Transcription
You are not profound. You're pathetic. You aren't special or deep. Not mysterious or exceptional. Don't ever get it twisted again.
What's going on everyone? Welcome to the behavioral arts. My name is Spidey and I use my degree in sociology and psychology, my certifications in criminal interrogation and body language analysis, and over 10 years experience as an award-winning mentalist to teach people behavioral analysis and practical psychology on stage and television shows all over the world.
In November of 2022, the bodies of four University of Idaho students were found in their off-campus home, a case that quickly became one of the most famous in recent US crime history. Just over 3 weeks ago, Brian Coberger, a criminology PhD student from Pennsylvania, plead guilty to all the charges. But what's really had the internet talking is his non-verbal behavior during the victim impact statements. So, what do his facial expressions and body language actually reveal? And what are some of the details that a lot of people missed when it comes to Brian Coberger? Let's dive right in.
So, these statements are coming from the family and friends of the four victims who are Kaylee Gonzalez, Madison or Maddie Mogan, Ethan Chapen, and Zana Kernodal. And I hope I'm pronouncing those correctly, but their family and friends spoke very powerfully and emotionally. And I'll leave a link in the description where you could find the entirety of the victim impact statements. But for the purpose of this analysis, I won't be using all of them. And the ones that I do use, I'll be cutting down to focus on his behaviors and his reactions.
So, we're going to begin with the first one. And this is really important, not just because it's the first one. So, we're seeing a lot of that initial reaction, but his behaviors are very interesting on this one. And I think I know exactly why. So, this is a woman by the name of Emily Allen, and she is speaking on behalf of Bethany Funk. She is reading a statement written by Bethany Funk, who was a friend to all four victims and a surviving roommate. She lived there with them. Let's take a look.
"Thank you, your honor. Um, I'll be speaking on behalf of Bethany. And so, yeah, here it reads, uh, my name is Bethany Funk, and I was roommates with Maddie, Kaye, Zana, and Ethan. I not only lost some of my best friends, but I also lost a sister. Never in a million years would I have would I have thought that something like this would have happened to my closest friends. When I first woke up that morning, I had no idea what happened. I woke up around 7:00 with a terrible toothache. So, I called my dad who is a dentist and he asked what I should do. He told me to take Advil. So, I did and I went back to sleep. I was getting flooded with death threats. and hateful messages from people who did not know me at all or know the dynamic of our friendship. Social media made it so much worse, and strangers made up stories to entertain themselves. Ethan was the sweetest, most genuine guy. He was always smiling and always making other people smile, too. Ethan was the kind of person you wanted around. He was so kind and easy to talk to and just so fun. And the way he cared for Zana was truly something to admire. I was not only It was not only obvious to me, but everyone that was around Ethan and Santa that they were absolute soulmates. Maddie was not only one of my best friends, but she was the older sister I would have always wanted."
Okay, so quite a few interesting things happening on this one. And it's very important to keep in mind when it comes to Brian Coberger that there's an official diagnosis of ASD on the table. And we're going to talk a lot about that in today's video and the repercussions that it might have on the behavior. But the other thing to keep in mind on the other hand is that this diagnosis was presented by his legal team in order to take the death penalty off the table. So it's possible that his legal team found an expert who was leaning a lot more towards the autism spectrum disorder diagnosis rather than considering some other things which wouldn't be as favorable for their case.
But right now, I want to focus on the behaviors that we're seeing in this first testimony that's giving me quite a little bit of information as to what's going on through his mind. But before we do, a quick word from this week's sponsors. As you guys know, I don't do a lot of sponsored ads. That's because for me to talk to you about a product or service, I personally really have to believe in it. Otherwise, what's the point? But I'm really, really excited to talk to you guys about this week's sponsor, Ground News. Ground News is a website and app that compiles hundreds of news stories given any topic in one place and shows context about the publication's political leaning, reliability, and ownership. When I go search this on ground news, it compiles hundreds of news stories and I could scroll down and I can choose if I want to see stories from publications that lean left, right, or as you know my preference, right down the middle. Give me the facts and I don't want to be persuaded in either direction. And for every single article, you will see who owns it and you see how reliable that source tends to be, all checked by third parties, which really helps me see that bias and try to stay in the middle and look at this objectively.
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Okay, back to Brian Coberger listening to the first victim impact statement. So, one thing that you'll notice that he did quite a few times is this little up and down head bobbing like this, which normally in a lot of normal situations when someone's talking you see this kind of thing typically it's agreement. Someone says something and the person agrees like this. But with him, it happens a lot during pauses, and there are a couple of good examples of that.
"Thank you, your honor. Um, I'll be speaking on behalf of Bethany. And so, yeah, here it reads, 'Never in a million years would I have would I have thought that something like this would have happened to my closest friends?'"
So, it's happening when we're waiting for something to start, like we saw it there when the speech was about to begin. starting like this or when the person is speaking and takes a little bit of a pause and in this context it is something we see very often it's when we want something to move along and see even as I just thought of it my hand did this and my head did this cuz it's quite common and for him it's very consistent throughout one of the best bits of body language from this entire thing that's going to give us a lot of information about this person happened right during this statement and it's when the speaker misspoke so I don't know if it's because Emily misread or because Bethany miswrote something. Obviously, she was very emotional, so it's possible. But while she was reading it, Emily said that Bethany, speaking as Bethany, woke up and had a toothache and called her father, who was a dentist. And then she says, "And he asked what I should do." When clearly she meant to say, "I asked what I should do."
"So, I called my dad who is a dentist and he asked what I should do. He told me to take Advil. So, I did. And I went back to sleep."
