NYT Times interview with Brian Kohlberger’s sister

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

I'm no criminal psychologist, but the nature of the murder doesn't strike me as the type that would come from someone openly violent in everyday life.

The sister is also not a criminal psychologist. She's not an FBI profiler. She's a mental health counselor. It didn't occur to her that her brother, who had never hurt anyone before, would murder four people in cold blood. In fact her first response upon hearing about the murders was to worry that her brother, who sometimes doesn't have it all that together, might be targeted by the person who murdered people near his home. That is the most normal and predictable response if your totally non-violent brother lived near the site of a violent murder.

There have been other murders where the family *did* suspect their family member pretty early on. In those cases, there is almost always a violent history with the family member. In most cases the family member will have threatened or even harmed someone else in the family before. There is often a criminal history of assault or DV.

But you are telling me that if a family member who had never done anything violent before, ever (and the fact that Brian had no history of violence is backed up not only by his family but by friends, classmates, teachers, school records, employers, etc.) lived near the scene of a violent murder and drove an extremely common car that had some features in common with the killer's car, you would assume the family member was the murderer?

I do not think you would.

This totally non violent brother was arrested for stealing her phone for drugs and had been in and out of rehab for a heroin addiction. He’s not your average brother. Also called his parents “Mother” and “Father”. Something was very off about him.

I am the PP. I have a brother with addiction issues. He has some unhealthy and weird habits and I am aware he has mental health issues. But he has never yelled at me, tried to physically harm me, or done either of those to anyone in our family or to anyone else that I know of.

I feel like you don't understand how many people have the exact problems this guy had and never hurt anyone. The world is full of troubled people and most of them never even commit assault much less a cold-blooded murder of four strangers. It would never occur to me that anyone I knew had done this specific crime.

Nobody is saying that people with this profile will hurt someone. But the fact that this guy, with all his baggage, acted so strangely around that time. Odd phone calls, needing to leave ASAP, hide the car, some people might get suspicious if you were being honest.

He didn’t need to leave ASAP. He left after the school semester was over nearly a month after the murders. Multiple sources have said he talked to his mother all the time, and his phone records proved that. I don’t know that you can say driving a car across the country (during which he got stopped by police twice) is an attempt at hiding it. You also have to remember he was an adult in a PhD program, so all the weirdness reported by the people at WSU before the murders weren’t being reported to his family the way they might have for an undergrad. Did the family know he was certainly odd, of course, but there is nothing suggesting they immediately should have said you know those murders in Idaho, Bryan totally did that.

DP. There's a huge amount of space between believing innocence verses he "totally did it."

I'm saying he should have looked like a very credible suspect as those other details came to light.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

The reporting is awful. Why is there no follow up question to why she was trying to force him out of the house? There must have been a serious reason, yet the reporting doesn't indicate why? From the article:

He was still socially awkward and could be abrasive, she said. They often argued. Still, she said she never saw him be violent. When she once tried to force him out of the house during an argument, he de-escalated the situation by holding back her hands.

She is not a reliable observer if she thinks this incident is normal or that physically holding her hands isn't being violent. They both were being violent.

The article is really offensive to the victim's families because it is focusing on the killer's family who still are able to talk to him. The article states

Through it all, they have tried to reconcile the son and brother they loved — and still do — with the man depicted by prosecutors and the police, the man who pleaded guilty to killing four young people with no apparent motive.

When he entered the guilty plea in July, his parents attended, with his mother sobbing in the front row.

It is ridiculous to phrase it this way- "depicted by" - NO. He is a cold blooded murderer. He plead guilty to killing 4 people in cold blood. He entered a bedroom and killed two 21 year old college students, then encountered a third 20 year old female on the stairway and killed her too. Instead of leaving he entered another bedroom and killed a 20 year old sleeping college student.

