When the Night Comes Falling

“It was not just that he had been unprepared to raise such a troubled child, but the cascade of problems were of a sort that was more than he could fathom. He rejoiced that it was all in the past.”

Michael Kohberger, father of doctoral student Bryan Kohberger, reflects on his son’s troubled upbringing and feels relief that he has at last (he thinks) settled down. In his teens, Bryan had a substance use disorder, was an indifferent student, and committed petty thefts, including from family members. However, his new habits of discipline and his prestigious doctoral program suggest, on the surface, that his many problems are now safely “in the past.” Michael’s relief, however, introduces a note of irony, since the ominous tone of the first chapter suggests that his son’s troubles are far from over. 

“Less than a month earlier, in November, four University of Idaho college students had been found dead, hacked to death in their off-campus house. No one understood why or who was responsible.”

The first mention of the four grisly murders at the heart of Howard Blum’s book comes, ironically, as part of Michael’s inner discourse of fear and unease about America’s West, which he sees as “spooky” and a “broken place.” Recent eruptions of violence near Bryan’s home (a campus shootout between police and a veteran with PTSD, and the Moscow murders just ten miles away) make Michael “worried for his son” (10), speaking to the theme Stressors and Tension Within a Family. Later events suggest that his worries are well-founded, but perhaps not for the reasons he thinks: The “broken place” may actually be in the heart and mind of his Pennsylvania-raised son.

“When he met up with his old crowd, he’d act superior, quick on the draw with a put-down, or he’d wrestle someone into a headlock and then prance around in a victory dance like he was the champion of the world. Bryan wanted them to realize that he had moved on.”

Once an overweight, bullied child, Bryan Kohberger turned to physical fitness in his late teens and shed over a hundred pounds. With his new, imposing physique, he became a bully himself, picking on his former “friends,” whom (Blum claims) he had always “secretly detested.” Child psychologists have long observed that, while some bullied children deeply empathize with others in their situation, others tend to identify with their bullies, and look for the chance to be bullies themselves. In Blum’s telling, Bryan’s new body and swagger did not win him new friends; it may only have added to his social isolation.

“‘Fantasy,’ Dr. Ramsland had written, ‘also builds to an appetite to experience the real thing.’”

Forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland, a prolific authority on the twisted inner lives of serial killers, was an idol and role model for Bryan Kohberger, who studied criminology under her. In his coursework, Bryan also did his best to unlock The Psychological Exploration of Criminal Minds, e.g., by composing lists of probing questions by which to explore the methodologies and satisfactions of violent crime. Blum’s use of the quote from Ramsland hints at Bryan’s tendency to take things too far, suggesting that he may have identified too much with the aberrant minds he was studying, to the point of acting out their deeds, just as he identified with, and imitated, the bullies in high school.

“But as the term continued and it became clearer that his combative outbursts were only launched against the women in the seminar, people began to wonder if Bryan’s taunting was a misogynist’s weapon.”

Angered by his inability to attract young women—even with his new physique and chiseled features—Bryan (by Blum’s account) selectively bullied his female classmates, perhaps vengefully thinking of “the girls who had bullied the fat kid in middle school.” (18) As usual in his book, Blum names none of his sources, referring only to “people.” Though the “Idaho student murders” case has no trial date as yet, Blum’s choice of biographical facts and (anonymous) opinions, and the words he uses to describe Kohberger (“junkie,” “swaggering,” “prance,” “combative,” “ranted,” “creepy TA”) create an overwhelmingly negative impression, even before any analysis of forensic evidence.

“On the mortarboard she wore to her high school graduation in 2020, amid a decorative drawing of flowers and birds, she pledged with an almost palpable determination, For the lives I will change.”

After a detailed portrait of Bryan Kohberger, Blum focuses on the young victims and their friends and family. Xana Kernodle’s hopeful message on her mortarboard drives home the staggering waste of promise when a talented young person dies, especially so senselessly. The four victims, the oldest of whom (Kaylee and Maddie) were only 21 years old, were all ambitious, well-loved people who had already touched many lives. In his epilogue, Blum speculates that it may have been this very quality that marked them for death: “Did the killer […] fantasize about their beauty and ebullience, and hate himself for his inability to be what they were?” (209).

“Divvying up the top floor that way seemed only natural: the two twenty-year-olds had grown up sharing pretty much everything.”

Kaylee Goncalves and Maddie Mogen, the two students who were murdered on the house’s third floor, had been close friends since the sixth grade and bore an almost sisterly resemblance to each other, in both appearance and personality. Maddie joined Kaylee on many of her family vacations, and Kaylee’s parents “grew to think of Maddie as another daughter” (67). Though the two friends had indeed divvied up the house’s third floor, Kaylee, who was about to graduate, had officially moved out several weeks prior to the night of the murders. It was her closeness to Maddie that brought her back that night, dooming her.

“‘You have any plans for the weekend of November 12?’ Kaylee asked her best friend. ‘How about I come down to Moscow?’”

