess, because he feels like he deserves to receive attention and he's not getting it. In fact, I'm going to read another quote from Langman's book. He quotes Elliot Roger, who we've talked about, Elliot Rogers, the in-cell, that was a misogynist and had a lot of problems with women.

This is something that Elliot Rogers said. This is in the last video that Elliot Roger produced. He said, quote, I don't know why you girls aren't attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. If I can't have you girls, I will destroy you. So that's revenge. We haven't confirmed this,

it does seem like Papa Roger, which may very well be a tribute to Elliot Roger, is someone that Brian Coburger may have known or looked up to. And so it's that sentiment that if I can't have you, I will destroy you. And that's exactly what Coburger did. I think the answer to the question is that greed, lust and revenge each involved different fantasies for criminals. They all have sort of different motives around those fantasies, but hopefully I explained some of that. You did. I want to read what Topsie wrote. I think it's an interesting theory. She wrote, OMG, the fact that Kaylee was leaving for Texas because he may have been obsessed by her. And then he was angry she was leaving. Therefore, he wasn't in control in his own weird fantasy anymore.

You know, that's the possibility. I also want to point out that there are a lot of people believing that Maddie was perhaps the target. And as John said, we don't know. So we're listening to everyone. We're listening. We're open. You can change their mind. But to take this scenario, we also know that he circled from the affidavit. He circled the house quite a few times before going in that night. And Kaylee's car was there and it was a new car. And she had just purchased this car. And I think he certainly saw this car as well.

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Topsy, I wanted to highlight it. Thank you. And an Ozzie Tad is saying, we need to teach our kids to be kind to loan our kids. So they go into banking or politics instead of crime. we had a very popular comment um can i share that really quickly yes i want to share something we have never had a comment liked by liked i mean thumbed up so many times almost a thousand people liked a comment by secret diva left 12 days ago on our youtube so i want i want to read that because

it goes with what azi is saying secret diva writes this in quotes in the early two thousand's my 8-year-old son was being bullied by a skinny, isolated, angry 8-year-old boy with ADHD on Ritalin who had no friends and was clearly developmentally skew. He told my son he wanted to get a gun and shoot everyone someday. I decided to have a meeting with his mom and the principal and teacher. We came up with a plan to bring him to our place after school, to sleepovers and dinners. I had four kids and there was always a houseful playing in our pool in summer. He had never slept over or had dinner at a friend's place before or been to birthday parties. My son used his peer influence to include the boy in the group in the playground.

He became a frequent visitor for play at our home for years into his teens. Long story short, this boy is now a grown man with a wife and a child. His mom texts me every New Year's Eve still to think. thank me. He has a tattoo of the mad hatter and an Alice in Wonderland picture that we had in our home that says, quote, we're all mad here, end quote. I truly believe that it's up to us and to our, up to our communities to identify and reach out to these kids. They need help, but compassionate, patient friends and socializing is far better in the long run than doctors or pills. And I just wanted to say thank you for leaving that beautiful story on our YouTube page because it was really

touching and it touched a lot of people underneath it there were almost 200 replies yeah and you know I want to add to that story I performed I conducted an evaluation a couple of years ago with a 15 year old and the children at school or the kids at school gave him the nickname school shooter. And this kid was always perceived as somewhat of an outcast and he was really struggling. And I think that when I did my interview with him, it was very clear that this is what he wanted. He just wanted to be included. He just wanted to have a few friends. He just wanted to feel normal.

And he really, really struggled with that. And it was a really difficult evaluation for me because there were some serious. serious mental health issues, and he had done some pretty bad things. And so evaluating risk with him was really difficult. But I think a scenario like this really would have changed that kid's trajectory. But instead of embracing this kid, the community rejected him. And they referred to him as a school shooter, which made it even worse. He had no friends. And so, you know, to this day, I still wonder about him and what happened to him in his trajectory. I did see a story, maybe a year after my evaluation, which was a little frightening about him.

And I can't talk about it because I don't want to identify him. But I think maybe there's a tendency not to embrace these types of kids, but to see them as threats today or to see them as to be afraid rather than to treat them with compassion. And so I don't know. This is a very, obviously, this is a very compassionate thing that Secret Diva did. And to see that and to act on it is really amazing. And I wish more of us would work on that or have the capacity to do that. It's hard. Faithfully writes, as a middle school teacher, there are no bad kids. I cannot stress that enough.

