Bryan Kohberger, the man who brutally murdered four University of Idaho students in 2022, had a deeply disturbing digital trail that revealed his fixation on violent sexual fantasies, according to forensic experts.
Newly released details from Cellebrite, a digital forensics company tasked with examining his devices, show that Kohberger conducted chilling internet searches that revolved around nonconsensual sex acts, including rape and assault of women who were unconscious or asleep.
Heather and Jared Barnhart, senior experts at Cellebrite, said their review uncovered evidence that Kohberger repeatedly searched terms such as “raped,” “forced,” “sleeping,” “passed out,” and “voyeur.”
The Barnharts explained that, taken together, these searches painted a consistent picture of a man obsessed with violent sexual scenarios that aligned disturbingly with the brutality of his later crimes. “The easiest way to say it is that all of his terms were consistently around nonconsensual sex acts,” Jared Barnhart told The Daily Mail.
While Kohberger did not sexually assault the four victims, Kaylee Goncalves’ father has long believed that his daughter’s killer was driven by what he called “weird sexual fetishes.”
Prosecutors and experts alike have suggested that Kohberger may have planned a sexual attack but abandoned that intention when confronted by unexpected resistance in the victims’ home, according to The New York Post.
Investigators said Kohberger attempted to cover his tracks by scrubbing his devices. Just three days after the murders, he ran data-wiping software on his laptop in a desperate bid to erase incriminating searches. But even his meticulous efforts fell short.
Though his search history was deleted, forensic investigators were able to recover his autofill records, which preserved a chilling insight into his mind. “He did his best to leave zero digital footprint. He did not want a digital forensic trail available at all,” Heather Barnhart explained.
The digital review also uncovered a PDF file Kohberger had saved about Danny Rolling, the infamous “Gainesville Ripper” who raped and murdered five University of Florida students in 1990. Rolling’s crimes, which partially inspired the Scream horror film franchise, bear eerie similarities to Kohberger’s attack: both killers targeted college students in their homes, used knives in the assaults, and preyed on victims while they slept. Prosecutors have noted that Rolling used a Ka-Bar knife, the same type believed to have been wielded by Kohberger. Rolling was executed in 2006.
Alongside his search history, Kohberger’s devices contained unsettling selfies. In one, he posed shirtless, flexing his muscles in a mirror. In another, taken just hours after the Idaho murders, he chillingly gave a thumbs-up gesture.
Before Kohberger unexpectedly pleaded guilty in court last month, the Barnharts were prepared to testify as expert witnesses. Their testimony would have underscored how Kohberger’s digital footprint tied him to patterns of violent sexual obsession that foreshadowed his crimes.
Kohberger is now serving four life sentences without parole for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. For the victims’ families, the forensic evidence underscores not only the senseless brutality of the attack but also the deeply twisted compulsions that drove it.