Why write an article that his mother cried in the front row or his sister was with her dad who had heart problems? Why write that the sister had given this cold blooded killer something to bring him comfort during sentencing when victims are giving impact statements. Instead of the focus of him listening to the pain he caused his sister is pleased she has gave him a drawing of a "a heart surrounded by vibrant colors that she herself had drawn for her brother. Even if she could not be there in person, she said, she wanted him to know that he was loved." And she is so pleased she recreated it for the article and there is a picture of it.

Really the sister should have not said anything or agreed to have been interviewed.

You sound like someone who has extremely limited life experience.

Do you actually think a pair of siblings getting into an argument and one of them trying to push the other out of the house to get them to leave is an unusual occurrence? I guarantee you there are thousands of people who have had that exact experience before. Is it totally functional behavior? No, but most people are not totally functional. Most people have at least some issues. Most families fight sometimes. If you don't understand this, you are incredibly sheltered and simply don't know very many people.

And the reason they wrote the story is because it's part of the narrative. It's not an article that redeems Brian or denies he killed these women. In fact it repeatedly affirms that he is the killer, and his sister at no point denies that he deserves to be in prison for it.

People still don't understand what happened. We want to understand, because it seems so senseless. There was no trial, and no one has ever explained a motive or some sequence of events that might make sense of what happened. Why did Brian kill these people? We don't know. So here is an article where his sister talks about his background prior to the murders. It is helpful in some ways (he was troubled, he had a drug problem, he'd stolen before, they fought on occasion, he could be really difficult) and not in others (he wasn't violent, he'd seemed better recently, they viewed him being in a PhD program as a step in the right direction, he didn't seem any different than his normal during that holiday). It's frustrating! We want it to be clear. We want an explanation. We want a lesson we can apply to our own lives so that we can prevent this horrible crime from happening in our families, or to us, or to people we love.

But the truth is we still have more questions than answers. That's not the sister's fault. In fact she probably wants those answers even more than you do. But she doesn't have them, and you can't be angry at her for that.

Maybe I've watched too many movies, but the criminology program always looked like a *huge* red flag here, too. Demonstrates a strong interest in crime.

Sure, after the fact when you know he's the murderer. But lots of people go into criminology for all kinds of reasons. Even the bad reasons are usually not "because I want to commit crimes."

When I was in college I was a psych major and had a bit of an interest in criminology and liked the idea of becoming like an FBI profiler. I actually got a job with campus police and was taking classes in deviant behavior. And in doing that I realized I didn't want to surround myself with that information and those ideas, and my interest had been based in liking psychological thrillers and I hadn't really thought through what the reality was like and how sad and terrible these cases are. I wound up turning down the campus police job and switching my major and now I do statistical analysis of professional services markets. I've never hurt anyone and don't even like the site of blood.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

I'm no criminal psychologist, but the nature of the murder doesn't strike me as the type that would come from someone openly violent in everyday life.

The sister is also not a criminal psychologist. She's not an FBI profiler. She's a mental health counselor. It didn't occur to her that her brother, who had never hurt anyone before, would murder four people in cold blood. In fact her first response upon hearing about the murders was to worry that her brother, who sometimes doesn't have it all that together, might be targeted by the person who murdered people near his home. That is the most normal and predictable response if your totally non-violent brother lived near the site of a violent murder.

There have been other murders where the family *did* suspect their family member pretty early on. In those cases, there is almost always a violent history with the family member. In most cases the family member will have threatened or even harmed someone else in the family before. There is often a criminal history of assault or DV.

But you are telling me that if a family member who had never done anything violent before, ever (and the fact that Brian had no history of violence is backed up not only by his family but by friends, classmates, teachers, school records, employers, etc.) lived near the scene of a violent murder and drove an extremely common car that had some features in common with the killer's car, you would assume the family member was the murderer?

I do not think you would.

This totally non violent brother was arrested for stealing her phone for drugs and had been in and out of rehab for a heroin addiction. He’s not your average brother. Also called his parents “Mother” and “Father”. Something was very off about him.

