Understanding Evil in the Idaho Murders

Evil—elusive and often misunderstood—does not lurk only in the kind of vicious act of cruelty perpetrated by the monstrous Bryan Kohberger when he brutally murdered four innocent University of Idaho students in November 2022. Yet, in the lead-up to his sentencing last month, media commentators speculated on what could have motivated Kohberger to commit such evil acts. Even President Trump demanded to know the cause of such a brutal crime and asked the judge to “make him explain what happened.”

While it is tempting to believe that evil is an aberration embodied only by someone like the murderous Kohberger, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago shows clearly that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Having witnessed the unspeakable atrocities of 20th-century totalitarianism, Solzhenitsyn knew that the seeds of malice, envy, pride, and cruelty are sown in the ordinary soil of everyday life. They emerge in the fertile ground of our own hearts just as they emerged in the dark heart of Bryan Kohberger. 

We may never know why Kohberger killed those beautiful and blameless students who were enjoying college life, but we have learned that he had been an overweight and socially awkward child and teenager who had few friends throughout his high school years in a small town in Pennsylvania. We have also learned that he developed a severe eating disorder resulting in hospitalization. He later became a strict vegan and lost half of his body weight and then became addicted to heroin, stealing from his family to buy drugs. 

A Ph.D. student in Criminal Justice when he committed the Idaho crimes, Kohberger had been an undergraduate student of renowned Criminal Justice Professor Katherine Ramsland at DeSales University, where he enrolled in courses in forensic psychology, death investigation, and a course entitled “Dangerous Minds: The Psychology of Anti-Social Behavior.” According to Ramsland, the “Dangerous Minds” course required students to do extensive case analysis of serial killers and mass murderers. 

The author of several books on the criminal mind, including one written with BTK serial killer Dennis Rader about his decision-making process and crimes, Ramsland assigned The Mind of a Murderer, which provides reports from behavioral experts who interviewed killers to understand their criminal development. Professor Ramsland told reporters that she saw “no red flags” with Kohberger. “He was always really quite respectful and grateful…We all know that we could have students who might become offenders, but we also know that the vast majority of our students will not.”    

While Ramsland is correct that we cannot know how such materials will affect vulnerable or troubled students like Kohberger, we must acknowledge that some of our students can become obsessed with studying crime—drawn, perhaps, to the macabre details that both horrify and fascinate them. Such obsessions can transform curiosity into a dark fascination, blurring the boundaries between observer and participant. 

Kohberger was already troubled when he arrived as a first-year student on the DeSales campus. It is possible that what may have started as an academic curiosity ultimately transformed into a haunting obsession for Kohberger. Evil cuts through the hearts of all—including troubled undergraduate students enrolled in a forensic psychology course on a Catholic university campus. This is why such courses must always be taught through the lens of morality. On a faithful Catholic campus, Catholic moral teachings would be integrated throughout the subject matter of all courses. 

For example, in the course in Deviant Behavior at Franciscan University, we not only study current cultural views of deviant behaviors like abortion, assisted suicide, pornography, and transgenderism, we also study what the Church teaches about each of these subjects. We study the immutability of God-given gender and the sacredness of God’s creation from conception until natural death. Students in Criminal Justice at Franciscan learn about natural law and Aquinas from an Aquinas scholar who also happens to direct the Criminal Justice Program on campus. Students are taught about the reality of evil, and they are not reluctant to view such behavior as demonic. 

This is certainly not to blame others for the deadly decision that Kohberger made to murder those beautiful Idaho students. He made the choice to perpetrate such evil. In the wake of such unimaginable violence as that perpetrated by Kohberger, it is understandable that many were disappointed that he was not sentenced to death. Believing that such evil must be eradicated from this earth, many of those who support the death penalty believe that the truly evil should not be allowed to live among us. Some societies even support a cruel and painful death for someone who commits such heinous crimes. They believe that killing the truly wicked would somehow banish the evil from our midst.

But faithful Catholics know that evil will never be banished from this earth. We understand that evil weaves its way through the very heart of each of us, whispering temptations, promising prideful vindication or revenge against those who wronged us, sowing seeds of envy, and pulling at our conscience. Banishing those who do evil is never enough to banish evil. Instead, it is essential for us to actively reject evil by nurturing and upholding the good within ourselves and seeking it out and encouraging it in others.