Bryan Kohberger’s Shirtless Selfies and Naked Women Were Discovered on His Phone: ‘Very Vain, Like American Psycho’

Bryan Kohberger tried hard to hide his online search history in the weeks before and after killing four University of Idaho students. But investigators later found that he did not remove the photos saved on his phone.

Most of what police discovered were shirtless selfies of Kohberger and pictures of women in little or no clothing, Heather Barnhart tells PEOPLE.

“Lots of him posing half-naked in the mirror while flexing,” Barnhart explained.

It’s unclear why he kept these photos of himself, since investigators found no proof that he ever sent them to anyone, Barnhart said.

Barnhart also said there were pictures of women “in bikinis and others who were completely naked.” But none of these images were taken by Kohberger himself. Instead, they were cache files that had been saved to his device.

The only other subject Kohberger photographed was his car — the 2016 white Hyundai Elantra he drove the night of the murders.

“Very vain, like American Psycho,” Barnhart said, comparing him to Patrick Bateman, the self-obsessed character from Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel and the 2000 film starring Christian Bale.

Among Kohberger’s photos were two that had already been released, including a thumbs-up bathroom selfie taken after he returned from the murder scene in Moscow on November 13, 2022. The image shows a bandage on his hand and a shower curtain in the background. By the time police searched his apartment, that curtain was missing.

Just like the shirtless photos, that selfie was never sent to anyone and seemed to exist only for himself. Investigators also confirmed they found no photos of Kohberger’s victims on his phone.

The lack of personal pictures highlighted how isolated Kohberger’s life was. There were no photos of friends or family.

Barnhart, a SANS Institute Fellow and Senior Director of Forensic Research for Cellebrite, was brought in by the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office to analyze Kohberger’s phone and hard drive. She has worked on other high-profile cases, including the Crystal Rogers case, the Delphi murders, and even the Osama bin Laden raid.

Her team — which included Jared Barnhart, Josh Hickman, Ian Whiffin, and Mattia Epifani — had to work carefully because Kohberger, a former criminology student, left very few digital clues.

Kohberger is now serving four life sentences in Idaho’s only maximum-security prison. He accepted a last-minute plea deal to avoid the death penalty by admitting to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.

The four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022. The motive remains unknown.