Was Bryan Kohberger Looking For A "Thrill Kill" When He Murdered The Idaho 4?

What's up, everyone?

And welcome back to the program.

One of the main questions I have, and I'm sure most people have, is what motivated Brian

Coburger to allegedly commit these crimes.

And at this point, we don't have any solid answers.

All we have is a lot of speculation and a lot of opinions from experts in the various

fields that deal with these sorts of crimes.

And on today's episode, we're hearing from another one of these experts.

This time, a forensic psychiatrist named Ian Lamarow.

So let's get into this article from Newsweek and let's see what Mr Lamarow has for us.

Headline, Idaho murder was chasing a thrill kill, says forensic expert.

This article was authored by James Bickerton.

The murder of four University of Idaho students in the early hours of November 13th, 2022,

was likely a thrill kill according to a leading forensic psychiatrist.

And for those of you wondering what a thrill kill might be, here is what it says in Wikipedia.

A thrill kill is a premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement

of the act, while there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying

thrill killing as a type of hedonistic mass slaying, actual details of events frequently

overlap category definitions, making attempts at such distinctions problematic.

Those identified as thrill killers are typically young males, but other profile characteristics

may vary, according to Jack Levin, director of the Brutnik Center on conflict and violence

at Northeastern University.

The major common denominator among those who commit thrill killings is that they usually

feel inadequate and are driven by a need to feel powerful.

To a certain extent, they, thrill killers, may make their victims suffer so that they

can feel good, said Levin.

Sadism is fairly common in thrill killings.

The killer might torture, degrade, or rape as victims before he or she takes his or her life.

They frequently have an ideal victim type who has certain physical characteristics.

Thrill killers have been frequently romanticized in films.

So just using that basic description of what a thrill killer is, certainly could see

Brian Coburger being categorized as that, if he is the person responsible for these murders,

certainly could be a situation where you have a thrill killer who decided that now was the time

that I'm going to go and live out my fantasies.

And to normal thinking folks, that sounds just completely batch it insane,

but these people aren't wired the same way that most of us are.

And when the facade of normalcy snaps for these people forget it, it snaps.

Kaley Gonsalves, Madison Mogen, Zanacornodal, and Ethan Chapin were all stabbed to death

when an intruder broke into a shared student house in the town of Moscow, Idaho.

Brian Coburger, a 28 year old criminology PhD student, was arrested on December 30th

and has been charged with four counts of first degree murder along with burglary.

Coburger's legal team have indicated he will plead not guilty and he will seek to clear his name.

Good luck with that. There is a ton of evidence against this, dude.

And it's going to be a challenge for him to clear his name.

And then you add in the situation with Antaylor and the possible of possible conflict of interest

and Brian Coburger might even be looking at having new legal counsel at some point.

Speaking to Newsweek, Ian Lamarow, a forensic psychiatrist and clinical assistant

professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona said initial evidence suggests the murders

could have been a thrill kill. And look, we just don't know, right? If we're being honest,

all of these experts, all of these legal scholars, they're just given their opinions as well.

Now their opinions are grounded in more education than most of us as far as the topic at hand.

But remember, these experts don't have access to all of the case files. They don't have access to

all of the evidence. All they're doing is looking at the circumstantial evidence that's been provided

and giving an assessment based on that. What I will say though is a lot of these experts end up

being spot on when you hear what they say the way they break down the profile, what the person

was motivated by a lot of these experts as far as these clinical psychologists, criminal profilers,

they know what they're talking about and they know their business. So for me, I like to consume

as much information as possible and get as much context as possible from as many people as possible.

That way we're well armed and we're equipped to deal with this story as it evolves.