They are the product of their environment. We need to focus on the good. And as a middle school teacher, I want to say thank you for that because a middle school teacher's job is not easy. And as a middle school student once. I will never forget the middle school teacher that I could tell cared the most about all of the kids and about me. So thank you. And I think middle school is such a critical period, it's such a critical transitional period when kids are really trying to figure out who they are and what they stand for and what they can become. And so I agree. Thank you, Faith, for believing and your kids. And Evan the bat writes, I used to be the angry kid back in school and used to get bullied. Sophomore year of high school, I met my best friend. She started taking me to anime cons,

made me a part of her family. And yeah, she saved me. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great story. Thanks for sharing that Evan the bat. That's, it's touching to know that there's people out there who care and they're willing to embrace people that are often perceived as different or outcasts. Next question. We have a lot of questions coming down tonight, so we'll get to the questions we already have planned. Alistair Mitchell, if Brian Koberger did it, BK may have wanted to commit the perfect murder, but in reality, it's the furthest thing from perfect. Do you think it bothers him or is it making him nervous now that it was a dismal failure based on errors that he made? Do you think it bothers him or is making him nervous now that it was a failure if he wanted

to commit the perfect murder? Yes, I think he's someone who has some obsessional qualities. The fact that he returned to the scene of the crime the morning after, I think would suggest that he was really, really concerned about leaving. even behind the nice sheath. So I think it's something that has bothered him immensely. And my guess is he's reworked that the crime scene a million times in his mind and replayed it, probably tried to correct it or tried to revise his mistakes. I definitely think that he's probably been obsessed about it. And I think he did believe that he could commit the perfect murder. So if it's any consolation

for our listeners, I think it bugs him a lot. You know, a lot of people, People wonder if he left the sheath on purpose. Some people wonder if he wanted to be caught. I don't feel that at all, especially knowing that he applied for an internship with police saying that he felt he could help the rural police departments with their forensic evidence. And I think he actually was cocky. And I do think he thought he could get away with this. I don't think he did anything on purpose that could possibly get him caught. So I agree with you. I've noticed there's a criminologist out there who's floating around the idea that he left the sheath on purpose. I just don't see why he would want to do that.

I don't see the motivation for doing that. It's not clear to me how that would throw anyone off his trail, especially when the only DNA they pulled from the crime scene so far that we're aware of is the thumbprint on the sheath. And that that is probably the most problematic piece of evidence that he has to deal with or his defense will have to deal with. So it seems like a strange theory. The person floating that theory hasn't really explained why he would have left the sheath, but the implication is that he did it because he was so deliberate and intelligent about committing crimes. Heather, I think that's how she says it.

Heather asks four questions. I'll read them all. He or she writes, I love you too, your minds and how considerate you are to each other watching this video now. And I wanted to ask you this. Number one, do you help dissuade you? people ever to commit these terrible crimes. Number two, do criminals really give a crap about the victim impact statements? Number three, do you help them reform to or contribute to society later in some way? Number four, do you think some people are just hardwired, wrong, and destined for crime?

I don't know which question you want to answer. I'll just, I'll run through each of these fairly quickly in terms of dissuading people from committing terrible crimes. You know, it's, it's very unusual that criminals will seek help before they engage in any type of violence or become criminals. I've had maybe two people over the years, maybe two or three people who made appointments to come see me because they were thinking about committing criminal acts. Because they did, I believe that they were dissuaded from committing crimes, but it's very, very rare. that criminals will seek help for fantasies or for thoughts they're having, for violent thoughts they're having that they want to act on.

So it happens rarely, but occasionally. So if somebody does show up for help or seeks help before they've committed any crime, then I think there's hope, but it's unusual. The second question, do criminals give a crap about victim impact statements? Generally speaking, I'd say no. but one of the interesting components of treatment I've done over the years with felons is that they all have to write a victim impact statement. We sometimes call it a victim empathy statement. But that is the one component of treatment.

So not a single felon can graduate from one of my programs or from one of my groups unless they complete a victim empathy statement. And that is the single obstacle that they have the most trouble with. criminals really, really, really struggle with empathy. And I have had felons in my groups who literally will not write a victim empathy statement for years. They refuse to write them, even though they know they can't get out of the program unless they write one. They will not write one because they do not want to believe that the victim had feelings or that the victim was impacted in any way because they see themselves as the victims. So this is a really interesting question because empathy is something that criminals, many criminals, especially hardcore criminals, struggle with.

