Thinking about violence as coming “out of nowhere” weirdly makes us feel better. It suggests that violence happens at any time—someone snaps, a switch flips, and then bad things happen as the result. It allows institutions, communities, and systems to believe there was nothing to see until it was too late. But that explanation doesn’t hold up. In this article, retired deputy Joy Farrow explains why people misread the Kohberger case and believed the myth of the sudden killer.
The murders committed by Bryan Kohberger did not emerge out of nowhere. And contrary to popular opinion, they weren’t impulsive, nor were they were not chaotic. And they were not the result of a single breaking point.
Because like other organized killers…he followed a pattern.
This article is not a true-crime recap. Instead, we’re explaining why the “sudden killer” narrative persists—and how cases like this can expose warning signs that are often minimized or ignored. As our co-founder Joy, a retired deputy sheriff with 30 years of law enforcement experience, recently wrote in her Conference on Crimes Against Women article: What Everyone Missed About Bryan Kohberger, these patterns (as demonstrated in cases like Kohberger’s) are recognizable from a law enforcement perspective—if we’re willing to see them.
The idea of the ‘sudden killer’ makes us feel better in a weird way—but it doesn’t hold up.
– Street Smart Safety
The Myth of Escalation
From a law-enforcement perspective, what immediately stood out about this case was not disorder, but control.
Kohberger didn’t act spontaneously. He surveilled the house repeatedly—at least 23 documented times. He acquired a military-grade knife, wore a mask and disabled his phone. And he entered a multi-level home with multiple occupants and exits.
This is not how violence typically begins.
Historically, early offenders are clumsy. They seek isolation, avoid complexity and they make mistakes. And often, they panic.
But Kohberger did none of that. This wasn’t escalation. It was rehearsal. Because predators don’t “snap.” They practice.
Predators don’t snap. They practice.
– Street Smart Safety
Why Kohberger Picked That House
Selection of the house wasn’t random. It wasn’t what you would think of as a potential crime scene. Instead, tt was known as a party place. So it wasn’t isolated, or out of the way. Instead, it was a place where young women felt comfortable in their lives, friendships…and bedrooms.
And that context matters – because this wasn’t simply about killing individuals. It was about violating a space defined by trust and safety. About proving that safety itself was an illusion. About dominance, control, and symbolic destruction.
Predators don’t just target people. They target meaning.
Control After the Crime
After the murders, Kohberger didn’t unravel. No, he returned to his regularly scheduled life. He went back to campus, graded papers, taught classes. He completed the semester, even contacted his father multiple times within hours of the killings—one call reportedly lasting nearly an hour.
So, it’s important to keep in mind that this wasn’t emotional collapse. It was narrative control. And predators who believe they are smarter than the system don’t panic. They maintain the performance.
Like many offenders, Kohberger blended in through achievement. A criminology graduate student. A teaching assistant. A “turned-his-life-around” story that played well socially. We confuse progress with safety far too often. Kohberger had a redemption story: a recovering drug addict who was getting his life together. So people only see the redemption narrative and get it confused with real recovery.
And a lot of predators rely on that confusion.
Institutions Document Instead of Actually DOING Something
Between August and November 2022, women at the university reported feeling deeply uncomfortable around Kohberger. They described behaviors that should have raised concern: condescension toward female students, inappropriate interactions, following women to their cars, uneven grading, and an overall sense of unease.
The response was procedural. They held meetings and took notes. The bureaucracy certainly made sure that to issue a performance improvement plan – on November 2. A follow-up meeting occurred on November 12.
Within 24 hours of that follow up, in the early hours of November 13, four people (including one man) were murdered. This sequence is not isolate.
Institutions don’t fail because they lack information. They fail because they minimize what that information actually means. In corporate-speak:
Uncomfortably becomes “interpersonal conflicts.”
Patterns become “personality conflicts.”
And warnings are paperwork to be filed.
Violence Starts with Thinking
Violence does not begin with violence. The starts as entitlement. And in cases like this, certain pre-incident patterns appear again and again:
- Contempt for women
- Obsession with control
- Lack of empathy
- Intellectual superiority used as camouflage
- Emotional detachment paired with grievance
These traits don’t require hindsight to identify, because they are often visible long before violence occurs. But they are waved away.
He’s stressed. Or awkward. He’s “brilliant, but difficult.”
And so the myth of the sudden killer survives.
Why the Myth of the Sudden Killer is so Dangerous
The danger isn’t that someone like Kohberger exists. It’s that we continue to treat predatory thinking as invisible until it results in physical violence.
We want violence to look chaotic.
Warning signs are not always obvious.
And we think that monsters look like monsters (Pro tip: They don’t).
But many predators look competent. Polished. Promising. (For more information, read our article – Dangerous Narrative: Perfect Perpetrator.)
So when systems reward appearance over behavior—and when resumes outweigh risk—violence doesn’t arrive unexpectedly. It arrives right on schedule.
People shouldn’t have to die before we believe warning, recognize patterns or take action.
Because predators don’t care what we believe. In fact, they count on it.
People shouldn’t have to die before warning signs are believed
– Street Smart Safety