Latest news with #VickyWard
Daily Mail
18-07-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE How Bryan Kohberger's chance encounter with a pretty young waitress in a Greek vegan restaurant set the stage for the murder of four Idaho students: JAMES PATTERSON reveals killer's sinister motivation
In court in America, Bryan Kohberger, 30, has pleaded guilty to the murder of students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Maddie Mogen, and Kaylee Goncalves, who have become known as the Four. This follows a plea deal to save him from the death penalty. Here, thriller writer James Patterson and investigative journalist Vicky Ward delve into the crime that shocked America and the mind of the weird individual who carried it out.
Fox News
16-07-2025
- Fox News
Kohberger practiced home invasions and burglary techniques years before murdering Idaho students: new book
Idaho student killer Bryan Kohberger got his first hands-on experience as a burglar while pilfering homes to fund a teenage heroin addiction, according to a new book. "He was a heroin addict as a young guy [in Pennsylvania], and he was breaking and entering into houses," crime novelist James Patterson told Lawrence Jones on "FOX & Friends" Wednesday morning. "He'd been doing it for years, and that's exactly what happened in Moscow. He broke into this house and killed these four beautiful students." Patterson teamed up with investigative journalist Vicky Ward on "The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy," which dropped earlier this week. While Kohberger has no publicly visible criminal record in his home state, he was forced out of a security job for reasons that have not been made public and reportedly has an expunged 2014 conviction for the theft and sale of his sister's iPhone after a stint in rehab to pay for his heroin addiction when he was 19. In 2023, police confirmed to Fox News Digital the case had been expunged and said they had no record of it to share. Kohberger's dad, Michael Kohberger, told police that his son had just gotten out of rehab, swiped the phone and paid a pal $20 to drive him to the mall, where he allegedly sold it for $200, ABC News reported previously. The killer, now 30, was going to face a capital murder trial next month until he unexpectedly changed his plea on July 1, when he admitted to four counts of first-degree murder and one of felony burglary. He acknowledged that he pre-planned the slayings and that when he entered the off-campus rental home at 1122 King Road, he intended to kill. The authors found victims from Kohberger's past in Pennsylvania, where he spent most of his life, who shed new light on his capacity for manipulation and plotting. "I felt chills when Connie Saba told me the story of how a teenage Kohberger had manipulated her into inadvertently telling him when she'd be out of the house to visit her son, Jeremy in jail, because he planned to break into her house and steal an iPad and other things from her," Ward told Fox News Digital. It was a striking betrayal, she said, because Kohberger had next to no friends and Jeremy Saba might have been the only one. "Connie Saba had been nothing but welcoming and kind to him, so it was a devastating breach of trust – and when Connie Saba imitated Kohberger coming back a year or so later to apologize to her for the break-in (as part of his rehab process), she showed me the creepy way he just 'appeared' in her kitchen like a ghost, frightening her," she said. "One could imagine him just 'appearing' at 1122 King Road on the night of the murders." Kohberger cased out the rental home around a dozen times before the murders, according to court documents. Before school officials had it razed last year, it was situated on a slope in front of a parking lot, giving Kohberger a potential vantage point overlooking multiple windows, including those of 21-year-old victim Madison Mogen's bedroom. "Mark Baylis, a former Navy SEAL, believes Kohberger successfully stalked him and his property for hours, days possibly, to steal valuables from him," Ward added. "It showed the cold-blooded, calculated side of Kohberger – a side that I think we all saw in court in early July when he pled guilty – with zero emotion." Kohberger stood up in court, with his back straight, admitting to the murders without a glance at his parents or those of the victims, most of whom were in the room. In the gallery near the defense table, his father wiped away tears and asked a bailiff for water. At one point, even Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson choked down a tear as he wrapped up a summary of the prosecution's case. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES AT THE FOX NEWS TRUE CRIME HUB Throughout the proceeding, Kohberger fixed his eyes on lawyers in the room, the judge, and occasionally leaned over into the ear of his lead defense attorney, Anne Taylor. The 30-year-old was a criminology student at Washington State University, a 10-mile drive from the crime scene. He'd barely been there for one semester but was already worried about losing his scholarship, Patterson revealed. Kohberger had no meaningful connection to the victims, 21-year-olds Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. But Patterson believes Mogen was the primary target when he snuck into the off-campus home at 1122 King Road on Nov. 13, 2022. She and Kernodle both worked at the now-shuttered Mad Greek restaurant, which had vegan menu options that the author believes appealed to Kohberger's meat-free diet. "He obviously had a big problem with women," Patterson said, based on roughly 300 interviews he conducted and public documents. "We believe he was targeting Maddie and things had happened... He was going to lose his scholarship." Kohberger was pursuing a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University – where he reportedly butted heads with other students. After his arrest, the school said it had cut ties. Kohberger's defense did not respond to a request for comment.
Fox News
12-07-2025
- Fox News
Bryan Kohberger believed he committed ‘the perfect murders' until one key mistake shattered his plot: author
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." 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." 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. 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. "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." 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." "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." 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." 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." 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. 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. "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]." "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." GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB 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." 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. 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. "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." 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. "… 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." "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."
