Alert – Bryan Kohberger’s classmates expose warped 137-page manifesto that may be biggest clue yet about his REAL motive

Before he murdered four students in a 13-minute stabbing spree, Bryan Kohberger had spent four years studying the actions, minds and motives of some of the most depraved killers inside a classroom at DeSales University.

Among them was a man named Elliot Rodger.

In 2014, Rodger had killed six and wounded another 13 in a violent rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before turning a gun on himself.

Two of Kohberger’s former classmates tell the Daily Mail they recall learning about Rodger in class, including his warped 137-page manifesto laying out his incel motive – a hatred of women – and writing that a former friend named Maddy had ‘eventually come to represent everything I hate and despise.’

Now, chilling parallels have been drawn between Kohberger and Rodger which – coupled with a curiously-named social media account called Pappa Rodger – have fueled questions as to whether he was inspired by his classes about the incel killer to carry out his own mass murder.

‘I definitely think something inspired or sparked inside of him and he was like ‘maybe I can get away with this. Maybe I want to know what it feels like,’ Kohberger’s former classmate Brittany Slaven tells the Daily Mail.

Rodger stabbed to death his first three victims inside a home. Kohberger fatally stabbed Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in their off-campus student home in Moscow, Idaho.

Rodgers shot two women dead outside the Alpha Phi house – targeting the house because he said the sorority sisters were the ‘hottest’ in college. Kohberger’s victims were all part of Greek life and Goncalves was a Big at Alpha Phi.

Bryan Kohberger finally confessed to the murders of four University of Idaho students in a hearing on July 2 

Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle (left) and Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves (right) 

Rodgers railed against a woman named Maddy in his manifesto. Kohberger is believed to have chosen Maddie as his target.

However, unlike Rodger, Kohberger provided no manifesto and offered no answers as to why he murdered the four University of Idaho students in the dead of the night on November 13, 2022.

After two years of protesting his innocence, in a bombshell move on July 2 he pleaded guilty and confessed.

But his motive for the horrific slayings remains a mystery.

It was the fall of 2018 when the then-23-year-old Kohberger – a recovering heroin addict – began his degree majoring in psychology on the forensics track at DeSales University, Pennsylvania.

He graduated with a Masters in criminal justice in 2022 and then enrolled in the criminology PhD program at Washington State University that fall – just over the border from Moscow.

Josh Ferraro was on the same course as Kohberger at DeSales and remembers being partnered with him on a project in biology.

He recalls Kohberger being ‘a pleasure to work with,’ saying he was ‘very diligent’ and ‘very smart.’  

He was ‘proud to give the right answers. He knew stuff. He was happy to explain things and go into detail – maybe sometimes too much,’ he says.

While he was ‘very engaged’ with the subject, on a social level, Kohberger kept himself to himself, Ferraro recalls.

‘If I tried to make small talk, he kind of shut it down pretty quickly. He was not really into talking about himself or what he does,’ he says.

Bryan Kohberger studied notorious killer Elliot Rodger (pictured) on his course at DeSales 

A memorial is left outside Alpha Phi in Isla Vista in May 2014 after Rodger targeted the sorority house

‘He would shut it down… I never really got to know him on a personal level.’

Ferraro recalls noticing that he especially avoided talking to female classmates.

‘He didn’t talk to a single one of them,’ he says.

‘He was one of those kids who came to class, interacted with the professor and left pretty much immediately, never really hung around.’

Looking back, fellow classmate Slaven also says she never picked up on any ‘red flags’ from Kohberger.

She remembers sitting near him in many of their forensic psychology classes and working on a couple of projects with him.

He came across as ‘very educated’, ‘intelligent’ and ‘confident’ about the subject matter, she says – adding that socially he was ‘shy’ and ‘reserved.’

‘He was a little, I don’t want to say weird, but quiet and shy. But when I look back, he didn’t raise any flags,’ she says.

‘When I’m sitting here now, looking back, I can’t be like, ‘oh, he would definitely do something to someone.’ Like, now thinking back, I try to pinpoint those things, but I can’t. He was quiet. He was reserved.’