And we know that psychopaths, for example, have almost no empathy, narcissists struggle with empathy. This is a really interesting question because almost every single felon I've worked with over the years in groups has had some difficulties writing a victim empathy statement. And the way they write them, by the way, there's very specific. guidelines that I adhere to that really kind of forces them to address their crimes in a very direct manner. And I think a lot of them do not want to do that. So especially for a felon that has not had any type of treatment, if a felon goes to court and a victim impact statement is read by a judge, and usually they're going to sentencing, so the question is, do they give a

crap? No, they don't give a crap. I'm sure most of them don't. They can care less. As far as these other questions, do you help them reform to contribute to society? The answer is yes. I've had, I've had a lot of criminals graduate from some of my groups and go on to be productive members of society. It's a long, difficult process, but it happens. And so, yes, I think that many criminals that eventually end up on probation or parole can be reformed. Do I think that some people are hardwired and destined for crime? The answer is yes. There's a lot of evidence suggesting that psychopaths, for example, have, there's a large genetic component in psychopathy. In fact, we'll talk about that with the Freestone book in the book club, but I agree with Freestone.

Freestone's argument is, yes, there's a genetic component, but almost every psychopath is also shaped by their environment. So it's the interaction between the environment and the upbringing or the nurture component that creates a psychopath. So it's very hard, I think, to get to a psychopath if you have some of this genetic predisposition towards psychopathy, but you're in a really healthy environment. It makes it more difficult to become a psychopath. So you might have, you might have the potential to become a psychopath, but that potential is not expressed or realized. This actually goes with, I'm going to ask this now. I wrote it down as a question to ask once we're finished with these, but Sarah asks, can empathy be learned? Yeah, that's, that's, that's,

She asked that in chat, and I felt it kind of went with that. Yeah, that's a fascinating question. I want to say yes, because I've worked with enough criminals over the years to have seen them develop empathy, but it is a long, hard struggle. I have to say yes, because I've seen it happen a lot. But getting there requires a lot of patience. And believe me, I've seen more than a few parole officers, more than a few parole officers have come into my office and said,

when are you going to let this guy go? You know, he's been in your program for five years. And my answer's always the same. I'll let him go when the community's safe. You know, if you want me to release this guy and have him go kill some people, let's do it tomorrow. But I'm not taking responsibility because he's not ready to go. So you're going to let a guy in the community has no empathy.

He's not taking responsibility for his crime. He's a risk. One thing that John has, I've heard John say to people, you know, what's the number one thing we can teach our children? and I actually recall a friend reaching out. She was in a difficult marriage. She didn't feel her husband had empathy. He was emotionally abusive.

There were some issues going on. She was worried about her son. And she said, what should I do? How do I handle this or manage this? And John said, just teach him empathy. Make sure he understands empathy. Easier said than done, by the way. but yes, empathy is the lack of empathy.

In fact, I'll go back to, it seems like Peter Langman's night tonight, but Langman identifies the failure of empathy as the number one commonality among mass murderers and school shooters. So the failure of empathy is a huge component of criminals in criminality. And the reason I think should be obvious because empathy is putting yourself, essentially putting yourself with someone else's shoes or seeing the world from their perspective, understanding what they're thinking and feeling.

And if you truly have the capacity to do that, then you're not going to want to hurt people. Christina Marston, interesting question. I'll save that too. I've seen a lot of interesting questions. Thank you, everyone. Janet Tucker tells a story that I felt was important to share. She writes,

My adult son passed away a year ago, and he had schizophrenia. And at one point, he said he had thoughts of attractions. to an underage relative. Thank God for non-judgmental therapists who treated him like a human. We did immediate safety plan, but also deep testing on top of my son's regular TXN discovered he was, in quotes, low risk, that it was an intrusive thought linked to his Tourette syndrome. The brain can be very complicated.

And thank God, my son was able to live his last. years not beat up for being honest. He passed from an unknown heart condition and I miss him so very much. And I wanted to bring that up because I feel like that's another reason. Perhaps we do need to talk about perpetrators, criminals, mental health. Because I think the same thing, thank God for people who treated this man, you know, like a human, that he had the ability to go to his mother, that his mother felt safe going for help and that he lived the last years of his life, not being beat up for being honest.

