Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the Idaho killings, has a tiny but active social media following among sympathetic users.
There are a few social media organizations that support Kohberger, who is suspected of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death for no apparent reason. If convicted, he might face the death sentence.
“Justice for Bryan Kohberger” has 3,000 members on Facebook, and it was founded mere days after his arrest. Reddit has a subreddit called r/Brynation, which has a topic asking “What was it about Bryan that grabbed your liking?” Another post on r/BryanKohberger, headlined “Why Bryan Kohberger Is Not Guilty,” includes hundreds of comments.
A Facebook user claims to be a single mother from Kentucky who has sent hundreds of love letters to the suspect, identifying him as her “divine masculinity.”
Police in Moscow, Idaho, accuse him of stalking the King Road house at least a dozen times before entering the dark and stabbing best friends Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, 20.
Those who saw him face to face have also reported incredibly awkward behavior and strange sensations. According to a TikToker from his home state of Pennsylvania, she had to pretend to puke in order to get him to leave after an unpleasant movie date.
In an interview with People, two Idaho students stated that despite attending another school, Kohberger frequented their student union building and had a staring issue.
“There’s simply something so magnetic about Bryan,” said one pro-Kohberger Reddit poster on Tuesday. “I’m not sure why he bothered ladies if he did. I would have approached him if he had glanced at me intently.”
She introduced herself as “Jane Doe” and declined to answer the phone. Her Reddit profile reveals that she made her account precisely a month after Kohberger’s arrest, and she stated that she wasn’t trolling when she commented about admiring the quadruple murder suspect.
She stated that when she initially saw his mugshot, she thought he was a “sexy suspect.” She stated that as the publicity grew, she became more intrigued to his images and finally resorted to Google to discover like-minded posters.
“I’m a psychopath who gravitates towards dark triad types,” she asserted. If any of the stuff about him that has come to light is true, this would be part of it for me.”
She also indicated she has hybristophilia, a disease the American Psychological Association defines as a “sexual interest in and attraction to persons who commit crimes. In certain situations, this may be directed towards those incarcerated for a variety of criminal offenses.”
According to criminal profiler and psychotherapist John Kelly, it’s extremely unusual.
“I must tell you, I never come across it in 26 years of private practice, four years at the hospital,” he told Fox News Digital.
None of his coworkers or professional friends had, he noted.
“I believe some individuals are tugging our chain for a few minutes of fame, but I also know for sure, with the mail and everything [Ted] Bundy used to receive, the love letters Charlie Manson got…it is clearly a very strange co-dependency sickness.”
According to him, the attractiveness of a hybristophilia-type attraction might be the far distance and relative safety, despite reports of violent crime.
“He’s confined, so it’s really safe,” he explained. “They do not have to have an intimate connection.”
Kohberger, 28, is being detained without bond at the Latah County Prison in Moscow, Idaho, where he reportedly crept into a six-bedroom residence in the middle of the night and ambushed four University of Idaho students, some of whom may have been sleeping at the time of the attack.
An effort to contact Kohberger using the prison texting app failed on Tuesday.
“This receiver does not have the authorization to see the message,” said a pop-up error.
Nevertheless, another redditor claimed in an image shared on Feb. 13 that she paid him $50 for the jailhouse chat app as an “early Valentine’s Day present.”
Kohberger, a recovered heroin addict with social anxiety, holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from DeSales University and was pursuing a Ph.D. at Washington State University, which is less than 10 miles from the victims’ school.
Police say Kohberger stalked the house at least a dozen times before the attack, and he returned hours afterwards, according to the arrest affidavit.
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Kohberger was detained on December 30 at his parents’ home in the Poconos and is scheduled to appear in Idaho court on June 26 for the commencement of his preliminary hearing, which may last four to five days.
Kohberger said he’s “looking forward to being exonerated” in a statement sent by his former Pennsylvania attorney, Jason LaBar.
During the June hearings, Kohberger’s Idaho attorney, Kootenai County Public Defender Anne Taylor, intends to contest the probable cause for his arrest.
She has not replied to several requests for comment and is subject to a restricted gag order, along with prosecutors, investigators, and counsel for witnesses and victims’ families, which has been challenged by both the Goncalves family attorney and a coalition of media organizations.
