The Educated Killer Playbook: What Kohberger and McKee Reveal About Premeditated Murder

Two men. Two elite educations. Two alleged murder sprees months apart. Bryan Kohberger—criminology PhD, studied crime scene processing at the doctoral level—pled guilty to killing four Idaho students in November 2022. Michael McKee—vascular surgeon with more than a decade of surgical training—stands charged with murdering his ex-wife Monique Tepe and her husband Spencer in December 2025. The methods allegedly used in both cases reveal a chilling pattern.

Both men allegedly turned off or abandoned their phones during the murder window. Both allegedly surveilled their targets beforehand—Kohberger's phone pinged near the victims' house 23 times over four month...