Yeah, and I want to thank Janet for her honesty here. I don't know if she's on tonight, but when Lauren read this, we both read it together, and we were both very touched by this, and it was very emotional for both of us. So we're sorry that you lost your son. That would be unimaginable to us. And we're glad that you dealt with professionals

that understood this for what it was, because I think it's highly possible that in the wrong hands that people would jump to a lot of conclusions about risk here. And thankfully, they figured out that he was low risk and there was a safety plan and things were handled quite professionally and quite well. So I'm glad that that was done correctly. Thank you, Janet, for sharing that. So this idea that the brain can be very complicated, I think that's, I think that's, quite profound and I agree with it.

And just because, by the way, so we talked earlier about the importance of fantasies and how they can relate to crime, just because someone's having a sexual fantasy about someone doesn't mean they're going to act on it. And in fact, I worked with a sex offender for a number of years who struggled with fantasies about children, sexual fantasies about children. And one time he made the mistake. And so it was something we were working with. him on. He never acted on those fantasies. His crime was related to that, was a sexual offense,

but part of treatment is helping offenders deal with those fantasies. And if you don't, they're going to reaffend. But he made the mistake at one point about telling his probation officer that he was having some fantasies about children. He was arrested. And he was put back in jail for like six months for just having a fantasy, which was to me, that was. To me, that was incredible because there's no crime in having a fantasy. And a big part of treatment is helping criminals deal with their fantasies and manage them. And in fact, I'm reasonably sure Colberger had many, many violent fantasies going back to when he was a teenager, even childhood. He talks about in the Top of Talk stuff that we discovered, he talks about hearing screams and

dealing with demons. And he talks about feeling like a criminal. So he was having a lot of fantasies, apparently violent fantasies from a very young age, and he didn't act on those fantasies until much later. So it's entirely possible that Koeberger, if he was able to identify those fantasies and how they might create problems like Janet's son did, and if he sought help for those, that perhaps he never would have committed these murders. Ginger snaps, thank you. When I worked as a therapist in an adolescent residential program,

one of the most common things the kids would tell me, was they simply liked that I treated them as a human and as an equal? Yeah, and it's, you know, from a clinical standpoint, it's, I've worked with a lot of therapists over the years that have worked with me in some of my groups. And it's hard working with felons because there's always this fear that they're going to reoffend. And I think some therapists struggle with it. Some therapists become a bit over-controlling at times with the belief that they somehow have to control their client's behaviors, otherwise they're going to look bad.

And so unfortunately, sometimes what happens when working with criminals is that therapists themselves become a little over-controlling. It doesn't make for reciprocal relationship. In fact, from a therapeutic standpoint, it's very counterproductive. So I appreciate that comment. There were quite a few really good questions. And I want to start with one that a lot of people have brought up before. and that we've never addressed.

Okay. How do you reconcile the fact that BK is both a vegan and a killer? Can you have intense empathy for animals but none for humans? I have the same question as Marvin does. Can you have empathy for animals but not for humans? Let's address the vegan issue first. I think you have to figure out if he's a vegan for philosophical reasons, philosophical and moral reasons,

or is he a vegan purely for health reasons? In terms of Coburger, I think it's conceivable that he's a vegan because he started becoming a vegan when he wanted to lose weight. So it may not have anything to do with the moral side about not harming animals. That's true. And a lot of diet talk on the Visual Snow Health Forum as well. So Eliza's saying the exact same thing. It wasn't about animal welfare, although it would be interesting to learn. I mean, we're starting to learn about Coburger.

We don't know that much. So it could be a moral issue. but I tend to agree with that comment, with the comment that it was probably more about physical health than it was about animals and how to treat animals. If it was, then yeah, that's a really interesting contradiction for sure. Can somebody have empathy towards animals and not humans? Yes, I think so.

I mean, it's possible in the sense that I think people, I think in some ways animals are safer. Certain animals, like dogs, for example, express, many of them, express unconditional love towards human beings, and that's safer for many people, and it's simpler than human relationships. So is it possible that somebody like Colberger, I don't think he had a dog, but is it possible that somebody like Colberger could have a closer relationship to an animal than a person, for sure? C&J rights animals don't reject people, like people reject people. Sometimes relationships with animals are safer for people.