I am the PP. I have a brother with addiction issues. He has some unhealthy and weird habits and I am aware he has mental health issues. But he has never yelled at me, tried to physically harm me, or done either of those to anyone in our family or to anyone else that I know of.

I feel like you don't understand how many people have the exact problems this guy had and never hurt anyone. The world is full of troubled people and most of them never even commit assault much less a cold-blooded murder of four strangers. It would never occur to me that anyone I knew had done this specific crime.

Nobody is saying that people with this profile will hurt someone. But the fact that this guy, with all his baggage, acted so strangely around that time. Odd phone calls, needing to leave ASAP, hide the car, some people might get suspicious if you were being honest.

He didn’t need to leave ASAP. He left after the school semester was over nearly a month after the murders. Multiple sources have said he talked to his mother all the time, and his phone records proved that. I don’t know that you can say driving a car across the country (during which he got stopped by police twice) is an attempt at hiding it. You also have to remember he was an adult in a PhD program, so all the weirdness reported by the people at WSU before the murders weren’t being reported to his family the way they might have for an undergrad. Did the family know he was certainly odd, of course, but there is nothing suggesting they immediately should have said you know those murders in Idaho, Bryan totally did that.

Because the news was out about the vehicle so he had to get his car out of there ASAP.

The news about the Elantra was out for weeks before he went back to PA. And even if Kohberger was thinking he’s got to get that car out of the area because he killed 4 people, there is nothing to suggest that his family knew that.

At least the younger sister knew about the car, so I'd be surprised if the rest of them didn't.

Knew what about the car? That a white Elantra from 2011-2013, when his was a 2015, was connected to the crime? What exactly were they supposed to do with that? Some of you are really lacking critical thinking in your rush to insist that his family was covering for him.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

I'm no criminal psychologist, but the nature of the murder doesn't strike me as the type that would come from someone openly violent in everyday life.

The sister is also not a criminal psychologist. She's not an FBI profiler. She's a mental health counselor. It didn't occur to her that her brother, who had never hurt anyone before, would murder four people in cold blood. In fact her first response upon hearing about the murders was to worry that her brother, who sometimes doesn't have it all that together, might be targeted by the person who murdered people near his home. That is the most normal and predictable response if your totally non-violent brother lived near the site of a violent murder.

There have been other murders where the family *did* suspect their family member pretty early on. In those cases, there is almost always a violent history with the family member. In most cases the family member will have threatened or even harmed someone else in the family before. There is often a criminal history of assault or DV.

But you are telling me that if a family member who had never done anything violent before, ever (and the fact that Brian had no history of violence is backed up not only by his family but by friends, classmates, teachers, school records, employers, etc.) lived near the scene of a violent murder and drove an extremely common car that had some features in common with the killer's car, you would assume the family member was the murderer?

I do not think you would.

This totally non violent brother was arrested for stealing her phone for drugs and had been in and out of rehab for a heroin addiction. He’s not your average brother. Also called his parents “Mother” and “Father”. Something was very off about him.

I am the PP. I have a brother with addiction issues. He has some unhealthy and weird habits and I am aware he has mental health issues. But he has never yelled at me, tried to physically harm me, or done either of those to anyone in our family or to anyone else that I know of.

I feel like you don't understand how many people have the exact problems this guy had and never hurt anyone. The world is full of troubled people and most of them never even commit assault much less a cold-blooded murder of four strangers. It would never occur to me that anyone I knew had done this specific crime.

Nobody is saying that people with this profile will hurt someone. But the fact that this guy, with all his baggage, acted so strangely around that time. Odd phone calls, needing to leave ASAP, hide the car, some people might get suspicious if you were being honest.

He didn’t need to leave ASAP. He left after the school semester was over nearly a month after the murders. Multiple sources have said he talked to his mother all the time, and his phone records proved that. I don’t know that you can say driving a car across the country (during which he got stopped by police twice) is an attempt at hiding it. You also have to remember he was an adult in a PhD program, so all the weirdness reported by the people at WSU before the murders weren’t being reported to his family the way they might have for an undergrad. Did the family know he was certainly odd, of course, but there is nothing suggesting they immediately should have said you know those murders in Idaho, Bryan totally did that.

