The brutal killings of four University of Idaho students have captured the attention of the nation as suspect Bryan Kohberger awaits his trial.
But two survivors of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy warn his murders bear an eerie resemblance to the FSU sorority house killings.
“There have been a lot of mass murderers, but [Kohberger] seemed to almost pick a murder that mirrored one of Bundy’s murders. Is that a coincidence? I don’t know,” survivor Karen Pryor said on Fox Nation’s “Parallels of Evil: The Bundy and Idaho Killings.”
Bryan Kohberger, the criminology Ph.D. student accused of the home invasion murders of four University of Idaho undergrads, was indicted by a grand jury in Latah County, Idaho earlier this month according to authorities.
He is accused of sneaking into a college town rental home around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, and killing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin inside.
When news broke about the murders, Bundy survivor Cheryl Thomas said reports brought her back to the events of January 15, 1978.
“I could relate,” Thomas told Fox Nation’s Nancy Grace.
Pryor added it “bring[s] back that memory” when she managed to just barely survive Bundy’s rampage at a sorority house.
Early in the morning on January 15, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega Sorority house at Florida State University where he unleashed hell on sleeping sorority sisters. He attacked and bludgeoned four girls at the house, leaving Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy dead. Pryor was one of the sorority house survivors.
While police rushed to the Chi Omega house, Bundy fled the scene and ended up breaking into a nearby duplex where he attacked Thomas in her own bed.
“My neighbors heard when I was being attacked. They heard moaning, so they called and they could hear through the wall, my phone ringing. I didn’t answer,” she said during the Fox Nation special. “Then they called again and they heard running. So at that point, Ted Bundy was running out and getting out through the kitchen window. And they called 9-1-1 because it was just too weird of a sound of going next door.”
When asked how Kohberger’s alleged killings mirrored Bundy’s, Pryor said “he broke into [the house] as Bundy broke into the sorority house, and went kind of systematically from person to person to kill them.”
The 28-year-old Washington State University Ph.D. student was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and another of felony burglary after allegedly sneaking into a six-bedroom house near the University of Idaho, about 10 miles away from his Washington apartment, where he killed the four students.
For over a month, police and law enforcement officials were relatively silent on their search for a suspect until Kohberger was arrested on December 30, 2022.
Similarly, Bundy broke into the sorority house and duplex, attacking his victims and escaping without a trace for weeks.
Private investigator Bill Warner told “Parallels of Evil” host Nancy Grace that his initial thought was that the Idaho killer was a “copycat of Bundy.”
Ted Bundy’s former lawyer John Henry Browne noted in the special that, in both the Idaho and Bundy cases, “rage” seemed to play a central role in how the victims were murdered.
“It’s so random. And the manner of homicide was so brutal,” Browne said. “I’ve done probably 50 murder cases in my career, maybe more. And these are the only two that have those similarities. Almost all of them involve weapons, guns mostly, or fistfights, things like that, or in self-defense.”
“This is just downright brutal. It’s rage. Whoever did this was full of rage.”
Bundy had used a log to beat his victims including Thomas and Pryor while Kohberger allegedly used a knife to stab the four students. Browne explained that both weapons involve being close to the victim and require a lot of time and rage to kill an individual.
“They’re brutal, and they’re designed to basically destroy the inside of your body as well as the outside of your body. That’s an indication of a great deal of rage on the part of the perpetrator. No question about it,” he shared.
The Fox Nation special even looks at how key pieces of evidence like the vehicle helped track down suspects in both the Bundy and Idaho case.
In the aftermath of the brutal crimes, both college towns were rocked and students at the two universities applied a new level of caution to their daily routines.
Bundy eventually confessed to at least 30 murders and was executed in Florida in 1989.
While Kohberger has been charged, he still awaits a six-week trial which will begin in October.
A judge entered pleas of not guilty to all charges for Bryan Kohberger at his arraignment Monday – more than six months after police allege he fatally stabbed the four University if Idaho undergrads in their off-campus home.
While the nation, especially the Moscow, Idaho community, awaits the trial, Fox Nation’s “Parallels of Evil” presents subscribers with alarming similarities between one the most notorious serial killers and the Idaho murders through the eyes of experts and survivors.