Someone else is saying that, here we go, thank you, Tiffany. I'm a vegan for moral and ethical reasons. BK is not. He was looking for a way out of his visual snow or for health. Right, exactly. That's the central issue. Although I think it would be a fascinating dilemma or contradiction if he was, if he claims that he's a vegan for moral and ethical reasons.

I don't see that, but it's possible. Christina Martzen asks, can girls be psycho? is it bad that I see it in an unempathetic child that's mean to her sister and doesn't seem to get get it when we say she's manipulating people and hurtful to her little sister. So I think she might be asking this for personal questions. Can girl be psychopaths? There's a lot of debate about that. There's certainly fewer female psychopaths than male psychopaths.

And I'm going to plug our book club a little bit here. So in the Freestone book, making a psychopath, he actually addresses that issue a little bit. And his argument is that female psychopaths are different than male psychopaths in the sense that they're more relationship-based, that male psychopaths are much more inclined to manipulation and violence, direct violence. And female psychopaths tend to manipulate relationships for their personal gain. So the commonality is that they're both basing their behaviors on being self-centered and self-absorbed. They're basing their actions on their narcissism. So everything is based on them and themselves and what they can gain. But they have different means of accomplishing those goals.

The females tend to use relationships to get what they want. And men tend to just be aggressive and use violence to get what they want. So there are. And that, by the way, there's some research that supports that and some that doesn't. But that's Free Stone's take, and I tend to agree with it. Lisa Froond asks, or she states and then asks, you mentioned in earlier podcasts that 18 to 28 are the prime years mass murderers act out. How did BK make it so long without action?

If he had just lasted a few more years, would he have aged out? I think that's really interesting because John and I have talked about this. I've pointed out that while he was 28 years old, I think this was the first time he'd really been away this far away from home. He got his undergraduate degree and his master's degree in his home state. And I know that on a Reddit forum, some of the true crime community discovered some posts from his mother who was concerned and worried about her son leaving for, Washington being so far away and worrying about him. And so I want to throw that out. I know this is a question for Dr. John, but I want to state, I think that he had a support system or something that

distracted him. Because I've wondered this too, this was really his first time away from home. And do you think that was part of it, John? The age range that I gave was just my, that was my personal interpretation of who I believe. So that was before Coburger was known as a suspect. So I barely caught the outer edge of that age range. The higher probability, I think, would have been that somebody who was like 22 to 24, I thought 28 would be of the outer edge if you took little account the possibility of a grad student or of someone who was 28, but more like 23 or 22. And I think

that's what you see with Coburger. As Lauren just explained, I think this was developmentally and emotionally. I think Koberger was much younger. So his age was 28. And by the way, I think that's why he was DMing these younger victims because he felt younger. I think he perceived himself to be more like an undergraduate. And this was his first time away from home for any period of time. And his first time of being really independent. And I think in some ways, he was more like a 20-year-old than he was a 28-year-old. So age is, you know, in terms of developing a profile, age is certainly relative because there's a big difference between biological age versus emotional, developmental

age. And I think Coburger would fit a category of actually being much younger in terms of his developmental status. Additional follow-up questions to that is they act out in their violent crimes. Do they stop when they get old? or how old is older? Could he have not done this? Well, that's a good question. Age is a risk factor in and of itself. The older you get, the less likely you are, especially with men. The older you get, the less likely you are to commit a crime. That's true of violent crimes and sex offenses both. The answer is that I think it really depends on the individual situation. But I think in general,

the longer he can abstain from committing to crime and acting violent, the better the chances are that he's not going to do it. And the better the chances are that he might manage those violent impulses and those violent fantasies. So yes, I think that I think if he could have just sat on his hands for a while or locked himself in his apartment until he was, you know, I don't know, 45, that maybe he wouldn't have done this or maybe he needs to get a teaching job somewhere, whatever it takes. But but age certainly is a risk factor and the older you are, the less likely you are

to act violently or to commit sexual crimes. I have to say, Ray of Lai asked if it's true that boys with sisters can more easily relate to women and I don't know the answer to that, but I did point out that you only grew up with brothers. I call him my football playing philosophizing feminist. Yeah, you haven't called me that in a while, but true.