Having just bought a luxury car, Kaylee wanted to share the surprise with her friend and honorary sister; that was the only reason she was in the third-floor bedroom of the house on King Road that fatal night. This was to be a brief “reunion” before Kaylee went on to a promising postgraduate future, including a well-paying job. This exchange comes right at the end of a chapter, leaving the reader to contemplate the cruel happenstance of this chance decision.

“But at 4:00 am he knocked on the front door and handed Xana a brown paper bag containing her order. She carried it upstairs. […] And then the night came falling down with a madness all its own.”

Hungry in the wee hours, Xana Kernodle puts in a Door Dash order for a cheeseburger, which arrives at 4:00 am. This time-stamped delivery helps the detectives narrow the timeframe of the home invasion, which could not have occurred before the delivery. Ironically, the Door Dash driver came all the way from Pullman in Washington State, following the same route as the (possible) murderer Bryan Kohberger, who presumably entered the house only minutes later.

“Once in the kitchen, he proceeds up the narrow staircase to the third floor. And this is, arguably, telling. If he were aimless, driven only by furious emotions, he would burst forward into either of the second-floor bedrooms. But he has a plan. He knows where he is going. He is a hunter stalking his prey.”

For the first time, the author drops hints of a personal theory: that the murderer was targeting a specific resident of the household who lived on the third floor. This was not a string of random violence, he argues, but a carefully premeditated act by a coldly efficient killer with some knowledge of the house and of the people who lived there.

“Yet despite her wounds, Kaylee manages to lift herself up and, as if trying to escape, wedges herself into the far corner of the small room. The determined killer closes in, and she fights back. But all is quickly over, and her bloody body crumples to the floor.”

Driven by a fierce will to live, Kaylee strikes back at her assailant, perhaps sealing his fate: Met by this unexpected struggle, the killer drops his knife sheath, leaving incriminating DNA at the scene. Though he does not yet know it, it may all be over for him as well.

“She sees a man dressed all in black, a black mask reaching up high on his face. As she processes the moment, she decides he is about five ten, maybe taller. Not muscular, but well put together like an athlete. For some reason, her eyes fix on his bushy eyebrows.”

Dylan Mortensen, alerted by noises from the other bedroom on her level, where Ethan and Xana have just been murdered, sees the masked killer walk right past her to exit the house through the kitchen; this happens after she hears shouts, sobs, and a strange male voice. Incredibly, she goes back to bed. She does not call anyone until more than seven hours have passed. However, her description of the intruder’s height, build, and “bushy eyebrows” proves useful to the police.

“The municipal restriction ran counter to the libertarian spirit of many Idahoans. And Pastor Doug Wilson had added fuel to this fire. He had told his Christ Church parishioners that masks and vaccinations were counter to ‘God’s teachings.’”

In the small town of Moscow, a local Christian entity has created friction between the townspeople and law enforcement by denouncing the municipal COVID-19 safeguards (masks and vaccines) on dubious religious grounds, speaking to the theme Small Town Tensions and Divisiveness. This may have unforeseen consequences in the murder case, for as the state later prepares its case against Kohberger, Pastor Doug Wilson continues to fan the fires of mistrust, accusing the police of dishonesty and publicly questioning the suspect’s guilt.

“And a corollary to that was a substantial secret that the investigators were not yet ready to reveal: In the third-floor bedroom, tangled in the sheets next to Maddie’s sprawled body, they had found a knife sheath with a button snap.”

As often in ongoing investigations, the detectives have strategically withheld certain information from the public, on the logic that the less the unknown perpetrator (and others) knows about the evidence against him, the better; this especially applies to details only the perpetrator would know, such as whether they brought a knife sheath to the scene. The sheath’s “button snap” is significant because it provides the crucial evidence against Kohberger: a “touch” trace of his DNA.

“Therefore, there was no sense of an impending game-changing moment when the interconnected centimorgans led the way to the marriage of Henrietta Katherine Votino to Michael Francis Kohberger Sr. on June 17, 1954, in New York City.”

At this stage, Bryan Kohberger is not yet on the investigators’ radar, so his grandfather’s name does not ring any bells. Also, New York City is far away. However, the discovery that Michael Sr.’s grandson lives in Pullman, only a short drive from Moscow, moves the investigation in a decisive new direction. Crucially, commercial “genetic genealogy” services (GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA, etc.) have publicly charted the genetic links between millions of people, making the investigators’ job much easier: They no longer have to first identify a suspect with other evidence before establishing a DNA link to the crime.

“For while the FBI, as early as December 11, 2022, had identified Bryan Kohberger as a person of interest in the four student murders, they did not share the discovery at this point with either the Moscow Police or the Idaho state troopers.”

Issues of territoriality come into play when the FBI withholds its most valuable evidence (the DNA)—not just from the public, but from their own partners in the investigative taskforce: the local police. Their motives remain unclear; however, the less charitable explanation is that they wanted the hog all the glory for cracking the case. This lack of communication soon leads to chaos, when Idaho cops twice pull over Kohberger’s car (for tailgating), while his FBI trackers look on in consternation.

