Criminologist Kathy Canning-Mello raised some questions on Saturday about online posts by Bryan Kohberger, the University of Idaho murders suspect, that revealed his mental health struggles.
CNN host Jim Acosta asked Canning-Mello, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and FBI profiler, about her thoughts on a New York Times article published Friday that revealed Kohberger's mental health condition, citing online posts and messages from his friends.
Some of the online posts dated back to when Kohberger was a teenager when he reportedly felt disconnected from society, and spoke about various mental health challenges, including anxiety, depression, and the "constant thought of suicide."
On a website called Tapatalk, Kohberger spoke about suffering from a neurological condition called visual snow, in which a person can see scattered dots in their line of vision similar to TV static.
Canning-Mello described Kohberger's mental health symptoms as "very disturbing," but said more information needs to be revealed to understand his condition.
"We're going to have, I think, more deep interviews of people who know Bryan well in order to understand that condition that he had, and any impact it might have had on his behavior at the time or later in life, and if that condition still exists, we don't know that. So I think it's going to be incumbent upon prosecutors, investigators, and it's great now that they have a few more months to do this, to conduct these long behaviorally oriented interviews," she told Acosta.
One of Kohberger's friends said that he constantly talked about his fuzzy vision in 2009. The Idaho murders suspect also said that his absence of emotion began around the same time he began experiencing visual snow symptoms.
Kohberger, 28, faces charges of four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary after he was arrested on December 30 at his parents' house in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. He was charged for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, who were found stabbed to death in their beds on November 13 in an off-campus residence near the University of Idaho.
Kohberger maintains his innocence and said through his lawyer that he is "eager to be exonerated."
During her Saturday CNN interview, Canning-Mello outlined a set of questions that could help provide a better understanding of Kohberger's mental health situation and behavior at different stages of his life.
"Do we really know he's charming? Does he lack empathy? Is he cunning and manipulative? Is he controlling? Does he harbor misogynistic feelings? All of these things are going to be evident in people that know him well. Certainly we're getting some indications of his personality through his online persona, but we need to understand him offline as well, because at some point the prosecutor is going to have to paint a picture of this individual to a jury, and they're going to have to make some connections in their head," she explained.
She added: "Is this the kind of person, number one, physically capable, but number two, psychologically [and] emotionally capable of committing such heinous crimes?"
Newsweek reached out to criminology experts including Cesar Rebellon, a professor at the University of New Hampshire and Kevin M. Beaver, a professor at Florida State University, for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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