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Bryan Kohberger, a painfully awkward, arrogant introvert and criminal justice student, believed he could have committed “the perfect murders,” James Patterson said.
“One of the things that professor [Dr. Katherine Ramsland] said that with murderers like this, they get tunnel vision – they panic, and they miss things,” the award-winning author told Fox News Digital.
“So here was Kohberger who almost committed the perfect murders – except [he had] that tunnel vision,” Patterson shared. “He left that knife sheath behind. And that’s what ultimately led to his arrest.”
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Bryan Kohberger arrives at Monroe County Courthouse in Pennsylvania. He later pleaded guilty to the murders of four University of Idaho students. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)
Patterson, who has sold more than 425 million books, published over 260 New York Times bestsellers, and won 10 Emmy Awards, has teamed up with investigative journalist Vicky Ward to write a new book, “The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy.”
Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and two other housemates in Goncalves’ final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
He is also a producer on the new Prime Video docuseries, “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders,” which is based on the book. Several loved ones of the victims spoke out in the film.
Fox News Digital reached out to Kohberger’s lawyer for comment.
In 2023, FOX Nation honored James Patterson with the “Back the Blue Award” for his work supporting law enforcement. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Prime Video)
Kohberger, a former Washington State University criminology Ph.D. student, pleaded guilty on July 2 to killing four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022, as part of a deal with prosecutors to escape the death penalty.
The 30-year-old faces four consecutive life sentences for fatally stabbing 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, as well as 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin at their off-campus house.
For the book, Patterson and Ward conducted more than 300 interviews and took a deep dive into Kohberger’s upbringing.
The family of Madison Mogen, including mother Karen Laramie and stepfather Scott Laramie, walk out of the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, after a hearing in the case, on July 2, 2025. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
“He was inappropriate – he didn’t know how to socialize very well,” Patterson explained. “… He was a teaching assistant, and he was just turning people off. He graded the women poorly. He had an inability to deal with women, yet he thought he was popular. It was a thought of, why aren’t these people, these women, loving him? Because he found himself very worthy. And in this documentary, most of this comes out.”
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A side by side of Bryan Kohberger’s sophomore Pleasant Valley High School yearbook photo and his senior year. He later pleaded guilty to the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students. (Stephanie Pagones/Fox News Digital)
According to the book and docuseries, Kohberger may have been inspired by one killer – Elliot Rodger. The 22-year-old was obsessed with exacting “retribution” after experiencing what he claimed was a lifetime of social and sexual isolation, The Associated Press reported.
In 2014, Rodger killed six people in a stabbing and shooting spree in Isla Vista, California, before turning the gun on himself.
“No one knows that, like Rodger, Bryan is a virgin who hates women,” the book claimed. “No one knows that Bryan copes with loneliness by immersing himself in video games. Like Rodger, he goes for night drives. Like Rodger, he visits the gun range. And, like Rodger, he goes to a local bar and tries to pick up women.”
Happy memories of Christopher Michaels-Martinez are placed outside the entrance to IV Deli Mart in Isla Vista, California. The UCSB student was gunned down and killed in a shooting rage by Elliot Rodger. (Getty Images)
“Elliot Rodger wrote that he kept trying to place himself in settings where he could pick up women,” the book continued. “But no one noticed him. Bryan must think that surely he’ll be noticed. Women must spot his looks, his intelligence, and they must want him. They don’t.”
An undated photo of Elliot Rodger is seen at a press conference by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff in Goleta, California, on May 24, 2014. Rodger, 22, went on a rampage in Isla Vista near the University of California at Santa Barbara campus, stabbing three people to death at his apartment before shooting to death three more in a terrorizing crime spree through the neighborhood. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Patterson pointed out that at the Seven Sirens Brewing Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Kohberger would push his way into unwanted conversations with female bartenders and patrons. He went as far as asking for their addresses. Some women, according to the book, started complaining to the brewery’s owner about “the creepy guy with the bulging eyes.”
Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom for his arraignment hearing in Latah County District Court, May 22, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. (Zach Wilkinson-Pool/Getty Images)
Kohberger was adamant that women would notice him. But Patterson noted that to many, he was simply “off-putting.”
“He made people uncomfortable,” said Patterson. “The bartenders and owners remembered him as being this weird duck who would sit at a bar and just weird everybody out and talk inappropriately. He had a lot of trouble socializing.”
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“The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy” will be available for purchase on July 14. (Little, Brown and Company)
According to the book, Kohberger felt that by going to Moscow, Idaho, across the state border, he could find a girl willing to date him. He read about a place online called the Mad Greek where they sell vegan pizza – he’s vegan. When he walked inside, he noticed a blonde waitress – “Maddie” Mogen.
A photo of Madison Mogen, left, and Kaylee Goncalves, two of the University of Idaho students found dead in their off-campus home on Nov. 13, 2022. (Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
It’s been speculated by sources who spoke to Patterson that Mogen rejected Kohberger.
The book pointed out an eerie similarity.
“Elliot Rodger wrote of reuniting with a childhood friend named Maddy in the months before the day of retribution,” read the book.
