Unveiled: Shocking Autopsy Details Point to Bryan Kohberger’s Hidden Motive

The brutal murders of four University of Idaho students on November 13, 2022, have been recognized as exceptionally violent from the outset.

Seven months after Bryan Kohberger was imprisoned for these horrific crimes, newly unveiled autopsy reports reveal the gruesome details of his attack for the first time.

According to investigators, the killing spree, which lasted a mere 15 minutes, involved Kohberger, a criminology PhD student, fatally stabbing close friends Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, along with 20-year-old couple Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, a staggering total of over 150 times.

Forensic psychologist Dr. Gary Brucato notes that the extensive wounds provide more than just an indication of the violence unleashed by Kohberger’s Ka-Bar hunting knife.

Brucato suggests that the variations in the quantity and type of wounds among the victims might finally shed light on Kohberger’s possible primary target and the dark fantasies he sought to fulfill on that fateful night in Moscow, Idaho.

‘This was a targeted psychosexual fantasy probably aimed at one individual in the house,’ said Brucato, who co-led the creation of the Columbia University Mass Murder Database, one of the largest research projects examining psychological profiles of mass killers.

‘But his intel failed him. So, when he got in there, he wound up committing a mass murder because he was not able to control everything as he expected.

‘He overestimated himself and underestimated women.’

Bryan Kohberger at his sentencing hearing on July 23, 2025, at Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho

Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen (left) and Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle (right) were murdered by Bryan Kohberger on November 13, 2022

Investigators have previously said they do not believe Kohberger, now 31, intended to kill all four students that night. Instead, they think either Mogen or Goncalves may have been his initial target based in part on the fact that, after breaking into the off-campus student house, Kohberger went straight to the bedroom on the third floor were the two friends were sharing a bed.

After reviewing the autopsy findings, Brucato thinks that Mogen, who sustained fewer stab wounds than the other two women, was Kohberger’s target.

Brucato suggests that the other victims then disturbed what he characterized as a sexually motivated fantasy, triggering a more frenzied escalation in Kohberger’s attack.

‘You punish the ones who see you – the people who interrupt your fantasy,’ Brucato explained.

Kohberger entered 1122 King Road through the rear sliding door into the kitchen on the second floor and proceeded upstairs to where Goncalves and Mogen were sleeping together in Mogen’s bed after a night out.

Autopsy reports show that they both died from multiple sharp force injuries –  but Goncalves also additionally suffered asphyxial injuries and blunt force injuries to the head.

She was stabbed at least 38 times, including 24 stab and incised wounds to the scalp, face and neck, 11 to the chest and three to the upper extremities. She also suffered punctures to the skull, injuries to her teeth and tongue, perforations of the subclavian artery and vein, and internal bleeding into the chest cavities.

Forensic psychologist Dr Gary Brucato believes that the newly released autopsy findings reveal what Kohberger’s plot was that night at 1122 King Road, Moscow, Idaho

Mogen sustained 28 stab wounds, including 13 stab and incised wounds to the scalp, face and neck, and 10 incised wounds to the upper extremities, and five stab wounds to the chest.

She suffered injuries to the lung and liver, perforations of the subclavian vein and artery, and blood vessels of the chest wall, an incision of the nasal septum and a perforated tongue.

Brucato acknowledged that some might interpret the higher number of wounds on Goncalves as evidence that she was the target. 

‘There is a school of thought that would say the person with more wounds might be the object of passion and therefore the target,’ he said. ‘So some people would think Kaylee was the target.

‘But my belief is he went in and made a beeline for Maddie [Mogen], who was his target, and found Kaylee unexpectedly there.’

Brucato argues that the comparatively lower number of wounds on Mogen indicates that Kohberger attacked her first and in a more considered manner – and that Goncalves was assaulted more ‘ferociously’ after disrupting the plan.

‘That’s why you see so much rage towards Kaylee. I think Maddie was the primary target and Kaylee was not supposed to be there,’ he said.

As well as the stab wounds, Goncalves suffered injuries believed to have been caused by something other than Kohberger’s Ka-Bar knife.

Blunt force injuries, including scalp laceration, bleeding around the brain, nasal fracture, scrapes on the nose and cheeks, bruising around the eyes, and patterned bruises across the lower face were all noted in the autopsy.

Police reports have previously revealed that Goncalves’s face was ‘unrecognizable’ following the attack, with Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson saying investigators could not rule out the possibility that a second weapon was used on the 21-year-old.

Brucato posits that some blunt-force injuries could have been caused by the butt of the knife during a struggle.

Kohberger’s decision to inflict such wounds to the women’s faces may also have had symbolic significance.

‘It can mean that the beauty of the person is what is infuriating to him. That he has profound insecurities about his looks and thinks that beautiful women are rejecting him. So he decimates the physical appearance in that way,’ said Brucato, who also noted a more practical explanation.

‘It can be almost reptilian,’ Brucato said. ‘Animals go for the neck or the head because of the rapidity to eliminate them. This could be someone who just wanted control and wanted to rapidly eliminate them.’

While Mogen and Goncalves were attacked while they slept, Kernodle was awake on the floor below, using TikTok and having just received a DoorDash food order minutes before the intruder entered.

She may have headed upstairs after hearing commotion and unfortunately interrupted Kohberger’s attack, causing him to drop the leather Ka-Bar knife sheath later found on Mogen’s bed – the item would become a critical piece of evidence after DNA on its clasp led police to the killer.

