Idaho Murders Suspect Bryan Kohberger Looked Up 'Sociopathic Traits' in Disturbing Phone Searches Before 'Knifing 4 Students to Death'
Bryan Kohberger's phone content has left plenty of people disturbed.
May 14 2025, Published 8:00 p.m. ET
Bryan Kohberger's phone is said to have been filled with disturbing searches including "sociopathic traits" before he allegedly took the lives of four young students.
The 30-year-old, believed to be behind the Idaho murders, had his phone and saved photos analyzed by the FBI and the contents were recently released during an NBC News Dateline special, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
What Was On His Phone?
Kohberger's phone searches were eerie.
Kohberger's searches included such phrases as “Sociopathic Traits in College Student,” as well as “Can Psychopaths Behave Prosocially?" He reportedly also did a search for pornography that included the words “sleeping” and “drugged.”
The suspected killer's phone also included plenty of photos of young women at Washington State and the University of Idaho, many of whom were wearing bathing suits.
Following the brutal murders, Kohberger's phone also reportedly had a search for a “University of Idaho Murders,” and searches about serial killer Ted Bundy, as well as a YouTube video discussing the Idaho victims.
The 30-year-old is said to have looked up 'Sociopathic Traits in College Student' before the murders.
On November 13, 2022, college students Xanda Kernodl, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, and Ethan Chapin were found dead inside an off-campus student home in Moscow, Idaho following a savage knife attack.
Police would catch up to Kohberger and arrest him on December 30 2022, charging him with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.
During their investigation, footage captured by a neighbor's home security showed what is believed to be Kohberger driving near the crime scene just one day earlier was discovered.
Kohberger's car, along with DNA and even cellphone data, will be enough to convict the former criminology student, at least according to prosecutors. An FBI cellphone expert previously revealed that Kohberger's phone connected to a cell tower near the crime scene 23 times over a four-month period and it all occurred after dark.
Despite all going against them, Kohberger's legal team entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in May 2023.
The defensive team even claimed that detectives in Moscow kept secret a glove stained with blood from a second unidentified male that they found outside the home.
A Connection to Elliot Rodger?
He is suspected of killing four students.
"The unknown blood samples give the defense the perfect tool to say their client was set up," Hollywood private eye Paul Huebl, commented.
He added: "That gives a jury reasonable doubt and makes it very hard to convict in a death-penalty case."
Meanwhile, prosecutors have yet to hammer down a motive behind the killings, but some believe the suspect may have been inspired by another killer who took out college students: Elliot Rodger.
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A Facebook user named Pappa Rodger – an account Kohberger is believed to have been behind – left a message in the University of Idaho Murders' Case Discussion group which read: “Of the evidence released, the murder weapon has been consistent as a large xed blade knife. This leads me to believe they found the sheath.”
A sheath was found at the scene, however, authorities did not make it public until after Kohberger's social media post. As for the Facebook handle Pappa Rodger, a forensic expert suggested it is a reference to Rodger.
In 2014, Rodger, 22, murdered six people at the University of California, Santa Barbara, including two women from a sorority on the campus. He would kill himself following the rampage.
The suspected killer is believed to have been captured driving near the scene the night before the crime.
"Rodger famously described himself as an incel, or involuntarily celibate male," the expert said. "I believe Kohberger was also an incel and he killed those three girls because they were gorgeous and represented everything he could not obtain."
The Anti-Defamation League defines incels as “heterosexual men who blame women and society for their lack of romantic success.”
