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- [00:02]
Kayla
Hey, it's Kayla here, host of the Trial of Diddy. While we're putting the finishing touches on the next series of the Trial usa, I wanted to tell you about a gripping new podcast from us. It's called on the the Idaho Murders. In this series, Daily Mail journalist Laura Collins investigates the brutal killings of four students in a quiet college town and the man now facing life in prison, Bryan Kohberger. With insights from a leading Forens psychiatrist and one of the world's top experts on serial killers, we explore what might drive someone to commit such a calculated act of violence. You're about to hear 10 minutes of a chat between Laura bestselling author Howard Bloom and expert on mass killings, Dr. Gary Bruscato. If you want more, the full series is out now. Just search on the case wherever you get your podcasts and hit follow to stay up to date for ad free listening to this and access to exclusive bonus episodes of the Trial, subscribe to the Crime Desk. We'll be back soon with more from the Trial usa. Enjoy.
- [01:14]
Laura Collins
Thank you both so much for joining me to have a discussion about this. I was in Boise on Wednesday for the sentencing of Bryan Kohberger, and the atmosphere outside court was perhaps predictably, very heated. There were hundreds of people lining up to try and get a seat in the room to see this happen. And really the whole thing was incredibly tense and it's been so hotly anticipated. And I'd like to start really with you, Howard, to talk about what we heard on Wednesday. And I think the first thing that stood out to everybody, not least of all because it was the first two statements, victim impact statements we received were from the two surviving roommates. So there was Bethany Funk and then there was Dylan Mortensen. Bethany's statement was read by Emily Allant, who was a very good friend of the victims and clearly of Bethany. But what did we learn, Howard?
- [02:03]
Howard Bloom
What we learned is how much these young women suffered and will continue to suffer. We learned about their continued victimization and it was horribly poignant. We also get a sense that all the theories that they somehow might have been complicit, as are fear bunk, and that they have to be put through this additional torture is a shame. I mean, they're going to be carrying a burden with them for the rest of their lives. And again, their statements, at least to me, made me question once again the settlement deal that we've allowed someone who will affect people's lives for a long, long time to get off to spend the rest of his life in prison. And not go to trial and not provide us with answers.
- [02:52]
Laura Collins
Yeah, I think a lot of people were probably genuinely taken aback by just how devastated these young women's lives have been. I mean, of course, what happened was so horrific, but I don't think anyone could possibly have imagined the awful impact two and a half years on. Dylan Mortensen was so emotional that she couldn't stand. She had to sit down. She spoke about these panic attacks that hit her like a tsunami that floor her. The constant fear. Both of them spoke of their constant fear. And in terms of how you deal with that, I mean, maybe we turn to the statements that came afterwards. All the family members and everyone seemed to have a different approach to how they were dealing with the trauma and with their rage and with how they wanted to address Kohberger. And I wonder, Howard, if I can stay with you. And just maybe. Let's just talk through the Mogans family and their approach versus maybe the Gonsalves family and their approach. I mean, we had forgiveness from some. Or we had rather, if not forgiveness and the desire to not waste words on Kohberger and from the Gonsalves family. And we'll focus on this in more detail. We had some really harnessed rage.
- [04:00]
Howard Bloom
When you listen to the Gonsalves family, what you're hearing really is Old Testament fury. You're hearing people who just don't want to forget about the past. They realize that the past is never going to be past. The people who spoke before them tried to reach some reconciliation. They tried to convince themselves that they found a way through. But I was. I kept on remembering a play by Thornton Wilder, our Town, where people look back. Man is in heaven. He looks back in his family life. And they recall just the little moments sitting down at the breakfast table, going for walks with your family members. This is what the two surviving roommates also recalled. And that sort of poignancy will last forever. There's really no way through a grief like this. But what Kaylee Gonhalvitz's sister did is she asked questions directly of Kohberger and what she didn't refer to. But it seems obvious to anyone who's been studying this case that those questions were fashioned after the questions that Kohberger had presented in his master thesis that he wanted to ask criminals. And she is now asking him to give these answers specifically referencing her sister's death. And these questions hover out there. They remain, hovering over this entire case ominously. And then following her, we had Bill Thompson, the prosecutor, talk we had the judge talk, and they kept on saying, it's time to move on. They seemed in great haste to let's move on, let's move on. But until those questions that she asked are answered sufficiently satisfactorily, I don't think anyone will be moving on. Not the families, not the people of Idaho, and not the people around the world who've been following this case.