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- Yahoo
'So Freaked Out': Inside Texts Sent by Friends of Idaho Victims as Horror of Murders Dawned on Them
One Night in Idaho: The College Murders, a new Prime Video docuseries premiering July 11, and a book debuting on July 14, The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy, by James Patterson and Vicky Ward, shed new light on the shocking 2022 Idaho murders In a surprise move, on Monday, June 30, Bryan Kohberger, 30, asked to plead guilty to the murders to avoid the death penalty University of Idaho student Hunter Johnson, who found the bodies of Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, and girlfriend, Emily Alandt, are speaking out for the first time since the shocking 2022 murders in this week's issue of PEOPLEAfter a carefree Saturday night out in the lively college town of Moscow, Idaho, the residents of 1122 King Road returned to their off-campus rental home to debrief on the night. University of Idaho seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Maddie Mogen, both 21, spent most of the night of Nov. 12, 2022, at The Corner Club, a popular hangout downtown, stopping afterward at a food truck before getting a ride home from a designated driver. Juniors Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, both 20, hung out at his fraternity, Sigma Chi, with his triplet brother, Hunter Chapin, until about 2:15 a.m., when they walked across the street and back to Xana's house. Housemate Dylan Mortensen could hear her friends talking through the walls of her room, which was next to the living room, according to a new book debuting July 14, The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy, by James Patterson and Vicky Ward. Shortly after, everyone headed to their rooms when Dylan thought she heard someone say in a terror-tinged voice, 'There's someone here.' Those three chilling words marked the start of a nightmare — the brutal stabbing of Kaylee, Maddie, Xana and Ethan in one of the most heinous crimes ever on a college campus. Related: Best Friends of University of Idaho Murder Victims Speak Out: What We Saw (Exclusive) New details about what happened inside that house are revealed in the explosive book, as well as in a new Prime Video docuseries premiering July 11, One Night in Idaho: The College Murders, and in PEOPLE's exclusive cover story this week. Based on hundreds of interviews, the book goes in-depth into the lives of the promising young victims and what happened inside that house when an assailant crept in and left the mark of evil behind. When Bethany heard someone say someone was in the house, she peeked out of her room, didn't see anything and went back to later, when she thought she heard someone crying, she cracked open the door and heard a man say, 'It's okay. I'm going to help you,' followed by a thud and then barking from Kaylee's dog, Murphy. When Dylan opened the door again, she thought she saw a man in the hallway dressed in black and wearing a mask. She thought he was a firefighter because of the way he was dressed and because it looked like he was holding a firefighting tool in his hand. Related: Frantic Texts Went Unanswered — Then Friends of the Idaho Murder Victims Found the Unthinkable: Inside a Night of Horror At one point, he looked her straight in the eyes – but kept walking. Panicked, she called Bethany Funke, the housemate whose room was on the ground floor, telling her what she saw, before trying the three other housemates, who didn't answer any of her calls or texts. Bethany tried to make sense of the situation, texting Dylan that the figure she saw could have been Xana, who was wearing all black. 'No it's like a ski mask almost,' Dylan clarified. 'Like he had soemtbing (sic) over is for head (sic) and little nd (sic) mouth.' 'Bethant (sic) I'm not kidding o (sic) am so freaked out,' she wrote, with Bethany replying, 'So am I.'At Bethany's urging, Dylan ran down to her room, where the two huddled together in fear, not knowing what was going on in their house. In Dec. 2022, Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection with the quadruple homicides. With a not guilty plea entered on his behalf, his trial was set to begin in August. In a surprise move, on Monday, June 30, the former graduate student, 30, asked to plead guilty to the murders to avoid the death penalty, according to a letter prosecutors sent to victims' family members, The New York Times reports. Related: Bryan Kohberger to Plead Guilty to Murders of 4 Idaho College Students, Sparing Him Death Penalty Under the proposed plea deal, if approved by the judge, he would be sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison. The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy by James Patterson and Vicky Ward is on shelves July 14 and available now for preorder, wherever books are sold. Read the original article on People
Agriland
10-05-2025
- Health
- Agriland
Watch: Healthcare staff problems ‘confounded' in rural areas
Fianna Fáil's health spokesperson, Martin Daly has said the issue of recruiting and maintaining healthcare staff is 'confounded' in rural areas. Speaking at the Irish Rural Link healthcare conference in Athlone yesterday (May 9), the TD and GP told Agriland that access to services is also a problem in rural healthcare. He said: 'Access if the biggest issue for rural healthcare. What we mean by that, is having an adequate number of healthcare professionals in rural communities, whether it's GPs, nurses, or most importantly, carers. 'One of the big issues that we don't often think about when we think of health, is rural links. So transport, many older people can't drive and they need to be able to get to the local hospital.' 'It's all about delivering the most appropriate care, in the most appropriate style, and it should be close to peoples home,' the Roscommon – Galway TD explained. Fianna Fáil health spokesperson, Martin Daly speaks about rural healthcare Family Carers Ireland's Vicky Ward told the conference that often carers in rural Ireland put 'their own health on the back burner' in order to help the person they are caring for. She said: 'In a lot of cases people can't access that care locally. We find, that every single issue that is out there for the general population is compounded for a family carer. 'Because, to be able to address their own ill health, they have to find somebody to care for their loved one, so that they can even go to a doctor's appointment,' she added. Rural healthcare services The keynote speaker at the conference Professor Robert Scully also highlighted that there is a need to increase the number of general practitioners (GPs) in rural areas, and outlined solutions to the problem. The first area Prof. Scully highlighted for change, was to increase 'targeted recruitment' of GPs in rural areas. In order to do this, he believes that students need to be exposed to appropriate role models, and for their to be a retention strategy to keep GPs in rural areas. The professor also believes that doctors need to be trained 'differently' to work in rural areas versus an urban location and medical students need to be educated about rural issues, such as farming accidents.