Yes, well, it's a mouthful. Dr. Babe's easier. I've switched to Dr. Babe. It's a lot easier to say, hey, Dr. Babe. Pat is asking, do you think he would have done other more minor offenses, say peeping in windows before leaping to murder? He doesn't really strike me as being a voyeur or peeping Tom. I think that he's more inclined to violent fantasies. I think a voyeur is a really different type of.

pathology. But I don't know, you know, if the if the Papa Roger posts are accurate and we haven't really talked about those yet because we're waiting for law enforcement to confirm that it's him. But he does talk in some of those posts about sexual fantasies and sexual components to the crime. So I don't know. I think the jury's out on if there is some sexual deviance with Brian Colberger, we just, we don't know what that is yet. I think it's truly to fully understand it. I mean, and we do know he's, he stalked the house. So you have said he's a stalker, but that's still not the same as necessarily, as you say, a peeping time. It's a different motive because I kind of put them in the same category.

So when stalking a house, we're stalking victims, that's not necessarily the voyeurism of a peeping Tom. It's different things. That's different. There's different kinds of stalkers. We've talked about this a little bit. The reference I would refer people to is Paul Mullen. He wrote a book called Stalkers and Their Victims. It's a classic textbook, or I don't know if classic, but it's a well-known textbook on stalkers.

And there's different typology of stalkers. One is what he calls the incompetent suitor stalker, which is basically someone who lacks social skills, but they want a relationship. And I kind of see him as fitting that category. I think, though, after he gets rejected, he becomes more of what Mullen would call a resentful stalker in the sense. that he feels rejected and he wants retribution for the rejection, just like Langman talked about in some of the quotes I read earlier.

And then I think it transitions to what Mullen refers to as a predatory stalker. A predatory stalker's goal is to stalk with the intention of harming people. I think you see a little bit of a progression in terms of his stalking. I think he starts off maybe with the fantasy that one of the victims could have a relationship with them and make him whole. And then he realizes that's not going to happen. becomes resentful, so he might increase his stalking. And then it gets to the point where he just becomes really enraged that he was rejected and he's not going to have this relationship and then it

becomes predatory. Although Mullen doesn't typically think of stalking as going through stages. With Kohlberger, you kind of see that there's some overlap in different types of stalking and you can see how it might progress. Jay Bailey asks, would you classify BK as an in-cell? I think we're going to learn more about that. I'm really fascinated by what they're going to find on his computer. I would like them to share that with us at some point. I think there's a treasure trail of information that they probably collected from his apartment

and maybe his office. I would not be surprised. You know, early on, before we even knew it was him, I had made comparisons to Elliot Roger, which then ironically turned out to be someone he seems to look up to. Is it possible that he's an insult? Sure. Yeah, he certainly has some of those qualities. Elizabeth Stalling asks this, and to reference or to set the stage for this question, you have talked about Brian Coburger having trauma in his childhood from bullying and from things that we might not know about.

And the depersonization that he discusses in his visual snowposts that we discovered, he talks about depersonalization, which you says a lot of the, you, you may. mentioned that a lot of the symptoms he brings up can have to do with trauma sometimes. So Elizabeth Stalling is asking John, if Brian was a victim of childhood mental disease or mental illness, could that alone be the reason for his childhood trauma? Typically, you would see the trauma precede the mental health issues. So usually the progression for mass murderers is there's some type of trauma or adverse. childhood experience, which then would create the mental health issues. So you might see depression, anger, you might see a lot of shame. A lot of times, I think that the trauma will come first.

So maybe the bullying. Yeah, who knows? We don't know for sure. We don't know enough about his childhood to really make assumptions about the trauma, but we do know or we seem to know that there was a lot of bullying. And that would be sufficient to potentially propel someone towards mental illness, which then could lead to potentially lead to violence later on. This is a question

from Jill D. Many talk about similarities between this case and other famous killers. By the way, I would say Ted Bundy and BTK are the two that he gets compared to the most. But that is true.

Is there any chance he was trying to pay homage to multiple, famous killers he may have idolized with different things that he did. I think it's just too soon to know. There is an indirect connection to BTK in the sense that his previous advisor in his master's program was a forensic psychologist, Catherine Ramsland, who wrote a very well-known book on BTK and spent a lot of time talking to BTK and knew him quite well.

There's one degree of separation between Kohlberger and BTK, but that doesn't mean that we don't know what that means. Did Catherine Ramsland talk to him about BTCA? Did maybe they had discussions about him? Who knows? It seems unlikely that Kohlberger talked directly to BTC, but that one degree of separation is interesting, though. I think that Catherine Ramsland could have used BTC as maybe a case study in some of her classes, or perhaps they read her book on BTC. I don't know. But one of the diagnoses of BTC, his psych evaluation was conducted. by a guy named Robert Mendoza, Mendoza diagnosed him with OCD. And I've speculated that Brian Kohlberger seemed to have a lot of obsessive qualities.