Kernodle was then stabbed 67 times, according to her autopsy, as Kohberger sought to ‘eliminate the witness’ and ‘take control of an increasingly chaotic situation,’ Brucato said.

The fewer wounds on Madison Mogen indicate that she was Bryan Kohberger’s intended target, a psychologist believes

Her wounds included 25 incised wounds to the upper extremities, 23 stab and incised wounds to the scalp, face and neck, seven stab wounds to the chest and four to the abdomen, three incised and puncture wounds to the back, and five incised wounds to the lower extremities.

She also suffered punctures to the skull, perforations of the jugular vein, heart, lung and pulmonary blood vessels, hemorrhage into the chest cavities, wounds extending into the bones of the right hand, and scrapes and bruises to the face, torso and extremities.

Blood on the soles of Kernodle’s feet indicate that she was stepping in her own blood as she desperately tried to fend off her attacker.

To Brucato, the horrifying number and distribution of her wounds suggests Kohberger’s escalating fury.

‘She made a mockery of his fantasy,’ he explained. ‘He went in there thinking he was going to destroy and dominate a woman and a woman saw him and fought with him. So he was furious with her.

‘When a person becomes disorganized because the situation is out of their control, you see a frenzied thrashing out at a person who is fighting. This is a person who went in in the middle of the night, masked, having thought out all the science but, true to his personality, I think he didn’t understand people.

‘He went in there to target one person and was furious that his fantasy was not going as it was supposed to go.’

Indeed, seeing a male, Chapin, sleeping in Kernodle’s bed would have shattered his fantasy further. ‘He had his initial target and then everybody else was not supposed to be there in his fantasy,’ Brucato said.

Kernodle likely interrupted Kohberger’s attack, causing him to drop this brown leather Ka-Bar knife sheath on Mogen’s bed as he chased her

The item would become a critical piece of evidence after DNA on its clasp led police to the killer

Despite Chapin likely being the last victim, he had the fewest stab wounds, sustaining 17 in all: six incised wounds to the upper extremities; six stab and incised wounds to the lower extremities; four stab and incised wounds to the scalp, face and neck; and one stab wound to the upper chest; along with perforations of the jugular vein, subclavian vein and subclavian artery. 

Brucato explained that this shows Kohberger’s fury was aimed at women, whereas the man needed to be ‘eliminated’ in a more practical sense.

He said that there may be some explanation for the escalation of wounds found on the three women.

‘Looking at the order in which we think the victims died – Maddie, Kaylee, Xana and Ethan – for the women, the numbers of injuries are increasing because it’s getting more and more frenzied as he’s moving away from the initial murder. He is losing control more and more so is attacking more intensely,’ he said.

Investigators believe that Kohberger was surveilling the off-campus home in the lead-up to the murders to gain a sense of the neighborhood and the students’ living patterns. He may have even entered 1122 King Road prior to that night.

Cell phone data, revealed in court documents, placed him in the vicinity at least 23 times, mostly at night, between July 2022 and the murders on November 13, 2022.

Surviving roommates and friends told police about a string of unsettling incidents in the weeks before the murders, including Goncalves seeing a man watching her from the trees around the home when she took her dog Murphy outside.

Brucato believes that Kohberger meticulously planned his attack but the then-27-year-old was socially awkward and underestimated the victims – not understanding how people might respond in a life-or-death situation.

Inside the off-campus college house that was home to Mogen, Kernodle, Goncalves, and two survivors, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen

Investigators on the crime scene at the house hours after Kohberger broke in and killed four

‘He was probably obsessively watching his victim from afar and thought he knew everything about the movement of this foreign body – almost scientifically – but could never touch it. He could never have a conversation with her,’ Brucato said.

‘There’s something odd about how he relates to human beings. He understands them in a mechanical, detached way, thinking of people almost like insects in a jar.’

Breaking in while the victims slept, Brucato said, all plays into his sexual fantasy.

‘That’s the whole symbolism of going in masked and while they were sleeping, and that’s why you have to punish the ones who do see you. You punish the person who interrupted the fantasy – who saw you and you were nothing to them.’

It is a theory supported by Kohberger’s internet searches, which focused on attacking and raping sleeping girls.

Digital forensics experts at Cellebrite, who analyzed Kohberger’s devices, previously told the Daily Mail that he had searched for pornographic content, including non-consensual sex acts. They found search terms such as ‘sleeping’, ‘passed out’, ‘voyeur’, ‘forced’, ‘raped’ and ‘drugged’.

He also had a clear obsession with serial killers and home invasions, the review of his devices revealed.

Newly unsealed court documents have also raised questions about whether some of the victims’ bodies were repositioned after death and whether the attacker attempted to clean up before fleeing. 

These details remain contested but Brucato said that posing a body or taking a trophy can be done ‘for arousal or so that you can remember it a certain way.’

All the evidence points to Kohberger having a ‘sexually arousing’ motivation to his crimes, Brucato concluded, adding that someone who kills to fulfil this type of fantasy will go on to murder again if not caught.

‘When the motive is fantasy, you have to keep doing it to get the fantasy perfect. He was motivated like a serial killer,’ Brucato said.

‘I doubt that he had ever killed before but, let’s just say, if he had not been captured, I have no doubt that after a period of time he would have had more victims – and I think he would have gotten better.’