- [05:51]
Laura Collins
Well, let's go back. We'll come back to that. But, Gary, I wonder if I could bring you in here, because to Howard's point that Olivia asked these questions, and both she and her father really took Kohberger apart in what they were saying. They diminished him. They held him in disdain. One of the questions she asked was, do you feel anything at all, or are you exactly what you always feared? And I just wonder from your area of expertise, what impact, if anything, do you think that would have on him?
- [06:18]
Dr. Gary Bruscato
I think it's clear that if that's the approach you're using to get under the skin of a person, it's because you have a sense that their motive is very much like the motive that we would see in some sort of budding serial killer, where the purpose is to compensate for feelings of inadequacy or past hurts by leveling the playing field through domination, control, manipulation of other people, usually in a psychosexual way or in the playing out of some sort of fantasy. So I think the idea is to sort of tear apart that nothing that was done did that, that you're, in the end, no one cares about you. You've achieved no degree of notoriety beyond a kind of flash for just a moment. You're nothing. You're inadequate, You're a loser, et cetera. And I think that's terrific. I thought it was also a stroke of gen to have that message delivered by a young female so powerfully, because I think this resentment of women. Well, resentment on the one hand and idealization on the other, is so at the center of whatever was being played out here. So I thought that all of that was very strong. And, you know. But then we have to also think about the kind of person this is who's hearing the message. I'm afraid to say that he was so automaton like, so calculating machine like, as he was sitting there, that I wondered if instead of taking the sin and being hurt by it, he wasn't reliving in his mind what he had done. Fantasizing, you know, the Howard mentioned thinking about our town. My mind kept going to the line from Poe from the raven that says his eyes had all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, and that's what he looked like.
- [08:14]
Howard Bloom
Gary, would you think this would be beneficial, cathartic to the consolvances to make this statement, even if it has no effect on Kohberger?
- [08:22]
Dr. Gary Bruscato
Yes.
- [08:22]
Howard Bloom
You know, just the drama of pushing that lectern around so he could face Kohberger directly. I mean, that must have given him a sense of finally, at least he can do something positive.
- [08:34]
Dr. Gary Bruscato
I think that it absolutely was a moment of where control was taken away from him and was placed in the hands of the family in many ways, in the name of the victim and all the victims. And I think control is really what it's all about in this story. I mean, everything, including this plea deal, seems to be about control. I think that's precisely why we all feel so dissatisfied by the way it worked out, is it almost felt as if he got some modico control in the end. I mean, here's somebody who was arbitrating, who lives and dies and ultimately arbitrated that he lives. And that's depressing. And then there's also the problem that, you know, having worked with many victims of violent crime and their families, as opposed to violent offenders, I mean, I've done both. I also know that these trials are like a kind of exposure therapy where you gradually come to accept the loss of a loved one. You see crime scene photos, you hear testimony, so forth. You go through stages of grief right there in the courtroom. And then when you make your victim impact statement, there's a kind of acceptance that when you go home, there's going to be the empty chair right now. It's real. What happened here was the rug was pulled out from under these people. So. So, you know, an email comes and it's over. We know you've made accommodations to attend the trial. Have a nice day, you know, go home. And I think that hurt, too. So to Howard's point, it was nice to see a moment where people were able to say no. Like, we have control here. We have power. And you're going to listen to these people's names. They are human beings. We loved them. They were alive. So, yes, I agree 100% with Howard. That. That. That was extremely powerful, Sam.