Because the news was out about the vehicle so he had to get his car out of there ASAP.

This isn't true. He made the plan to drive his car to PA AND BACK months before he committed the murder. His father purchased the ticket to fly to Idaho BEFORE the murder.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

I'm no criminal psychologist, but the nature of the murder doesn't strike me as the type that would come from someone openly violent in everyday life.

The sister is also not a criminal psychologist. She's not an FBI profiler. She's a mental health counselor. It didn't occur to her that her brother, who had never hurt anyone before, would murder four people in cold blood. In fact her first response upon hearing about the murders was to worry that her brother, who sometimes doesn't have it all that together, might be targeted by the person who murdered people near his home. That is the most normal and predictable response if your totally non-violent brother lived near the site of a violent murder.

There have been other murders where the family *did* suspect their family member pretty early on. In those cases, there is almost always a violent history with the family member. In most cases the family member will have threatened or even harmed someone else in the family before. There is often a criminal history of assault or DV.

But you are telling me that if a family member who had never done anything violent before, ever (and the fact that Brian had no history of violence is backed up not only by his family but by friends, classmates, teachers, school records, employers, etc.) lived near the scene of a violent murder and drove an extremely common car that had some features in common with the killer's car, you would assume the family member was the murderer?

I do not think you would.

This totally non violent brother was arrested for stealing her phone for drugs and had been in and out of rehab for a heroin addiction. He’s not your average brother. Also called his parents “Mother” and “Father”. Something was very off about him.

I am the PP. I have a brother with addiction issues. He has some unhealthy and weird habits and I am aware he has mental health issues. But he has never yelled at me, tried to physically harm me, or done either of those to anyone in our family or to anyone else that I know of.

I feel like you don't understand how many people have the exact problems this guy had and never hurt anyone. The world is full of troubled people and most of them never even commit assault much less a cold-blooded murder of four strangers. It would never occur to me that anyone I knew had done this specific crime.

Nobody is saying that people with this profile will hurt someone. But the fact that this guy, with all his baggage, acted so strangely around that time. Odd phone calls, needing to leave ASAP, hide the car, some people might get suspicious if you were being honest.

He didn’t need to leave ASAP. He left after the school semester was over nearly a month after the murders. Multiple sources have said he talked to his mother all the time, and his phone records proved that. I don’t know that you can say driving a car across the country (during which he got stopped by police twice) is an attempt at hiding it. You also have to remember he was an adult in a PhD program, so all the weirdness reported by the people at WSU before the murders weren’t being reported to his family the way they might have for an undergrad. Did the family know he was certainly odd, of course, but there is nothing suggesting they immediately should have said you know those murders in Idaho, Bryan totally did that.

DP. There's a huge amount of space between believing innocence verses he "totally did it."

I'm saying he should have looked like a very credible suspect as those other details came to light.

Eventually he was, but it took time for those details to come to light. Also, it's not clear if you are talking about the police or his family. The police were actively investigating the case and they DID hone in on him as a suspect as more details came to light. They did not share these details with his family in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All the family knew was that this crime (which honestly they may not even have thought about very much at all -- they lived so far away and Brian wasn't bringing it up with them) happened somewhat near him and he had a similar, but common car. That's it. None of his other behavior was out of the norm. He had a history of acting strange and being difficult, he continued to be strange and difficult, none of it read as a red flag to them.

The thing with the car cuts both ways. The reports on the car had been out for weeks, so at first you might think "oh no that's my son's/brother's car." But then... nothing. By the time he drive the car to Pennsylvania, they'd been investigating the crime for weeks and there as no indication Brian was a suspect. That would make him driving it cross country LESS suspicious, not more. And of course they stored it in the garage. It was winter in PA -- you put the car no one plans to use in the garage where you don't have to worry about it, and your cars that you are used to driving in PA winter you park outside so you have easy access. When I have driven my car cross country to my parents, that's also what we did with the car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing that's interesting: the (other) sister, Amanda, was on the prosecutions witness list, but not the parents.

