Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He's a Real Psychopath - The Bryan Kohberger Story

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, a 28‑year‑old former criminology PhD student, brutally stabbed four students in their off‑campus home near the University of Idaho

So this college student becomes so obsessed with studying crime, he ends up committing some pretty horrible crimes himself. Now the guy's name is Brian and Brian's around 26 when this starts and he's living in Pennsylvania and bro is straight up obsessed with criminology and serial killers and murder. So much so that he's even getting a master's degree in criminal justice. And one day in 2020, he takes a class at his university where his professor assigns this research paper. And he's supposed to write about how to handle a real-life crime scene as an investigator. And so, Brian writes a 12-page essay about a fictional case where a woman was found unalived in a trailer park after being stabbed to death with a knife.

This is the actual essay he wrote here. And he's describing the details as he writes this paper. He talks about the kind of equipment crime scene investigators would have to wear in order to avoid leaving DNA and prints at the scene and stuff like that. Bro seems to know a lot about investigating crime scenes. And thanks to doing all that research in these classes he's taking, at some point, Brian apparently gets some big ideas. He now thinks he knows exactly how to pull off the perfect murder and get away with it.

Now eventually, Brian graduates from his master's criminology program, but that's not enough murder education for him. He wants to get his PhD, and he finds a criminology program on the other side of the country, and so he moves from Pennsylvania all the way over to Washington, and he starts going to school there. And so it's 22, and Brian is 28 years old now, and he's living in this new town trying to get his PhD,

and he's, I'm guessing, still obsessed with murder. Now, Brian is also a vegan, which, unfortunately for him, vegan food is a little hard to find where he now lives. And so he starts going to a vegan food restaurant, which is technically in a different state, but only about 15 minutes away across state lines. Here's a picture of that restaurant. And this is likely where he sees this woman. Her name's Madison.

And Madison's 21 and she works at the restaurant and she's also a student at the University of Idaho nearby. Now, there's no evidence that Brian ever talks to her. However, it seems like he keeps thinking about her a lot, like an unhealthy. healthy amount. Because like a social media account with Brian's name, likes a lot of Madison's pictures on Instagram. Later that summer, Brian's cell phone starts connecting with cell towers around where Madison lives. Surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses show Brian's car in the area a lot. And so evidence is suggesting that he might be stalking her. And his interest in her goes on for months. Then one night, I guess he decides he's going to do it. He's

finally going to do the unthinkable. And so Madison is at her house that she rents and this house is three stories. I guess her and a handful of college students live there. And it's around 4 a.m. So most of the house is asleep and Brian sets his plan into motion. He dresses in all black and he puts on a ski mask and he gets a knife. Then he drives his white Hyundai over to this house. And he parks it behind the house and he sneaks up and he enters. through the sliding glass door. Then he goes up the stairs and to the third floor

straight for Madison's room. I guess he knows which one is hers, probably because he's been watching her for a while. So he enters the bedroom, and Madison is asleep, but she's not alone. Her roommate is passed out in the bed next to her. And so Brian decides to take them both out, and he pulls out the knife he brought.

And while they're still asleep, suddenly, bam, he stabs one of them, multiple times. And as the other one wakes up, bam, he does the same to her. Now, on the floor below them, another roommate is still awake, and she just got a door dash order. And I don't know if she heard what happened on the floor above her, but as Brian tries to leave the place, he unexpectedly comes across her. And so he gets his knife, and boom, he unalives her too. Then he goes into that roommate's bedroom where her boyfriend is sleeping, and he does the same to him. Then Brian leaves, and on his way out, another roommate spots him leaving the house,

wearing his black clothes and ski mask, obviously looking suspicious as hell, and she's lucky he didn't get her too. Regardless, Brian leaves, and he gets away and no one knows it was him, because he's just a random PhD student who lives in a different town, in a different state, like 15 minutes away. He has no connection to the people he just murdered in that house. Plus, he's a smart dude, So he's going to be really hard to catch. And so, of course, police start investigating. But unfortunately for them, they don't have a ton of information. I mean, they know the guy was wearing all black and wearing a black ski mask.

And someone spotted a white Hyundai Allantra near the scene, so they figure he was probably driving that. But then they find a tan leather knife sheath at the murder scene. Apparently Brian had dropped it during one of the stabbings. Maybe he's not as smart as he would like everyone to believe. Now, this leather knife sheath has some male DNA on it, but police don't know whose DNA it is. Like it doesn't match anyone in their database. Meanwhile, Brian, the criminology expert, he works on covering his tracks.

He changes his car registration to make it harder to find him. He scrubs his apartment and his office clean of any evidence that might be there. He does the same to his car. He's practically like taking it apart inside to clean everything. Roe is determined to get away with this and prove to himself that he's smarter than the police. While police, they're not done investigating. I mean, they got cell phone records and reports of sightings of a white Hyundai Allantra near the murder scene. And this leads them to Brian and his white Hyundai Alantra.

And this is great that police have a lead, but they still don't have enough evidence to make an arrest. I mean, just because he drives the same model of car that was spotted at the murder scene, doesn't make him guilty. And as crazy as Brian is, it looks like he really did pull off the perfect murder and that they're never going to be able to catch him. Until. Because police found that leather knife sheath at the crime scene, which has the mystery male DNA on it, they come up with a plan to finally bust Brian. And they get the FBI and the local sanitation department involved. And one night, they go to Brian's family's house, I guess where his mom and dad live. And they secretly take some trash from the trash bin that's been set out on the curb to be picked up by the garbage truck or whatever.

And they're hoping to find anything in there that might have a family member's DNA on it. And in all this trash, they find a Q-tip. And so they send this Q-tip over to the forensics lab. And on it, they find DNA that matches the father of whoever's DNA is on the knife sheath they found. Which means it's Brian's DNA on the knife sheath. Because you can actually tell if two people are related through their DNA. And since the DNA is a match, bam, they go and they arrest Brian. Here's his mugshot.

And so Brian, he pleads guilty so that he doesn't get the death penalty. And he hasn't been sentenced yet, but he's probably going to get life in prison. Good. And one of the unfortunate parts of this case is that because he pled guilty, there was no trial, which means we didn't get to learn why he did it and why he specifically chose these four victims. I mean, him trying to plan the perfect murder because he's obsessed with crime. That's probably true, in my opinion, but we actually don't know for sure.