Chilling truth about Bryan Kohberger's 'lovesick' women: Leaked messages about victims' families, sick 'evidence' claims... and what their HUSBANDS really think

When convicted murderer Bryan Kohberger filed a petition to overturn his guilty plea in late July, it was a shocking development in a case many thought settled for good.

The 31-year-old pleaded guilty last year to the bloody and brutal slaughter of four University of Idaho students.

Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, both 20, were stabbed to death in their shared student home in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022.

Kohberger was sentenced to four life terms without hope of parole and ten years for a burglary charge. The absence of a trial frustrated many who hoped for his account of his crimes or his motive but the horror, at least, seemed laid to rest.

Kohberger's new claim of innocence is outrageous to most. But, to some, it's a chance for what they view as justice to be served.

Phoenix, a 56-year-old true crime content creator, is one such person. She has covered the Idaho student murders extensively on social media, and to her mind Kohberger's petition for a retrial had been a long time coming.

'It wasn't a surprise to many of us,' she told the Daily Mail. 'I don't think any of us [in the true crime community] were really shocked. We were waiting for it.'

Waiting, because she and thousands like her have been championing the killer who has generated a huge and predominantly female fan base seen on social media, in Facebook groups viewed by the Daily Mail and in the mail-bags full of letters sent to the Idaho prison in which he is incarcerated.

Phoenix, a pseudonym that she's adopted for her online presence, has been following the Idaho college students murder case since it began but says that she didn't fully believe that Kohberger was innocent, until the documents related to the case were unsealed and she could review them herself.

'I've been following it since day one,' she said. 'I watched all the court hearings, I've read all the court filings, all the expert affidavits, DNA-related evidence, timelines, all the crime scene photos, even the ones they redacted – and I realized, this dude is probably innocent.'

Since Phoenix came to that conclusion over a year ago, she's devoted hundreds of her videos across YouTube and TikTok, where she has a collective following of nearly 50,000, to making the case for Kohberger's innocence.

She's even created a website called JusticeFourAll.com, where she hosts a database for all the court documents, photos and transcripts related to the Idaho college student murders case.

Thousands of pages of evidence that, according to investigators, are proof of Kohberger's guilt are, to Phoenix, proof of just the opposite. And it's a gospel she preaches so that her followers can 'come to the realization that he could probably be innocent,' as well.

Phoenix said: 'In cases like this, in my opinion, they don't go the next step – they just don't. I think the investigation can be tunnel visioned…sometimes they can get the wrong person.

'Something for me just didn't feel right. Nothing was adding up. The body cams that were released, the witness statements, the timeline, the DNA evidence, the experts' affidavits. Something just really didn't seem right.'

One Kentucky woman, Brittney Hislope, has gone so far as to post multiple declarations of love to Kohberger on Facebook, where she claimed that he was 'the perfect man for her' and that she was 'lovesick' over him.

On Facebook, there are dozens of groups formed in defense of Kohberger and his claims of innocence, with names like 'Justice for Bryan Kohberger (the innocence discussion)' and 'Bryan Kohberger Innocent Until Proven Guilty.'

The group, 'Bryan Kohberger was the only suspect from the start, Why?' has more than six thousand members, while another 'Bryan Kohberger is Innocent' counts nearly a thousand and was founded by two women.

While the groups are not exclusively for women, there's no denying that many of the members and especially those speaking up in defense of Kohberger are female.

Similarly, the majority of the group organizers are female – of those viewed by the Daily Mail the predominant demographic of founders was middle-aged, married women, often with family.

In one lengthy post a member of the group reveals her own marital status, writing: 'Sorry for the rant but my hubbys sick of hearing about it.' 

It's a difficult circle to square given the level of Kohberger's violence against women. What's more, numerous reports emerged in the wake of his arrest detailing his fraught relationship with the opposite sex, including troubling behavior towards female students whom he taught as a teaching assistant and grad student at Washington State University in Pullman.

But, as perplexing as it is, the behavior is so common that it has been studied by experts who have named this passionate response hybristophilia. The term comes from the Ancient Greek word 'hubrizein,' meaning to commit a crime or act of violence and 'phillia' – a strong liking, or love.

Also known as Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome, it is a condition in which someone has interest in and/or attraction to a person who commits or is accused of committing violent crimes.

Hybristophilia is not exclusively displayed by women, but in the wealth of coverage of the phenomenon they far outnumber men. Perhaps, in part, because most violent crimes are committed by men.

Ted Bundy, Charles Manson and the Menendez Brothers, all guilty of horrific crimes, garnered hundreds of female fans and admirers.

Bundy and both Menendez Brothers married women with whom they began relationships during their incarceration. The Daily Mail has just revealed that family annihilator, Chris Watts, has a new 'wife' - a woman so besotted with her prison lover that she moved states to be near the maximum security facility in Colorado in which he will remain for the rest of his life.

Luigi Mangione, who stands accused of murdering healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 2024, has garnered a bevy of female supporters who have written hundreds of letters to him and kept his commissary amply funded since he was arrested two years ago.

And while Kohberger's plea of innocence has been slammed as tantamount to torture for the families of his victims, to his legion of fans, it is a tantalizing chance for the self-confessed killer to have his day in court.

Seemingly compelled by his proximity to violence, yet self-justifying in their insistence he is innocent, many have taken to referring to his conviction in the language of conspiracy theorists; turning the killer into the victim.

'The thing I can't understand is how so many people still blindly believe the mainstream media's narrative on this case,' one woman wrote passionately in a post in 'Bryan Kohberger is Innocent.'

'I keep telling them, if you still believe he is guilty, then you aren't paying attention…It reminds me of the witch trials, where so many people condemned innocent people all because they looked or acted different or because they were brainwashed into believing they were evil.'

In response to this post, another woman agreed vehemently in the comments: 'There's always going ignorance in people because they want to believe he's guilty,' she wrote. 'It's easier than admitting that there are the real perpetrators out there and at large.'

At its most extreme, criminologist David Wilson explained hybristophilia can be aggressive, where a person 'wants to work with a violent person in the commission of their violence.' In other instances, it is passive, where a person, 'forms an idealized or romantic attachment' to a criminal or murderer.

For Wilson, this kind of attraction or interest in criminals may appeal to women because of the sense of control they may have or because of past fears and trauma.

Wilson said: 'One instrumental reason is, you know where the person is - they are in jail. You can choose when to write to the person, send gifts to the person. Ultimately you are in control, control is therefore a key element.

'Often hybristophiliac women or men have had a lot of childhood trauma, often sexual or physical abuse, in other words they had very little control over their childhood. Therefore, marrying someone behind bars is a way for them to vicariously gain that control they crave. Their love object is controlled by the penal system.

'Another instrumental reason is if you form a relationship with a convicted murderer or notorious serial killer person you gain attention. You are interviewed, you may write a book, so there is a way to gain status which is perhaps something you were denied in your childhood.'

Phoenix insists that her defense of Kohberger is not motivated by romantic feelings or a need for fame. She just wants him to have what she sees as the chance for a fair trial.

'We were talking about a death penalty case,' she said. 'And we've seen this over and over where innocent people pigeonhole the plea deal.'

What many might view as a blind and inexplicable allegiance to a man convicted of four heinous murders, is, to Phoenix, a lofty pursuit of truth and justice.

'The public deserves a trial,' she said. 'We deserve to get to hear the evidence because we have unresolved answers.'

It doesn't seem to occur to Phoenix, nor to the thousands of women who write to and post about Kohberger, that the families of his victims may want, and indeed deserve, peace.