It's probably normal to not want to call the parents as prosecution witnesses. But I would think the sister would have similar problems. And she probably didn't have much to say.

Yes, I know they very well might not have called her at all.

I think there was some reporting that Amanda was suspicious of Brian and how he was acting in the days before his arrest.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

I was writing from the family's point of view. Of course the car made him a suspect earlier on in the investigation by the police. I am certain they had a list of everyone owning a white Hyundai Elantra and were cross referencing it against all other evidence from very early on. Which means it's likely Brian's name was known to the investigation from early on.

What I'm saying is that the family wouldn't be privy to any of that at all, and the car connection would likely not have seemed like a huge deal to them because it's not like it's an unusual car, and other than a passing thought of "oh Brian drives a car like that," and absent any other reason to believe he had done this, they would be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that he might have done it.

And yes, there might be some willful ignorance happening here. But no more than anyone would have. Especially living as far away as they did. Unlike people who lived in the area, they were not hearing about this case daily in local news. It would have been an occasional reference on national news they might come across. And probably no one they knew was talking about it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn't even have the connection of having a son/brother who lived near where the crime happened. So it's not like they were going to work and people were saying "oh have you about the car in that murder?" They were not thinking about the murder. It was very peripheral to their lives.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

I was writing from the family's point of view. Of course the car made him a suspect earlier on in the investigation by the police. I am certain they had a list of everyone owning a white Hyundai Elantra and were cross referencing it against all other evidence from very early on. Which means it's likely Brian's name was known to the investigation from early on.

What I'm saying is that the family wouldn't be privy to any of that at all, and the car connection would likely not have seemed like a huge deal to them because it's not like it's an unusual car, and other than a passing thought of "oh Brian drives a car like that," and absent any other reason to believe he had done this, they would be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that he might have done it.

And yes, there might be some willful ignorance happening here. But no more than anyone would have. Especially living as far away as they did. Unlike people who lived in the area, they were not hearing about this case daily in local news. It would have been an occasional reference on national news they might come across. And probably no one they knew was talking about it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn't even have the connection of having a son/brother who lived near where the crime happened. So it's not like they were going to work and people were saying "oh have you about the car in that murder?" They were not thinking about the murder. It was very peripheral to their lives.

This case was big news everywhere and we got the usual complaints that if they weren’t pretty white girls we woldn’t be hearing about it so much. I think you are misremebering a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

2011-2015 wasn’t the date range put out, it was 2011-2013. It defies logic to suggest that the family should have done something with the information that he drove a white 2015 Elantra, or done some research into how many white Elantras were owned by people within that census area and assumed that the police were really looking for a 2015 and not a 2011-2013 model.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

I was writing from the family's point of view. Of course the car made him a suspect earlier on in the investigation by the police. I am certain they had a list of everyone owning a white Hyundai Elantra and were cross referencing it against all other evidence from very early on. Which means it's likely Brian's name was known to the investigation from early on.

What I'm saying is that the family wouldn't be privy to any of that at all, and the car connection would likely not have seemed like a huge deal to them because it's not like it's an unusual car, and other than a passing thought of "oh Brian drives a car like that," and absent any other reason to believe he had done this, they would be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that he might have done it.

And yes, there might be some willful ignorance happening here. But no more than anyone would have. Especially living as far away as they did. Unlike people who lived in the area, they were not hearing about this case daily in local news. It would have been an occasional reference on national news they might come across. And probably no one they knew was talking about it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn't even have the connection of having a son/brother who lived near where the crime happened. So it's not like they were going to work and people were saying "oh have you about the car in that murder?" They were not thinking about the murder. It was very peripheral to their lives.

