Bryan Kohberger let arrogance become his downfall — the Idaho murderer’s mindset exposed

Public fascination in the case of mass murderer Bryan Kohberger has barely dimmed since the killings of four University of Idaho students back in November 2022.

The now 31-year-old avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, admitting he burst into their off-campus home and attacked them in their sleep.

The case has been thrust back into the public eye as the killer attempts to withdraw his guilty plea, now claiming he was ‘convinced to falsely confess’ by his lawyers, at the same time as the release of the Netflix

As the case unfolded, moving from shock discovery to investigation, then manhunt, arrest and ultimately conviction, attention has shifted from the crime scene to the courtroom to an area housing some rather deep and dark questions.

Such as ‘what kind of mindset sits behind a shocking crime like this?’

To help answer this, psychologist and true crime expert Emma Kenny has given Metro exclusive insight into the psyche she believes a killer like Kohberger operates with.

Bryan Kohberger’s background makes the story even more unsettling. At the time of the killings he was studying criminology at postgraduate level, analysing the very behaviors that he’d later carry out.

That detail alone sparked some questions about ego, identity and whether immersion in violent subject matter can shape self-perception in certain personalities.

Emma says that in some rare cases the boundary between studying crime and identifying with it can become blurred.

‘If someone’s identity is fragile, it could be suggested that they don’t just study a subject, they merge with it,’ she explains. ‘If someone already feels alienated, insignificant, or resentful, criminology can become less about understanding crime and more about locating themselves within it.

‘That doesn’t mean studying criminology creates killers, but for a personality with grievance and grandiosity, it can provide language, structure and even a sense of destiny. Ted Bundy is another example of a serial killer who chose to study law.’

Central to her analysis is what she calls ‘superiority bias’. In high profile cases suspects are often labelled as masterminds or similar, but Emma challenges that narrative.

‘Intelligence and analytical thinking can feed a cognitive distortion known as “superiority bias.” The more someone sees themselves as rational and methodical, the more they may underestimate emotion, chaos, and human error, including their own.

‘Many offenders are caught not because they’re unintelligent, but because they believe they’re exceptional… which 99% of the time they absolutely are not.’

In cases like Kohberger’s, the conviction that they’re intellectually superior can lead to miscalculations.

When asked whether someone can commit extreme violence and still see themselves as wronged, Kenny said: ‘That internal victim narrative is often central.

‘Grievance-fuelled personalities reinterpret rejection, humiliation or perceived slights as moral injury.

‘Violence then becomes, in their mind, a correction, a balancing of the scales. They are not the aggressor in their story, they are the wronged party restoring justice.’

In an era where criminal cases explode across social media within a matter of mere hours, notoriety can take on its own psychological weight.

‘If significance has been chronically absent, infamy can feel preferable to invisibility,’ Kenny explains. ‘Being feared, studied, discussed, even hated, can satisfy a craving for impact. It’s a dark substitute for admiration.’

For media-aware offenders, she adds, modern true crime culture provides a few ready-made reference points. ‘They understand archetypes: the mastermind, the loner, the misunderstood intellectual,’ Kenny says.

‘That awareness can subtly shape fantasy. But importantly, culture doesn’t create the pathology, but to some degree it does give it imagery.’

There’s also a distinction between wanting to evade justice and wanting to be remembered.

‘Getting away with it is about control. Being remembered is about legacy. The former is tactical; the latter is existential,’ Kenny says. ‘Some offenders oscillate between the two, they want to outsmart the system, but they also want their intellect to be acknowledged.’

When that control collapses, the psychological impact can be severe. Kenny says: ‘Arrest strips them of authorship. Court proceedings reduce them to a defendant number.

‘For someone who believed they were orchestrating events, that loss of control can provoke rage, withdrawal, or a cold doubling down on superiority.’

If she had to distill the psychology behind cases like Kohberger’s into one core idea, Emma’s pretty clear on the subject: ‘I’d describe it as pathological grievance fused with grandiose self-belief.

‘Arrogance alone isn’t rare, nor is fantasy, nor even resentment. What becomes dangerous is when someone constructs a rigid internal narrative in which they have been profoundly wronged while simultaneously believing they are intellectually superior and fundamentally misunderstood.

‘When grievance hardens in this way, violence can begin to feel less like chaos and more like correction.

‘The darkest element isn’t necessarily sadism for its own sake, it’s the conviction that the act makes sense, that it is rational, even justified, within their own distorted story.’

You can see Emma on her Murderous Minds tour which she’s bringing to venues up and down the UK throughout the year.

This article was first published on March 2, 2026.