When the Night Comes Falling

An (unidentified) inner monologue ponders, hypothetically, the chances of killing four people with a knife and getting away with it, concluding, “But you did it! The perfect crime” (3).

Early in the morning on December 15, 2022, 67-year-old Michael Kohberger sits restlessly in the passenger seat of a Hyundai Elantra as his son Bryan Kohberger drives them from Washington State University to Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, where Michael lives. Bryan, a 28-year-old doctoral student, has just finished his first semester in WSU’s prestigious criminal justice program: a source of pride and relief to his father, a high school janitor who never went to college. Michael, who grew up in a poor Brooklyn neighborhood, has already begun to refer to his son as “Dr. Bryan Christopher Kohberger,” hoping passionately that Bryan’s “complicated” behavioral problems are finally behind him. However, he has shared with his two grown daughters his worries about Bryan’s mental and emotional health. This is why he flew to Washington to accompany his son home: to use the four-day drive to bond with Bryan and try to gauge his state of mind. A new source of worry for him is the strange, meandering route Bryan has chosen, which veers south into Colorado and will add at least a day to the trip—more, if it snows.