The injuries Bryan Kohberger inflicted on his female victims were far different from those on his male victim, a forensic pathologist tells PEOPLE. According to details from autopsy reports contained in an unsealed court motion obtained by PEOPLE, Kaylee Goncalves was stabbed 38 times while Madison Mogen was stabbed at least 28 times. Xana Kernodle was stabbed 67 times — and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was stabbed 13 times. All four were students at the University of Idaho when Kohberger murdered them at their off-campus home in Moscow on Nov. 13, 2022. “The three young women show a pattern of overkill by the perpetrator,” former Chief Medical Examiner of Onondaga County Mary Jumbelic, M.D., tells PEOPLE. Jumbelic explains that overkill “is when the infliction of injuries exceeds the force necessary to cause death,” and can indicate an “intense emotional rage.” In most cases, she says, the victims’ wounds “are usually concentrated on the head, neck, and chest,” noting that this was the case for these victims. “Behavioral profilers say that this type of injury indicates a strong motive and a need to dominate,” she adds. Madison Mogen.Maddie Mogen/instagram Jumbelic also notes that all three women “showed signs of defensive injuries on their hands and upper limbs,” often caused when the “victim tries to interpose their arms to ward off the knife.” Kernodle, in particular, “had a large number of defensive wounds indicating a significant struggle,” the forensic pathologist says. Mogen, meanwhile, had injuries indicating a “knife had been held at her nose and mouth.” Then there is Goncalves, who had a broken nose and was struck in the head in addition to being stabbed that night, per the autopsy reports. “Injuries on her face indicated she had also been asphyxiated,” Jumbelic says, suggesting she may have been “smothered.” Jumbelic points out that unlike the other two women, Goncalves “has three types of force causing her death.” She and Kernodle also had “punctures into their skull bone itself,” Jumbelic says, an indication that the “tip of the knife was poked with force into the head.” Kaylee Goncalves.Kaylee Goncalves/instagram Kohberger’s motive is still unknown, and he remains reluctant to speak publicly about the crime. Documents from the investigation into Kohberger do show that the then-criminology student had been cited for interactions he had with women in the weeks leading up to the murders. Autopsy Reports Reveal Horrific New Details About the Final Moments of 4 University of Idaho Stabbing Victims Bryan Kohberger Used 2nd Weapon While Stabbing Kaylee Goncalves Over 24 Times: Court Filing He was just days into his first semester of his doctoral program at Washington State University when administrators received their first formal complaint about his behavior. There would be 12 more over the next three months, bringing the total to 13, according to court documents and interviews with members of the WSU community obtained by PEOPLE. The documents also contain multiple interviews with some of the women who made these complaints, including a divorced woman who claimed the murderer told her he didn’t date “broken women,” and a deaf classmate who was asked by Kohberger if “she would be comfortable procreating given the fact she had a disability.” As one classmate rather bluntly told Idaho State Police, Kohberger already had a reputation of “being a d—” less than a month into the program. Xana Kernodle. Xana Kernodle/Instagram Kohberger was a weekly topic of discussion during different disciplinary meetings, one staff member told Det. Gary Tolleson of the Idaho State Police. The staff member said that discussions would often pertain to Kohberger’s “interactions with fellow postgraduate students, in and out of the classroom, along with his behavior around some of the Criminal Justice Professors.” At first, the staff member believed that Kohberger might be socially awkward, but over time she began to realize it was his “stating of outspoken discriminatory comments which were homophobic, ableist, xenophobic and misogynistic in nature,” that she believed ostracized him from his peers. “He would also stare at people and stand uncomfortably close or ‘lean’ over women, making them very uncomfortable,” the staff member said. Things got so bad that multiple first-year doctoral students in the criminology program claimed to the ISP that they were all required to take discrimination training because of the things Kohberger had said to students and professors. The training took place on Nov. 8, 2022. That weekend, Kohberger murdered four University of Idaho students.