One of the professors running their course was renowned serial killer expert Dr Katherine Ramsland, who famously co-authored a book with BTK killer Dennis Rader – who murdered at least 10 victims in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, before his capture in 2005.

Bryan Kohberger studied serial killers under Dr Katherine Ramsland at DeSales University

Ferraro recalls one of Ramsland’s classes on psychological sleuthing where students would be given real-life crime scenarios and be tasked with working out what had happened.

‘Was it a burglary? Was it a crime of passion? Was it a sexual assault?… Basically the scenario would leave out certain aspects and we’d have to figure out why or who was there based off whatever information we had,’ he explains.

In one of her other forensic psychology classes, the curriculum included delving into the minds of prolific serial killers and mass murderers including BTK, Ted Bundy and Rodger.

Rodger was 22 when, on May 23, 2014, he began his murderous spree in Isla Vista.

First, he stabbed his two roommates and another man to death at his apartment. Then, he headed for the Alpha Phi house where, after those inside refused to answer the door, he opened fire on students returning, killing two and wounding another.

He then got in his BMW and drove past a deli, shooting at bystanders – killing one.

Rodger continued to shoot indiscriminately before he crashed his car and killed himself.

Investigators later learned that Rodger’s plot was months in the making.

While he had enjoyed a life of privilege as the British-born son of a prominent Hollywood movie executive, he had a sick loathing for women.

Rodger blamed women for his sexual failings and for the fact he was still a virgin – and railed against the women and girls he had known in his life and ‘could never have.’

Before embarking on his self-described ‘day of retribution’, Rodger had emailed his manifesto titled ‘My Twisted World’ to several people including his therapist and his father and he had uploaded a disturbing video to YouTube named ‘Retribution.’

The 22-year-old murderer quickly became a twisted hero in the online world of incels – ‘involuntary celibates’ who blame women for their inability to find a romantic and sexual partner.

Ferraro remembers Ramsland showing the class Rodger’s manifesto and being horrified by it.

‘I remember thinking it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, because I can’t believe people talk like this,’ Ferraro says.

‘He’s jaded, he’s angry with the world, and thinks society owes him these favors and sexual favors, and he’s never been with a woman, so he hates women and wants to kill them all.’

Looking back, Ferraro and Slaven didn’t notice Kohberger showing a particular interest in Rodger – or any of the other killers they studied.

But, Slaven now thinks he might have taken inspiration from Rodger – and possibly Bundy – to commit his own crime.

The crime scene house at DeSales University, Pennsylvania, where Kohberger and other students worked

‘I think he could have been [inspired by them]…’ she says, adding that they learned a lot about ‘how certain killers thought or how they killed.’

‘From what we learned, I could definitely see where it maybe intrigued him, because we learned a lot of gruesome things, and a lot of cases where there was a lot to take in.’

‘So I definitely think it intrigued him and made him think: ‘what if I did this or something of a bad nature?’

According to a recent Dateline show, before the murders, Kohberger made several online searches for Bundy – who was put to death for a string of murders including the killings of female students in a sorority house in Florida.

In the days after the murders, he reportedly watched shows about the serial killer.

After watching one YouTube show named ‘Ted Bundy: Essence of a Psychopath,’ Kohberger then allegedly dressed up to look like Bundy.

But, Kohberger’s potential links to Rodger have been further fueled by an online account named Pappa Rodger which many sleuths have speculated was used by Kohberger to weigh in on his own crimes on social media.

Following the murders, Kristine Cameron founded a Facebook group titled ‘The University of Idaho Murders – Case Discussion’ to discuss the case.

While previous groups she had set up on criminal cases – such as Gabby Petito and Brittanee Drexel – attracted around 6,000 to 10,000 people, the page on the Idaho murders ‘really blew up fast and quickly,’ she tells the Daily Mail. Today, it has more than 200,000 members.

During his studies at DeSales, Kohberger had also posted a research questionnaire on Reddit asking criminals about their crimes

But, there was one member who caused quite a stir.

