Is Byran Kohberger a psychopath?

Two months ago, Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with the murder of four college students in Idaho. I wrote an article about him on Lovefraud, in which I compared what was known about his actions to the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Is Bryan Kohberger a psychopath? The PCL-R is the gold standard for evaluating an individual’s level of psychopathy, especially in criminal situations. Surprisingly, Kohberger did not seem to score very high on the PCL-R.

Since then, more has been learned about Kohberger’s actions. Stunning details were released in the police probable cause affidavit, which laid out the evidence for his arrest.

According to the affidavit:

• DNA was detected on the button snap of a knife sheath found next to two of the murder victims.
• Another resident of the home actually encountered the intruder, and her description matches Kohberger.
• Security video footage showed a white Hyundai Elantra, later identified as Kohberger’s car, passing the crime scene three times at approximately 4 a.m. on the night of the murders, and then leaving the scene at a high rate of speed at 4:20 a.m.
• Cell phone data indicated that Kohberger was in the vicinity of the scene 12 times before the murders, including on the morning of the crime.
• After Kohberger was identified, police followed him to his family home in Pennsylvania, where they found DNA in the trash that when compared to the DNA found at the scene, likely belonged to his biological father.

Other news reports indicated that Kohberger acted suspiciously. The New York Post reported that Kohberger visited the restaurant where two of the victims worked. CNN reported that Kohberger thoroughly cleaned his car inside and out, wore surgical gloves outside of his Pennsylvania home, and put trash bags in his neighbor’s garbage cans at 4 a.m.

Everyone in the United States is innocent until proven guilty. But it appears that the evidence is piling up against Kohberger. Here’s a good summary of what is known about him so far:

Idaho murder suspect: what we know about Bryan Kohberger, on People.com

Exotic explanations for the murders

When a vicious murder makes headlines, people want to know, what type of person does this? The fact that Kohberger was working on his Ph.D. in criminology adds to the public’s fascination.

I have to say, some of the theories seem a bit farfetched. For example, forensic psychiatrist Carole Lieberman told Newsweek that she believed Kohberger studied psychology and criminology because he was “trying to calm the demons inside of him that were telling him to kill,” while he was simultaneously “trying to learn how to commit the perfect crime.”

Oh yeah, Lieberman also said that Kohberger was afraid he’d become addicted to meat if he ate it. “He was not only vegan, he refused to eat off of pots or plates that had had meat on them. Psychologically, this represents his struggle against his cannibalistic urges,” she said. “He was afraid that if he let himself go to taste meat once, he would become addicted to it — like he had become to heroin — and start killing and eating people.”

Cannibalism? Really?

Then a former FBI agent, Pete Yachmetz, told the New York Post that Kohberger had an “incel complex,” meaning he was “involuntarily celibate.” The term is applied to men who struggle to establish romantic or sexual relationships. There are cases in which self-described incels have committed murder.

“I believe a continued stabbing of a victim indicates … an uncontrollable rage and extreme anger,” Yachmetz said, noting that Kohberger has been described as “socially awkward with a long history of interpersonal problems.”

Maybe — but incel is not a diagnosis.

Kohberger and the PCL-R

If Kohberger did commit these vicious murders, it would stand to reason that he was either psychotic or psychopathic. A person who is psychotic is delusional, hallucinating or hearing voices — Kohberger certainly doesn’t seem to be that. So, is Bryan Kohberger a psychopath?

Even with the new information that’s been released about the crimes, he still doesn’t meet the PCL-R threshold. Of the 20 traits and behaviors indicative of psychopathy, so far he only appears to show four or five:

• Need for stimulation and proneness to boredom — reflected by his high school heroin addiction, and by the fact that he never slept.
• Grandiose sense of self-worth — Kohberger wanted people to know how intelligent he was.
• Shallow affect — multiple former classmates commented about Kohberger’s flat emotions and expressionless face.
• Callousness and lack of empathy — If Kohberger actually committed the crimes, he would need to be callous and lacking in empathy to do it.
• Add to these, possibly, lack of remorse or guilt —Kohberger hasn’t said anything about the crimes. If he is found guilty and/or actually admits that he killed the students, then we may see if he expresses remorse or guilt. But so far, this criterion does not apply to him either.

Read more: Key symptoms of psychopaths

Different psychopathy scales

If Kohberger committed the murders, which has not yet been proven, we would think that he’s a psychopath — but he’s not scoring very high on the most common assessment, the PCL-R. Why not?

Among psychopathy researchers, there is disagreement about the best way to measure an individual’s level of disorder, and this may be a case in which the PCL-R doesn’t work very well.

So let’s look at another instrument. The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), developed by Dr. Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues, assesses the core features of psychopathy in non-institutional settings. It was developed to measure psychopathic personality characteristics within healthy control populations. Unlike the PCL-R, it does not explicitly assess criminal behavior.

The PPI is a self-report test with 154 items divided into eight subscales:

1. Machiavellian Egocentricity assesses ruthlessness and a willingness to manipulate others.
2. Social Potency assesses charm and interpersonal dominance.
3. Coldheartedness assesses callousness and an absence of guilt.
4. Carefree Nonplanfulness assesses a failure to plan behavior and inhibit maladaptive impulses.
5. Fearlessness assesses a propensity for risk taking behavior.
6. Blame Externalization assesses externalizing misbehavior.
7. Impulsive Nonconformity assesses a lack of concern about social traditions.
8. Stress Immunity assesses the absence of emotional reactions to potentially anxiety-provoking events.

Lilienfeld also created a short form of the instrument consisting of 56 items.

Triarchic model of psychopathy

The Triarchic model of psychopathy (TriPM), developed by Dr. Christopher Patrick and colleagues, is designed to reconcile alternative perspectives of the disorder. It conceives of psychopathy as encompassing three separable symptomatic components—disinhibition, boldness, and meanness. It measures:

Disinhibition

• impulsiveness
• weak behavioral restraint
• hostility and mistrust
• difficulties in regulating emotion

Meanness

• deficient empathy
• lack of affiliative capacity
• contempt toward others
• predatory exploitativeness
• empowerment through cruelty and destructiveness

Boldness

• dominance
• social assurance
• emotional resiliency
• venturesomeness

The Triarchic Psychopathy Measure is freely available online. You can check out the 58-item self-report scale, answer key and manual. Looking at some of its questions, it’s easy to see statements that psychopaths would agree to, if they were being honest. These include:

8. I don’t mind if someone I dislike gets hurt.
9. I have a knack for influencing people.
10. I enjoy pushing people around sometimes.
11. I can get over things that would traumatize others.
12. I don’t have much sympathy for people.

There are also statements that a psychopath obviously would not agree with. A negative answer to these statements would, therefore, indicate disorder. Here are some of them:

2. How other people feel is important to me.
3. For me, honesty really is the best policy.
4. I stay away from physical danger as much as I can.

Is Bryan Kohberger a psychopath?

Yes, in certain circumstances, some tools for measuring personality disorders are better than others. I came across this issue when I wrote my Senior Sociopaths book — the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder used for young people simply did not work when assessing older people.

So is Bryan Kohberger a psychopath? I don’t know if he has been assessed according to any of the psychopathy scales — the PCL-R, PPI or TriPM. If he’s found guilty, it would be interesting to know how he scores on each one.

Learn more: What did they want? Psychopaths, antisocials and other exploiters in romantic relationships