“There was the white Hyundai—the infamous Suspect Vehicle 1—recorded making three slow, laborious passes by 1122 King Road from 3:29 a.m. to nearly 4:00 a.m. Then the car returned a fourth time at 4:04 a.m., only to abruptly disappear from sight. Yet at 4:20, there it was again, hightailing it out of Moscow at a breakneck speed.”

After the DNA, the most compelling evidence against Kohberger is surveillance video of a white car seemingly casing out the murder house shortly before, and after, the killings. The car in the video, presumably driven by the killer, seems a close match for Kohberger’s own car. Unfortunately, it took the taskforce a while to settle on the model and year of the car, which undoubtedly will be brought up in court by the defense.

“The DNA profile obtained from the trash belonged with a conclusive 99.9998 percent certainty to the father of the man whose DNA was on the knife sheath.”

As the net tightens around Bryan Kohberger, surveillance officers (and the suspect’s own sister) see him deposit his family’s trash in a neighbor’s trashcan, a highly suspicious act. At this point, the investigators need solid evidence, such as a direct DNA link to a seized sample, before they can make an arrest, which is presumably the reason for Bryan’s precautions. Luckily, the near-perfect match of the DNA from the sheath to that of Bryan’s father is enough for the investigators to get an arrest warrant. Once Bryan is under arrest, they can get a DNA sample directly from him.

“‘Bad facts’ is a phrase defense lawyers like to bandy about. It’s a term that’s meant to draw an epistemological distinction between what is objectively real and what is subjective opinion. Simply because the prosecutors say it’s true, well, that doesn’t make it so.”

Much of the evidence presented at criminal trials falls into this category, since it can be (and often is) contested by experts who may downplay its accuracy and/or significance. Even presumably solid, scientific evidence like DNA can be challenged; the sample taken from the knife sheath at the Moscow crime scene, for instance, was “touch DNA” rather than blood DNA, which is considered more reliable. The jury will have to decide for themselves which experts to believe, and whether the sheer preponderance of the evidence as a whole (the DNA, the video of the white Hyundai, Kohberger’s cellphone activity, his suspicious actions after the crime, etc.) outweighs the possible shakiness of its individual parts.

“Yet these speculations—when held up to the light—immediately turned porous. There was never any drug paraphernalia found in the house. And while the complete autopsy reports on the victims have not been released, there has been no claim that drugs were found in any of them at the time of their deaths.”

A criminal defense can only succeed by raising reasonable doubt, and one way to do this is by suggesting a (credible) alternative scenario that exonerates the defendant. Hence, Kohberger’s lawyers try to connect the slayings of the four students to Moscow’s violent drug trade, which intersected to some degree with the town’s hedonistic Greek life. The problem (for them) is the utter lack of evidence of drug use by any of the victims.

“‘You’d think we’d be a natural constituency for “back the blue,” but after what we have experienced, I think that if any of my parishioners are on the jury, I’d tell them to go in with an open mind.’ […] If a Moscow cop were to testify against Kohberger, he has warned, his parishioners would have reason to be skeptical.”

Pastor Doug Wilson milks his COVID-related grudge against the police by hinting to his parishioners (some of whom would probably be on the Kohberger jury) that the local justice system is corrupt and may have charged the wrong man. This illustrates how small-town politics can sometimes wield an outsized influence on momentous issues—e.g., justice in horrific murder cases—that would normally transcend the fray of petty grievances. However, on September 9, 2024, well after the publication of Blum’s book, the judge granted a change of venue for the trial, which should render Pastor Wilson’s influence moot.

“Besides, what will the trial reveal? The dialectics of the courtroom would inevitably prevail and opposing teams of experts will be summoned to go at one another. For every expert who solemnly testifies the cellphone tower evidence is irrefutable, another will be produced to refute it.”

By Blum’s own account, the court proceedings, verdict aside, should reveal a wealth of new information, such as whether (as rumored) Bryan Kohberger bought a dark blue “work uniform” and a KA-BAR knife shortly before the killings, or if the two surviving residents of the murder house were awake and texting each other while their friends were being murdered. As Blum notes, this last development, possibly revealed to the grand jury, “add[s] an entirely new band of mystery to a crime that was encircled by so many unanswered questions.” (202) The judge’s gag order has left these intriguing rumors in limbo, but Kohberger’s trial should, after more than two years, finally answer these questions and provide a semblance of closure.

“Did they talk? Did he ask her out? There is no evidence of any significant interaction. And, I believe, one wasn’t necessary for her image to take hold of his thoughts. Obsessions came easily to him; he only believed deeply.”

In the epilogue to his book, Blum imagines that Bryan Kohberger met Maddie Mogen at the restaurant where she worked and became obsessed with her. If true, it would provide the all-important motive for the home invasion and massacre. Again, it makes the upcoming trial all the more tantalizing, since the evidence and sworn testimony may point that way, but at this juncture, it remains pure speculation. That said, Blum’s theory corresponds (to some degree) with Kohberger’s narcissistic, obsessive personality and his tendency to take things too far.