A social media user named Pappa Rodger was posting comments which many users believed indicated they had non-public knowledge about the murders.

One particular post from November 30, 2022, read: ‘Of the evidence released, the murder weapon has been consistent as a large fixed blade knife. This leads me to believe they found the sheath.’

It was only when Kohberger was arrested – and his affidavit was released in early January 2023 – that it was revealed that a knife sheath had been found next to Mogen’s body. Kohberger’s DNA was found on the clasp.

During his studies at DeSales, Kohberger had also posted a research questionnaire on Reddit asking criminals how they had planned their crimes, executed them and felt while committing them.

The questions included: ‘Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your home?’, ‘How did you travel to and enter the location that the crime occurred?’ and ‘Why did you choose that victim or target over others?’

After Kohberger’s arrest, social media users pointed to similarities between these and many of the questions posed by Pappa Rodger in the group including ‘Why did the killer choose that house over all the others in the area?’ and ‘Did the killer drive, walk, or some combination of both to the scene?’

Many have also pointed to the physical similarities between the cartoon icon used by Pappa Rodger and Kohberger.

Cameron says Pappa Rodger also argued with other commenters and made ‘very creepy’ comments which the admins had to remove.

Things reached a head the night before Kohberger’s arrest on December 30, 2022 when Pappa Rodger got ‘very nasty online,’ she recalls.

One of the moderators removed Pappa Rodger from the group and the account created its own group filled with photos of Mogen, Cameron says.

A social media user named Pappa Rodger was posting comments which many users believed could have been Kohberger

Many have also pointed to the physical similarities between the cartoon icon used by Pappa Rodger and Kohberger

Following Kohberger’s arrest, the Pappa Rodger account never posted again – and all its posts mysteriously disappeared from Facebook group, Cameron says.

Authorities have never confirmed or denied if Kohberger was behind the account.

But Cameron believes it was him.

‘Looking back at the things that he said, how he interacted with members, how he interacted with the admin, how he knew things,’ Cameron says.

‘Hindsight is 2020. When you’re going through it, you just think ‘this guy is creepy, he says things that make your skin crawl.’ But you just think he’s just another guy behind a screen saying crazy things.

‘But for me, after it all comes out, and I’m looking at Elliot Roger, I think the parallels are just too much. And I really think that he chose the name Pappa Roger for a specific reason. I think that he wanted to be perceived and seen as the father of Elliot Rodger. I think he wanted to do it better than Elliot Rodger did.’

Based on what they learned in classes together, Ferraro says he also thinks it’s possible Kohberger could be Pappa Rodger.

‘You learn in these courses that after someone commits the crime, they often go back to the scene,’ he explains.

‘And in the digital age, a way to go back to that scene, is to go incognito with an alias or a pseudonym online and get into these groups and talk about it. It’s a way of reliving the fantasy and reliving the hype.

‘We went over that in detail in class.’

To Ferraro, Kohberger ‘fits the bill for an incel’ like Rodger – who wanted to take his revenge on women after feeling rejected for years.

‘They’re jaded and frustrated and then it turns over into boiling anger,’ he says.

‘It’s like a pedophile who views child pornography to kind of scratch the itch… You can only be in the community for so long without being truly on the inside and committing those acts of hate, without saying, ‘I’m just going to do it. I’m going to go and commit that crime.’

At some point, Bryan Kohberger decided to stop studying and become the next criminal case 

The home at 1122 King Road where Bryan Kohberger broke in and murdered his victims 

At some point during his studies, Kohberger decided that reading and learning about crime wasn’t enough.

Instead, he chose to become the next case that will undoubtedly be studied for years to come.

Slaven hopes Kohberger didn’t intentionally pursue education about the criminal mind for the purpose of plotting his own murders.

‘I hope that was not his intention, but he definitely took some of the information we learned and ran with it,’ she says.

‘I don’t want to say that was his intention to go into these classes and learn how to harm someone or people like he did.

‘But he definitely came into the field with some type of interest and he just took it completely the wrong way and twisted it.’