This case was big news everywhere and we got the usual complaints that if they weren’t pretty white girls we woldn’t be hearing about it so much. I think you are misremebering a lot.

I live in the DC area, remember hearing about it right after it happened, and then vaguely remember hearing about Brian's arrest. It was the holidays, it was an awful story, I have kids and was busy with end of year work stuff. I knew nothing about the investigation until I listened to a podcast on it later and I don't even remember hearing about the car (again, other side of the country, I'm not going to go out of my way to take note of something like that because I assume it has nothing to do with me). No one I worked with mentioned this case to me even one time, none of my chat groups were talking about it. It was a sad headline in the newspaper one day and then out of my mind.

I think people who obsess over these cases don't understand that most people don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brian's stare and his eyes/focus are very strange. There's no way he didn't demonstrate odd behaviors before any heroin-related issues. We haven't heard if he received any psychological, medical, or special ed support as a child. If not, either parents didn't agree to needed services or his educational settings were very neglectful.

I mean, he certainly wasn't the only undiagnosed and untreated kid with ASD. Unfortunate, yes. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say neglectful, in part because there isn't much that treatment can do.

Admittedly, I work for a large, well funded school system. Our teachers notice and refer kids in kindergarten and first grade with similar or even less odd behaviors than Brian displayed. I have a hard time believing no one noticed or documented those behaviors and that he was allowed to attend college with no supports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a weird and kind of aloof brother who has never been violent and I would never jump to the conclusion that he had committed a mass murder in a neighboring town, even if the police were looking for someone who also drove a blue rav-4.

If that brother had a history of mental health problems and called you early in the morning after the murder occurred, and then later suddenly wanted to get his car out of the state, you wouldn't have gotten suspicious?

Well, on a different note, I've got a beautiful bridge you might be interested in...

He didn't call the sister early in the morning. He called his mom. And for his mom, it was not "the morning after the murder occurred." It was just... a morning. She lived on the other side of the country and knew nothing about the murders at the time. He'd called at odd hours before. She had no reason to believe his reason for calling this time was related to a news event she had not even heard about.

And he didn't "suddenly" want to get his car out of state. He had told them previously he wanted to get some things out of their house and drive them to his new place in Idaho, and his dad had offered to fly out and do the drive with him because it was so long. His dad had already bought a ticket when the murders occurred and, again, the family was not thinking about any of this in the context of the murders because to them, the murders were a separate news event that had nothing to do with their family.

A white Hyundai Elantra is a very, very common car. It is likely you know a person who drives that car. White is the most common car color. Elantras are affordable and have good resale value, so there are a lot of them on the road. If I heard about a horrific crime involving a Subaru Forester or a Nissan Sentra, I would not immediately assume that one of the people I know with those cars committed the crime. I would think "huh that car is very popular, it's going to be really hard for them to find the killer." Like it wouldn't even cross my mind.

You are making the common error of thinking that a piece of information you have already learned (that Brian Kohlberger killed four people) should always have been obvious to everyone even before literally ANYONE knew, including his family. In fact the only reason the police honed in on Brian is because his DNA was found on the knife, something it took weeks to learn because of how long DNA analysis takes. Before that, no one was looking at him and the fact that he drove a white Elantra and lived near the murder scene was not viewed as relevant by anyone.

You're being far too quick to dismiss the significance of the car. This isn't a highly populated area, there are only about 90,000 people in the census area that covers the two towns and surrounding area. The number of white 2011-2015 Elantras there is probably very roughly on the order of 50 or so cars (and some are probably fleet vehicles). That puts him in a very small set of suspects before even factoring in the other things.

There were lots of reasons to be suspicious, if someone was open to considering them. But the family probably wasn't.

I was writing from the family's point of view. Of course the car made him a suspect earlier on in the investigation by the police. I am certain they had a list of everyone owning a white Hyundai Elantra and were cross referencing it against all other evidence from very early on. Which means it's likely Brian's name was known to the investigation from early on.