He said, I have not seen sufficient information to establish a motive at this stage. Currently,

this appears to be a thrill kill. The thrill could be emotional excitement or sexual. It could also

be the thrill of executing the perfect murder. And that's certainly something we have to keep on the

table. In my opinion, considering we don't know what the motivations were, I think that we can't

discount anything that sounds logical. Obviously, anything that's out of there in fantasy land,

that's something that I just discount right away. I don't want to hear about psychics or aliens or

spirit boxes, any of that bullshit. But when we get the opinions of these experts, clinical

psychologists and stuff like that, I think that that's worthwhile. And certainly something that

needs to be explored. And when all is said and done, it's going to be something like this,

a thrill kill or he had some kind of obsession, something like that will end up being the motivation.

Lamaroo, who emphasized that co burger has yet to be convicted of any crime continued,

it seems as though there is some speculation given his background in criminal studies that this

could be the motive, the thrill of outsmarting the authorities. I've always thought that that was

a plausible scenario that this guy thinks he's smarter than everybody else thinks that he's going

to get away with it, planned it for all of these months, stock these girls allegedly, case the house,

knew where they worked, develop patterns, and he really thought he was going to get away with it.

Well, breaking news, you're not as smart as you think, my friend. The adrenaline rush and excitement

of the killings is the end goal. His online encounters with the victims, if guilty and accurate,

could represent stalking hunting behavior that killers of this category exhibit as a way of

stoking excitement, in anticipation of the murders, the thrill of the hunt, and it lines up.

If you look at what happened here, according to what the probable cause of David tells us,

then it lines up with this possibly, possibly being a thrill kill, certainly not something that

discarded or discounted as a theory right now. And in my opinion, a top contender for what the

motivation is going to be when all is said and done. According to the psychiatrist, the murderer

likely took sadistic pleasure in the suffering inflicted on their victims. He explained creating

fear, terror, and or pain in their victims will increase the intensity of the pleasure derived

from their acts, the intensely personal and unusually violent nature of the murders,

a large, fixed blade such as a K bar military knife supports this. This process of hunting,

stalking their victims, culminating in violent homicides is intensely pleasurable to these

individuals, similar to the rush of narcotic drugs. The actual act sometimes is the aphrodisiac

for these people. And usually you'll hear about a killer like this engaging in sexual assault or

sexual abuse, something like that, but some of them, the act itself, the murder itself is the

sexual gratification. And I'm not saying that's what happened here. I don't know, but we have seen

many, many, many killers in the past exhibit these same sorts of behavior. Lamaroo emphasized that

his comments were speculative as information regarding the defendant is extremely limited at this

time. And there's no doubt everything that we talk about is pure speculation at this point.

And it's going to stay that way until either the gag order is lifted or we get to the trial

portion of what's going on here. Because with that gag order, no official sources are going to come

out and talk about what's going on behind the scenes. That's over and done with, but there's

going to be trickles. There's going to be leaks. And you're going to hear from a lot of these

experts who are building profiles on the alleged murderer Brian Coburger and using their expertise

to do so. He added the authorities have been uncharacteristically non-forthcoming with information,

which suggests they are very concerned about protecting the integrity of the investigation itself.

End subsequent prosecution. Well, if that's the case, they better make sure they deal with that

potential conflict of interest because that could end up being real bad for everybody involved,

the state, the defendant, and the victim's families. So if the integrity of the case is so

important, the way they say it is, then they need to make sure that they're doing everything

in their power to protect the integrity of the case and not just stamping out transparency.

Police have yet to recover the murder weapon used to kill the four students, though they did

recover a knife sheath at the crime scene. Carra Kernodal, the mother of Zana, has indicated she does

not want Coburger to face the death penalty if convicted. Speaking to news nation, she said,

I want to see him pay for what he's done. I'm not interested in a death penalty. That's not who I am.

I don't believe in that, but I do believe he should spend the rest of his days in prison.

The city of Moscow police department has been contacted for comment and I don't know why they

continue to do that. They're not going to comment on any of this at this point, considering that

gag order. So until we either get that gag order lifted or we get to trial, we'll continue to rely

on the opinions and the breakdowns of these various experts. All right, everybody, that's going

to do it for this one. All of the information that goes along with this episode can be found

in the description box.