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© Newsweek Photo Illustration
University of Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger (left) and serial killer Ted Bundy (right) pictured side-by-side in their respective mugshots.
The suspect in the slayings of four University of Idaho college students is drawing comparisons to serial killer Ted Bundy after mugshots began making their way across the internet Friday.
The suspect arrested in Pennsylvania on Friday—Bryan Kohberger—was a Ph.D. student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, nearly 300 miles from Bundy’s alma mater. Bundy received his undergraduate degree from the University of Washington, majoring in psychology, before moving on to law school at the University of Utah.
Bundy stalked and killed college students. Kohberger, 28, is accused of doing the same.
Both also had chilling similarities in their interests that hinted at crimes: A Reddit post seemingly belonging to Kohberger unearthed shortly after his arrest appeared to show him asking questions about how crimes are committed, how victims were targeted, and how someone would leave a crime scene. Bundy, who was roughly the same age as Kohberger at the time of his first murders, spent time as assistant director of the Seattle Crime Prevention Advisory Commission in Olympia, Washington, where he wrote a pamphlet for women on rape prevention.
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The most chilling comparison, however, is their likenesses: In side-by-side comparisons of their mugshots posted on social media, both men have similar hairstyles and eyebrows, the same thin lips, gaunt cheekbones and matching ears, startling some Twitter users.
“I’m creeped out by similarities w/Ted Bundy. Both studied psychology/criminology at UW. … I was a Chi Omega Sorority member in the 90s and we never forgot what Ted did,” tweeted @Meidas_ZobethC.
Though little is known about the motivations driving the Idaho killings, the nature of the crimes drew comparisons to Bundy well before Friday’s photo release. In early December, John Henry Browne—Bundy’s onetime attorney—told news outlets he believed there were numerous similarities between the Idaho killings and those committed by his client, who left behind only paltry evidence at the start of his killing spree that left some three dozen dead.
“Just the randomness of it is actually something that does stand out,” he told Fox News Digital in an interview this month. “Of course, most of Ted’s misbehavior was random. There were times when Ted would follow people and then decide not to kill them. And that was his way of exercising his grandiosity, you know, ‘I can control life here and there.'”
Kohberger is being held for extradition in Monroe County Court in Pennsylvania for first-degree murder by the Moscow Police Department as well as the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office in Idaho.
Victims of the November 13 killings were Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, and classmates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, 21-year-olds, all killed early in the morning in their off-campus home in Moscow.
Kohberger is expected in court next week.
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