Kohberger’s Creepy Christmas Night Obsession with Danny Rolling EXPOSED
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2025
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Christmas night 2022, while families gathered around trees, Bryan Kohberger was at his computer. Instead of holiday cheer, investigators later discovered he was downloading files about Danny Rolling — the Gainesville Ripper, who in 1990 murdered five college students with a Ka-Bar knife after breaking into their apartments. Kohberger didn’t just glance at the story. He saved it. Twice.
Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer walks us through the significance of that moment. Kohberger had already been caught obsessively looking up serial killers, but the overlap with Rolling is striking. Both targeted college students. Both used the same style of knife. Both entered through sliding doors. Investigators even described Kohberger’s crime as “almost copycat.”
But that night wasn’t just about Rolling. Kohberger also searched for violent pornography, with terms like “sleeping” and “voyeur,” fantasies that echoed Rolling’s own fixation on unconscious victims. Was Kohberger simply curious? Or was he building a playbook?
We also explore the theories about crime scene staging. Rolling staged his victims. Did Kohberger intend to do the same before the scene spiraled out of control? Did the sheer chaos of four victims derail a plan he thought he could manage?
This segment pulls apart what those Christmas downloads really mean: not just obsession, but alignment. Kohberger wasn’t just reading Rolling. He was comparing himself to him.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A Better Help ad. |
| 0:02.3 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with Better Help to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:07.6 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:13.0 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:17.4 | But I do it because I realise how important it is for me to continue to feel |
| 0:21.3 | good. Because I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:25.6 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 0:29.5 | A better help ad. |
| 0:31.5 | Lewis Capaldi partnered with BetterHelp to get word out about how important therapy can be. |
| 0:36.8 | I struggle most weeks to get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. |
| 0:42.2 | Even like to open the laptop to talk to, my therapist sometimes could be really difficult. |
| 0:46.6 | But I do it because I realise how important it is for me to continue to feel good. |
| 0:51.0 | I felt the best I've felt in a long time through therapy. |
| 0:54.8 | Learn more about online therapy at betterhelp.com. |
| 0:58.5 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Brewski. |
| 1:01.7 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 1:05.1 | Christmas morning, 2022. |
| 1:08.4 | How are you doing that day? |
| 1:09.5 | Can you think back to 2022 all those years ago? Families, |
| 1:15.2 | unwrapping presents, sitting around trees. Brian Coburger was alone, downloading case files. |
| 1:22.3 | Not on his own case, at least not yet. He was downloading the story of a man named Danny Rawling, |
| 1:29.3 | otherwise known as the Gainesville Ripper, |
... |
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