What I'm saying is that the family wouldn't be privy to any of that at all, and the car connection would likely not have seemed like a huge deal to them because it's not like it's an unusual car, and other than a passing thought of "oh Brian drives a car like that," and absent any other reason to believe he had done this, they would be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that he might have done it.

And yes, there might be some willful ignorance happening here. But no more than anyone would have. Especially living as far away as they did. Unlike people who lived in the area, they were not hearing about this case daily in local news. It would have been an occasional reference on national news they might come across. And probably no one they knew was talking about it, because their friends and neighbors wouldn't even have the connection of having a son/brother who lived near where the crime happened. So it's not like they were going to work and people were saying "oh have you about the car in that murder?" They were not thinking about the murder. It was very peripheral to their lives.

This case was big news everywhere and we got the usual complaints that if they weren’t pretty white girls we woldn’t be hearing about it so much. I think you are misremebering a lot.

I live in the DC area, remember hearing about it right after it happened, and then vaguely remember hearing about Brian's arrest. It was the holidays, it was an awful story, I have kids and was busy with end of year work stuff. I knew nothing about the investigation until I listened to a podcast on it later and I don't even remember hearing about the car (again, other side of the country, I'm not going to go out of my way to take note of something like that because I assume it has nothing to do with me). No one I worked with mentioned this case to me even one time, none of my chat groups were talking about it. It was a sad headline in the newspaper one day and then out of my mind.

I think people who obsess over these cases don't understand that most people don't.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1094062.page

Weird that you missed this one since it went on for quite awhile but managed to find this random post about the NYT interview.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Brian's stare and his eyes/focus are very strange. There's no way he didn't demonstrate odd behaviors before any heroin-related issues. We haven't heard if he received any psychological, medical, or special ed support as a child. If not, either parents didn't agree to needed services or his educational settings were very neglectful.

I mean, he certainly wasn't the only undiagnosed and untreated kid with ASD. Unfortunate, yes. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say neglectful, in part because there isn't much that treatment can do.

Admittedly, I work for a large, well funded school system. Our teachers notice and refer kids in kindergarten and first grade with similar or even less odd behaviors than Brian displayed. I have a hard time believing no one noticed or documented those behaviors and that he was allowed to attend college with no supports.

Or, a family in denial, like we see now with them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not understanding the hate for BK family. Even if he was a weirdo and possibly violent wtf were they supposed to do about it? You can’t jail a psychopath prior to the crime. And it’s debatable his parents had any clue since the people article mentions he called his mother regularly so not sure that him chatting with her on the phone that day proves absolutely anything. The judgment here is disgusting.

Don't be naive. It was 6am. Of course she knew. It's understandable they didn't know what would happen, but they certainly knew it after it happened.

He apparently frequently called his mom as early as 4 am. I think it's odd behavior, but it doesn't sound like it was out of the ordinary for him at all.

+1, he was obviously a troubled guy who engaged in some strange or frustrating behavior, but it's wild some people seem to to think that if you had a son call you at 6am, your first thought would be "oh my kid you murdered someone." Of course it wouldn't be, even if you knew your son had problems.

The sister explains that the killer had troubles galore (including heroin addiction), but had never been violent.

I'm no criminal psychologist, but the nature of the murder doesn't strike me as the type that would come from someone openly violent in everyday life.

The sister is also not a criminal psychologist. She's not an FBI profiler. She's a mental health counselor. It didn't occur to her that her brother, who had never hurt anyone before, would murder four people in cold blood. In fact her first response upon hearing about the murders was to worry that her brother, who sometimes doesn't have it all that together, might be targeted by the person who murdered people near his home. That is the most normal and predictable response if your totally non-violent brother lived near the site of a violent murder.

There have been other murders where the family *did* suspect their family member pretty early on. In those cases, there is almost always a violent history with the family member. In most cases the family member will have threatened or even harmed someone else in the family before. There is often a criminal history of assault or DV.

