Bryan Kohberger is set to be sentenced in the November 2022 murder of four University of Idaho students on July 23 following a controversial plea deal that allowed him to plead guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin and one count of felony burglary.
While Kohberger will not be forced to explain his motive as part of the agreement, a wave of new reporting on the case presents compelling evidence that Kohberger may have been inspired by another mass murderer, Incel leader Elliot Rodger.
On Friday’s show, Megyn was joined by legal experts Dave Aronberg and Viva Frei to discuss the theory and why it makes sense given what we know about Kohberger and the crime.
Who Is ‘Pappa Rodger’?
There has long been speculation about the possible connection between Kohberger and an anonymous Facebook user named “Pappa Rodger” who began leaving disturbing messages on the University of Idaho Murders Facebook page in the days following the heinous crime.
“Did the killer stop at 4 victims out of exhaustion, convenience, or lack of knowledge?” Pappa Rodger posted. “Did the killer shower at the crime scene afterward?”
The user also made mention of the discovery of the knife sheath left behind at the crime scene well before the information had been made public. Posts from Pappa Rodger abruptly stopped following Kohberger’s arrest.
That led many, including some of Kohberger’s former classmates at DeSales University in Pennsylvania who have since spoken out, to wonder if it could have been the murderer himself. But there also may be a clue in the alias.
The Elliot Rodger Connection
Two of Kohberger’s former classmates told The Daily Mail they recall learning about Elliot Rodger in a class about serial killers and their motives. Rodger was a 22-year-old virgin and Santa Barbara City College student who fatally stabbed and shot six people and injured 14 in Isla Vista, California, before killing himself in May 2014.
His 137-page manifesto laid out his Incel motive. Incel refers to a “movement” of virgin men who blame women for their sexual frustrations that emerged on 4chan in 2014 after Rodger’s killing spree and death. Rodger had posted a video online about how he planned to murder people as revenge for being rejected by women.
A portion of his manifesto focused on a woman named Maddy, who Rodger claimed was his first friend in the U.S. after moving from the U.K. but she “would eventually come to represent everything I hate and despise; everything that is against me; and everything that I am against.”
He wrote that Maddy and her “beautiful blonde-haired clique of friends” were the “exact image of everything I hated in women” and “represented everything that was wrong with this world.” He went on to write that he would “take great delight in torturing and flaying her and every single one of her spoiled, obnoxious, evil friends.”
The Chilling Parallels
Chilling parallels are now being drawn between Rodger’s fixation on Maddy and Madison “Maddie” Mogen, the blonde sorority sister who is believed to have been Kohberger’s primary target. Kohberger had also long-exhibited many Incel characteristics himself.
In the absence of someone coming forward to claim the “Pappa Rodger” account as their own, Aronberg said it is “a strong assumption” that it belonged to Kohberger and was inspired by Rodger. “This guy was a devotee of serial killers,” Aronberg noted. “It is so interesting how serial killers just want to relive this… He went back to the scene of the crime after he committed the murders… and that is apparently what happened here when he was revisiting it in trying to put out evidence that the public didn’t even know at the time. So yes, this goes a long way to explaining what happened.”
Megyn agreed. “There is no question in my mind that that’s him, Pappa Rodger,” she said. “And I think it is a very good theory that he named himself after one of his favorite serial killers.”
These new details, coupled with the evidence that was already known about Kohberger and his connection to the crime, are what make the plea deal, in Megyn’s view, all the more frustrating. “It was, I just think, cowardly of this prosecutor not to see [the case] through. There was no question he was going to be found guilty,” she concluded. “I mean, I guess there has always been an outside chance. But in this case, it was just overwhelming.”
You can check out Megyn’s full Kelly’s Court by tuning in to episode 1,106 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.