By Editor Natasha Anderson
Bryan Kohberger has ‘resting killer face’ that reveals his psychopath tendencies – and which his defense lawyer claimed was a result of autism to try and drum up sympathy for him, a former FBI agent says claims.
‘He is a rare case of someone actually having “resting killer face”,’ Robin Dreeke, former Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, told Daily Mail.
‘It is his lack of ability to demonstrate emotions or emotional connection to what is going on in the world around him – hence his courtroom behavior.’
Kohberger’s attorney Ann Taylor ‘tried to explain it away’ by claiming the killer suffered from Autism, Dreeke claimed, adding this was the defense’s attempt to ‘negate the frame’ and offer a less frightening explanation for the icy gaze.
‘In other words… explain to people what they will see, before they see it so that it doesn’t become an issue or distraction,’ the former FBI agent said.
‘Resting killer face’ is a spin on the term ‘resting bitch face,’ which describes a person whose demeanor looks unintentionally unfriendly when their face is in repose.
Dreeke offered Daily Mail the fascinating insight after Kohberger’s plea deal in Boise, Idaho on Monday. That saw him admit the November 2022 murders of Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in Moscow, Idaho.
He’ll be be sentenced later this month, with the plea deal scrapping the possibility of the death penalty in return for Kohberger spending the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole.
He spoke calmly during his plea hearing, answering ‘yes’ as he was asked plainly whether he murdered the four students, and looked on coldly as the prosecution laid out a detailed timeline of what took place inside in rented home in Moscow.
Kohberger will be offered the chance to speak at his sentencing, but won’t be forced to.
That means his true motive may never be known But the killer will not be forced to address the court during his sentencing, meaning his true motive may never be known.
Dreeke believes Kohberger committed the atrocity purely because he’s a true psychopath who knew he’d enjoy killing and wanted to feel the rush of taking another person’s life.
Kohberger planned and executed most of the November 2022 bloodbath with terrifying precision and coldness, Dreeke said.
But he slipped up because he had a ‘dated’ perception of the ‘forensic capabilities of investigators,’ Dreeke believes.
Kohberger was a criminology student at the University of Washington who searched for notorious killer Ted Bundy online.
Bundy killed at least 20 women and girls between 1974 and 1978 and was caught thanks to a lucky break and rudimentary forensic testing on hairs found in his Volkswagen Beetle.
Dreeke said that in other respects, Kohberger was the perfect killing machine and offered a bloodcurdling motive for the slaughter.
‘He’s a psychopath,’ Dreeke explained, noting that he is not a clinical psychologist so he cannot formally diagnose Kohberger – but reiterated that the killer fits the profile.
Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder marked by several traits, most notably lack of empathy and poor behavioral controls.
‘Kohberger has zero empathy. He’s devoid of emotion,’ Dreeke said. ‘People ask if he is guilty – do I think he did it? Yes. But guilt is an emotion.
‘He does not have emotions.’
‘People think too hard about what he’s thinking. They were analyzing his court appearance saying he was trying to control his emotions. There’s nothing to control. He doesn’t have emotions.
‘He’s cold-blooded killer looking for a rush.’
The former FBI agent added that he believes that Kohberger would ‘100 per cent’ kill again had he not been arrested over the slayings because of the emotional response that murder provides him.
More details, such as what motivated the killer to attack the four college students, could emerge when Kohberger returns to court for his sentence.
Some answers could also be in the hundreds of documents filed by prosecutors and defense lawyers that have been under seal and out of public view starting in 2022.
Kohberger’s plea hearing was finished in less than an hour Wednesday. A trial where loads of details would have been revealed was expected to have lasted at least three months.
Relatives of at least two of the victims attended Wednesday’s hour-long hearing in Idaho’s Fourth Judicial District Court in Boise, the state capital. The families were divided about the plea deal.
Lead prosecutor Bill Thompson laid out his key evidence Wednesday at Kohberger’s plea hearing.
The evidentiary summary spun a dramatic tale that included a DNA-laden Q-tip plucked from the garbage in the dead of the night, a getaway car stripped so clean of evidence that it was ‘essentially disassembled inside’ and a fateful early-morning Door Dash order that may have put one of the victims in Kohberger’s path.
These details offered new insights into how the crime unfolded on Nov. 13, 2022, and how investigators ultimately solved the case using surveillance footage, cell phone tracking and DNA matching.
But the synopsis leaves hanging key questions that could have been answered at trial – including a motive for the stabbings and why Kohberger picked that house, and those victims, all apparent strangers to him.
Kohberger, now 30, had begun a doctoral degree in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University – across the state line from Moscow, Idaho – months before the crimes.
‘The defendant has studied crime,’ Thompson told the court. ‘In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing when he was working on his PhD, and he had that knowledge skillset.’
Kohberger’s cell phone began connecting with cell towers in the area of the crime more than four months before the stabbings, Thompson said, and pinged on those towers 23 times between the hours of 10pm and 4am in that time period.
A compilation of surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses also placed Kohberger’s vehicle – known to investigators because of a routine traffic stop by police in August – in the area.
On the night of the killings, Kohberger parked behind the house and entered through a sliding door to the kitchen at the back of the house shortly after 4am.
He then moved to the third floor, where Mogen and Goncalves were sleeping and stabbed them both the death. Kohberger left a knife sheath next to Mogen’s body.
Both victims’ blood was later found on the sheath, along with DNA from a single male that ultimately helped investigators pinpoint Kohberger as the only suspect.
On the floor below, Kernodle was still awake. As Kohberger was leaving the house, he crossed paths with her and killed her with a large knife. He then killed Chapin – Kernodle’s boyfriend, who had been sleeping in her bedroom.
Two other roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, survived unharmed.
Mortensen was expected to testify at trial that sometime before 4.19am she saw an intruder there with ‘bushy eyebrows,’ wearing black clothing and a ski mask.
Roughly five minutes later, Kohbeger’s car could be seen on a neighbor’s surveillance camera speeding away so fast ‘the car almost loses control as it makes the corner’, Thompson said.
After Kohberger fled the scene, his cover-up was elaborate. But methodical police work ultimately caught up with him, with Kohberger now one of the world’s most notorious mass-murderers.