But you are telling me that if a family member who had never done anything violent before, ever (and the fact that Brian had no history of violence is backed up not only by his family but by friends, classmates, teachers, school records, employers, etc.) lived near the scene of a violent murder and drove an extremely common car that had some features in common with the killer's car, you would assume the family member was the murderer?

I do not think you would.

This totally non violent brother was arrested for stealing her phone for drugs and had been in and out of rehab for a heroin addiction. He’s not your average brother. Also called his parents “Mother” and “Father”. Something was very off about him.

I am the PP. I have a brother with addiction issues. He has some unhealthy and weird habits and I am aware he has mental health issues. But he has never yelled at me, tried to physically harm me, or done either of those to anyone in our family or to anyone else that I know of.

I feel like you don't understand how many people have the exact problems this guy had and never hurt anyone. The world is full of troubled people and most of them never even commit assault much less a cold-blooded murder of four strangers. It would never occur to me that anyone I knew had done this specific crime.

Nobody is saying that people with this profile will hurt someone. But the fact that this guy, with all his baggage, acted so strangely around that time. Odd phone calls, needing to leave ASAP, hide the car, some people might get suspicious if you were being honest.

He didn’t need to leave ASAP. He left after the school semester was over nearly a month after the murders. Multiple sources have said he talked to his mother all the time, and his phone records proved that. I don’t know that you can say driving a car across the country (during which he got stopped by police twice) is an attempt at hiding it. You also have to remember he was an adult in a PhD program, so all the weirdness reported by the people at WSU before the murders weren’t being reported to his family the way they might have for an undergrad. Did the family know he was certainly odd, of course, but there is nothing suggesting they immediately should have said you know those murders in Idaho, Bryan totally did that.

DP. There's a huge amount of space between believing innocence verses he "totally did it."

I'm saying he should have looked like a very credible suspect as those other details came to light.

Eventually he was, but it took time for those details to come to light. Also, it's not clear if you are talking about the police or his family. The police were actively investigating the case and they DID hone in on him as a suspect as more details came to light. They did not share these details with his family in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. All the family knew was that this crime (which honestly they may not even have thought about very much at all -- they lived so far away and Brian wasn't bringing it up with them) happened somewhat near him and he had a similar, but common car. That's it. None of his other behavior was out of the norm. He had a history of acting strange and being difficult, he continued to be strange and difficult, none of it read as a red flag to them.

The thing with the car cuts both ways. The reports on the car had been out for weeks, so at first you might think "oh no that's my son's/brother's car." But then... nothing. By the time he drive the car to Pennsylvania, they'd been investigating the crime for weeks and there as no indication Brian was a suspect. That would make him driving it cross country LESS suspicious, not more. And of course they stored it in the garage. It was winter in PA -- you put the car no one plans to use in the garage where you don't have to worry about it, and your cars that you are used to driving in PA winter you park outside so you have easy access. When I have driven my car cross country to my parents, that's also what we did with the car.

The family new the timing of the murders, the timing of the call, the vehicle being sought, and Kohlberger’s decision to drive back, which apparently was made after the public was informed of the car.

Other than the DNA, the family seemed to know most of what the police knew that was relevant. Certainly enough for an objective person to be suspicious.

As someone who grew up in an area with harsh winters, and also someone who has moved across country several times, everything with the car looks highly suspicious to me.

That's a very long drive. It isn't one you want to do in the winter if you can avoid it. What did he want so badly that he couldn't wait until summer, but wasn't known before he moved there? December is better than January or February, but still isn't a great time for a cross country trip.

Once he was there, wouldn't you expect him to drive his own car around? Why park it in the garage? The parents presumably either had two cars themselves. Or, if they only had one, the other half of the garage would probably accumulate crap. I've never heard of college students parking in their parents' garage when they visit home. It seems incredibly odd. Particularly in December before winter ramps up.

The police didn't say they were looking for a white Elantra until December 7. Within a week, he got his dad to fly out and drive it back to Pennsylvania with him. That should have been suspicious.