TikTok Gumshoes Are Doing Phrenology on Idaho Murder Suspect Bryan Kohberger
It's all in the eyes, and the nose bridge, and the nasiolabial folds
Bryan Kohberger, the 28-year-old criminology Ph.D student who was arrested last month for the grisly murder of four University of Idaho roommates, is currently the subject of some of TikTok’s most fascinating eBoy discourse. Not since the White Lotus ended have the girlies been doing this much critical analysis. Here at Gawker we have our best guys constantly trawling the app as homework for our own in-bed criminology degrees, and what we’ve noticed is that when it comes to solving and meting out justice in a quadruple stabbing, phrenology is the way to go.
For the uninformed, phrenology is the debunked and incredibly racist theory that one’s facial features and head shape can determine intelligence, personality, temperament, and human development. Perhaps without this important context — and without much more information other than Kohberger’s Reddit activity and the knowledge that he is vegan — the front-facing gumshoes are zeroing straight in on his problematic noggin.
What have they found?
One user notes Kohberger has “sanpaku eyes,” or eyes where the white space below his iris is visible as a “stress response.”
Another says that he has a “knotted nose bridge” which “indicates a stubborn personality.” In a comment on this TikTok, a user asks what his “uneven eyes” mean. The original poster writes, “It represents the difference in how your public life vs. your personal life.”
Another user is just asking questions about why his nose looks like that. Was he punched by one of his victims? Why is nobody talking like this? A user noted in the comments, “Anyone else thinks he looks a bit like Jonah Hill when he got skinny? 😳” Clues are everywhere…
I don’t entirely understand what this TikTok zooming in on grainy close-ups of the alleged murderer means, but it’s gotta be something.
Also, he looks “just like” Ted Bundy, the serial killer executed by the state of Florida in 1989.
Watch it, flatfoots. You’re on the slipperiest of slopes here.