I can't diagnose, obviously, but he does seem to have a lot of obsessive thinking patterns. And BTK stalked his victims really meticulously. In fact, he spent many hours and much time stalking his victims to know everything about them before he committed his crime. So that in common as well. I don't know. But the extent of that is unknown. There are some parallels, but I wouldn't take it too far at this point.

John and I have been discussing doing a podcast season or a four-part podcast on BTK. Let us know if you'd be interested. We've been talking a lot about him in our home. And John's been reading a lot of books about BTK. And we've been having a lot of discussion. Let us know if that would interest you that we're thinking maybe about four to five episodes. disgusting him. Marvin asks, how likely is BK's violence due to an organic cause like a brain tumor? So that's one question. And then the other question is, Papa Bear says, I think it's potentially

fascinating that BK's sisters are therapists. Many enter that field due to their own trauma. Right. Good point. Good point. The brain trauma question is an interesting one. In fact, I just attended a webinar a couple weeks ago about the impact of traumatic brain injury on later criminality. So this is a timely question for me because it's something I've been thinking about. One of the points of the webinar or one of the main teaching points they were trying to convey was that perhaps we're not looking at brain trauma as closely as we should. Their argument was in the webinar that there's probably way more traumatic brain injuries

among criminals than we realize. So it's an interesting question, and it would be interesting to see if there was some underlying brain pathology that came up eventually. I don't know if it would be a tumor necessarily, but it could be early brain trauma, it could be an early accident,

childhood accident, severe head injury as a child. I don't know, but the relationship between what we call TBI, which is traumatic brain injury, and later criminality, is probably a little bit, larger than most forensic psychologists are aware of at the moment.

And then Brandon asks, what would you say to BK's therapist sister? What does healing look like for a criminal's family? I think I would say, I mean, I think my first response would be, how are you doing? How are you feeling about this? I hope, you know, how are you coping with this? So I would have to guess that the sister didn't see any of this coming. Maybe she saw some violent tendencies here and there.

but I'd be curious to know what she did see and how she perceived his childhood, whether she saw any trauma or experienced any trauma or saw him experience any trauma. I think that would be interesting. But I think I'd be most interested in knowing how she's doing and how she's coping with it and whether she's shocked or not, whether she's in disbelief. I don't know. I think it's obviously, I would imagine it has to be traumatic for the family. Thank you, everyone, for your support tonight.

Thank you for hitting like. Thank you for subscribing again. If we didn't answer your question in chat, there were so many good ones. Please leave them on this video or on Patreon. If you're there, patreon.com slash hidden true crime. Thank you to our new members. We will try to do an after show tonight.

It looks like it might be a little bit late again tonight. I think my thoughts keep going back to could this have been prevented in some way? Could the signs have been, could some of the red flags have been noted? earlier, was there some possible intervention? And I don't know. I want to return to some of the stories that you read earlier or some of the touching comments you had from some listeners, you know, the boy that was taken in by

the family and really helped by that. I think my final thought might be that, you know, in some ways, I think it's more difficult to embrace the struggles of the world than it is to reject them. Maybe the goal should be working on embracing what we struggle with or what we dislike rather than automatically ostracizing or trying to reject what it is that threatens us. Thank you everyone for being here tonight. Thank you for the stories you've shared. Thank you for the survivors that are here. We do have many survivors here. We hear a lot of their stories in chat and in our YouTube comments and we read them and we see them.

and we thank you. We thank our community. Stick with us. We plan to continue following Moscow, Idaho. We plan to delve back into the Chad and Lori Daybell case. Let us know in comments. Yes or no, if you'd like a quick season on BTK. And we also plan to go forward with a case we've been covering the Timothy Hazlitt case

out of Excelsior Springs. You can find that playlist. There's also a Rebecca Barsati playlist. Those are a few of the cases we're covering and we'll continue to cover. So we thank all of you for being here and for your wonderful questions. And we'll see you all next Friday or next spontaneous live. As many of you know, we always go live, usually on a Friday. And we'll sometimes go live during the week if something big comes down and we need to talk.

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