As a dear, departed journalist friend used to write--Some things I think I think:
1. Bryan Kohberger is a mentally and emotionally disordered person. If he has talked to LE about what he did and why, any part of it that isn't verifiable by evidence (e.g., the timing based on the Elantra on video) is likely to be a lie. I'll believe it when he says "guilty" to all charges but only because it's in his best interest.
2. Bryan Kohberger is a mentally and emotionally disordered person, part 2. When we talk about "motive" or his "target(s)," we are fooling ourselves into thinking we can understand someone who does terrible things because they gives him a depraved sense of pleasure.
3. A trial was important to me because I've thought all along that a guy who left behind the knife sheath with DNA on it had to have brought some kind of trace evidence home with him. And reading Appelman's book reinforced that thought. Why did he need to throw away the shower curtain? Blood? Dog hair? Fibers? And did he crave a trophy or two?
4. I don't care one bit if BK thinks LWOP is a picnic in the park or a night at the county fair. Bryan Kohberger is a mentally and emotionally disordered person (part 3). He is not a normal person. What matters is that he will never be able to kill in the outside world again.
5. His parents of course need to be in court. Aside from the actual sentencing, this is the last time they will see their son outside of prison. Because he is a mentally and emotionally disordered person (part 4) and they had been through issues like his drug addiction and other behavioral problems, they had a brief moment where they though he was going to get a PhD and live a normal life. He crushed the rest of their lives. They're victims, too.
6. It's understandable that some of the parents have been angry and hostile to law enforcement from the moment the murders were discovered. From the perspective of an outsider (not a relative, not from Idaho, not from the university), this case was solved quickly and handled professionally in terms of moving through the legal system. They got to LWOP and no appeals without a trial. He can posture like the depraved misfit he is in prison, like Watts and Manson and local W PA legend Stanley Hoss, who killed a guard when he was in prison. He'll be locked up with other depraved misfits.
7. There is nothing that will convince probergers that BK is guilty. See also the people who think the moon landing was staged. And (again, local to my area), the Biddle brothers, who were part of a robbery gang, escaped from prison because the warden's wife fell in love with one of them. They were shot and killed about an hour north of Pittsburgh. They were celebrities, with people believing them innocent and women lining up to see the bodies. It was "the crime of the century" in 1901. So this proberger stuff is just the internet version of an old phenomenon.
Just my thoughts on BK. Your thoughts may vary!
MOO