The Prime Video docuseries “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders” is based on James Patterson’s book. (Prime Video)
“She was a popular, spoiled USC girl who partied with her hot, popular blonde-haired clique of friends,” Rodger wrote, as quoted by the book. “My hatred for them all grew from each picture I saw of her profile. They were the kind of beautiful, popular people who lived pleasurable lives and would look down on me as inferior scum, never accepting me as one of them. They were my enemies. They represented everything that was wrong with this world.”
When asked if we’ll ever know Kohberger’s true motives for committing the murders, Patterson replied, “Oh, I think we already do [know].”
“One Night in Idaho” features interviews with several loved ones, including Karen Laramie, Maddie Mogen’s mother. (Prime Video)
“I think he had decided that Maddie… You could see it when you went by the house. You could see her room. Her name was up in the window of her room. We think it seems like he went there to deal with her. It seems fairly obvious. Will we know more? I don’t know. If he wants to be interviewed at this stage, I’m happy to go there and do an interview. And I’ve done that before – people who’ve gone to prison, and they decide that, all of a sudden, they want to talk.”
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Bryan Kohberger’s childhood home in Effort, Pennsylvania, located about 10 minutes north of Pleasant Valley High School, where he graduated in 2013. The family moved elsewhere in Monroe County in fall 2012, according to online messages between Kohberger and a high school friend. (Kevin Fixler/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Past acquaintances described Kohberger as frustrated by females – and even sexist as a result. One woman who met Kohberger on a Tinder date several years ago claimed on social media that her interaction with him was so awkward she pretended to vomit just to get him to leave her apartment. He also appeared to be well-versed in “incels,” or “involuntary celibates.”
“Pretty much everybody we talked to just said, ‘This is a strange man with a strange look – couldn’t look people in the eye,’” said Patterson. “If he did look at you in the eye, sometimes people wished that he hadn’t. And his impression of himself was totally out of whack with the way other people perceived him.”
Many of those who encountered Bryan Kohberger described him as “off-putting,” author James Patterson told Fox News Digital. (August Frank-Pool/Getty Images)
The book describes Kohberger as having once expressed an “offensive, anachronistic view of gender roles.” And following the murders, he may have viewed himself as a criminal mastermind.
Dr. Katherine Ramsland speaks about Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler, at Penn State Berks, circa 2016. (Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)
Moscow, Idaho, was overwhelmed by the gravity of his heinous crimes and the public scrutiny that came with it.
“You’ve got not only the murders here, but all of a sudden, you’ve got press from around the world in this small town,” Patterson explained.
In “One Night in Idaho,” loved ones like Hunter Chapin, Ethan Chapin’s brother, spoke about the hurtful rumors that spread on social media following the murders. (Prime Video)
“You’ve got all of these rumors. One of the things in the book, and one of the saddest things that we discovered in the documentary, is the way that this stuff gets picked up by these true crime people, some of whom are vampires. They’re awful, they don’t care. They don’t take responsibility for their actions. And when you write a book or do a documentary, you have to be responsible for it. And we were responsible.”
WATCH: ATTORNEY FOR MADISON MOGEN’S FAMILY VOWS TO EMBARK ON A NEW PATH FOLLOWING BRYAN KOHBERGER’S GUILTY PLEA
And it could have been that “tunnel vision” Kohberger had that reportedly made him believe he wouldn’t get caught.
“Dr. Ramsland teaches her students that killers get tunnel vision when they are committing murder,” the book shared. “That’s why mistakes get made. Amid the high adrenaline and hyper-focus on the act itself, killers can forget things they otherwise would not.”
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Dr. Katherine Ramsland has written about serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as “BTK,” who stalked his victims in Wichita, Kansas. “BTK” stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” (Bo Rader-Pool/Getty Images)
And Kohberger’s family isn’t to blame, said Patterson.
“I think from everything we can gather, his parents did their best,” said Patterson. “They seemed to have done their best with him.”
Kohberger’s guilty plea doesn’t end the quest to seek more answers.
“Look, people talk,” said Patterson. “… When you’re in a big city, like New York, you’re kind of used to, unfortunately, to violence. But you’ve got these two college towns, Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Washington, and they don’t know what to make of this.
Brian Kohberger’s mugshot at the time of his arrest in December 2022. (Ada County Sheriff’s Office)
“… It’s a story of these families, and these kids… And, to some extent… the documentary – it will make you afraid. It will certainly make you feel what it was like to be in those towns during this period. What it was like the next day – the shock, the fear.”
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A memorial outside the home where four University of Idaho students were slain in Moscow, Idaho, on Oct. 31, 2023. The home was demolished in December of that year. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
“It was a hard case to solve,” he reflected. “[Investigators] were very fortunate that Kohberger made that one really big blunder… He didn’t make a lot of mistakes. So it was a tough investigation… He might’ve never been caught. We might’ve been writing about God knows what right now.”
“One Night in Idaho” is now available for streaming. Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz, Audrey Conklin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stephanie Nolasco covers entertainment at Foxnews.com.