And notice at that very moment what happens with Brian Coberger. We see a bunch of things that are not that common for him. First he looks to the side like this. Then he comes back. The mouth opens for a quick second. And then we see what we call not a slow blink but a heavy blink. Usually his blinks are very quick and they're gone. In this case it just takes a little bit of an extra second for them to open up after that blink. And this little cluster of behaviors is confirming something for us that a lot of people have suspected about him. And that's the fact that he has a lot of intellectual pride or arrogance. So it's been reported that he's very proud of his high IQ, the fact that he's a PhD student, and that he makes a habit of correcting other people's grammar. And here we physically saw that manifest. He heard what she said. And the eyes to the side, very often when we think about something or rewind to something, our eyes dart around like this. So, he took a second to go back to it. And I think that mouth opening is him literally like trying to correct it. We also do see this quick mouth opening a lot with people who look down on someone often as a quick sigh, like a there we go again. That kind of thing. So, you might see someone who sees something or hears something that they're a little irritated by and it'll look a little more like this. Sometimes it's an eye roll. Sometimes they close the eyes a little bit longer. Sometimes it's just a slow blink, but it looks a lot like that. And although it's a little more subtle with him, it's undeniably a reaction to what she said. And it's that sense of intellectual superiority coming out.
At some point, she's talking about how she got death threats and hateful messages from people because as a surviving roommate, there were some theories out there that she had something to do with this. But as she's saying this, we see another break from baseline from Brian Coberger where he looks away, turns his chair away like this with a quick swivel. Then when he comes back, we see something in the mouth that has a lot of different names in the research. Pacifiers, adapters, manipulators, self soothing gestures. And you'll notice how his lips kind of bunch up. But the reason that's happening is because his tongue is pushing against the bottom of his mouth like this. You even see the movement of the tongue through the cheeks. So, we're getting this moment of discomfort for some reason because he's turning away from it, not just with his eyes, but with his whole body like this, which is something that he does every now and then, but definitely not that often. Then he comes back and we literally see a self soothing gesture, which is again something we're going to see here and there, but it's not a big part of his baseline.
Now, as a behavioral analyst, I can clock that behavior and say something's going on here. But because this is a reaction, I can't tell you what that thing is. In an interrogation or interview room, we see this kind of thing. We ask a follow-up question to try to figure out what caused that. But in this case, we can only speculate. So, is the discomfort with the fact that he knows that those death threats that she got are directed at him cuz he's the one who did this? Could it be that intellectual superiority kicking in again? Cuz he's thinking about all these people who were so wrong and him as a PhD criminology student would have never gone this that wrong. They're clearly not as smart as him. Could be that or that they're giving the credit for who did this to someone other than him. Like this is his work and someone else was getting the death threats. I can't tell you why. All I could say is there's something going on here that's making him a little uncomfortable.
Another cliff note that we have to consider here is a term called stmming. So it's the exact same gesture, self soothing pacifiers, adapters, but it's the language that's used specifically for people on the autism spectrum. So people with ASD will very often have these self soothing gestures, but again, it still does indicate moments of stress. So it doesn't really change the fact that we're seeing some kind of discomfort here.
One important caveat that I will mention at this point though that applies to this entire analysis is that we can't always be 100% certain that he's even tuned in at this point. This is a very long process and at this point she's been talking for several minutes. So it's possible that there are moments where his thoughts wander off. So I can't guarantee that every time I see this it's in response to something she said. Maybe he had a different thought in his head here and that's what's causing this kind of little bit of a disengagement. We can't be sure.
Something really interesting happens when she starts talking about Ethan, uh, one of the four victims, the only male one. First, we see some stuff with the lips. There's a little bit of a little bit of a compression like this, a little bit of a pacifying gesture there. So, some kind of withheld opinion or stress around that, but then we see like this very quick chair swivel. And when she talks about how Zana and Ethan were soulmates, we see a whole bunch of stuff.
"It was not only obvious to me, but everyone that was around Ethan and Santa that they were absolute soul mates. Maddie was not only one of my best friends, but she was the older sister I would have always wanted."
He looks to his left, more or less where the judge is. Then his eyes open up as he looks again to the left with this kind of throwaway gesture with the head. So, it's kind of like this and then like this. And that looks a lot like something that you would see when someone's thinking, "Oh, please." Like very consistent like, "Oh, please." Like throwing it away. So, that's likely what he's thinking. You know, she's talking about soulmates in college and he's like, "Oh, please. Come on. Soul mates. Smallemates." This is someone who probably has a hard time with forming connections in life, probably romantic ones. He's probably struggled with that. So, I think he's just having a very hard time with this whole concept of this happy couple.
All right. Now, we're going to look at some other statements who pulled something different out of him behaviorally and a gesture that I am very familiar with. But before we do, do me a huge favor. Hit that subscribe button. Turn those notifications on for more behavioral analysis and practical psychology content. Dylan, just take your time.
"What happened that night changed everything because of him for beautiful genuine compassionate people were taken from this world. Sometimes I drop to the floor with my heart racing, cons convinced something is very wrong. It's far beyond anxiety. It's my body reliving everything over and over again. My nervous system never got the message that it is over and it won't let me forget what he did to them. People call me strong. They say I'm a survivor, but they don't see what my new reality looks like. They don't see the panic attacks, the hypervigilance, the exhaustion. He stole that. He took the version of me who didn't constantly ask, 'What if it happens again? What if next time I don't survive?' He may have shattered parts of me, but I'm still putting myself back together. Piece by piece, I'm learning how to live in this new version of life. It is not easy. It hurts, but I'm still trying. Still trying. And I'm not trying just for me. I'm trying for them, my friends. He will never erase the love we shared, the laughs we had, or the way they made me feel seen and whole. Those things are mine. They are sacred, and he will never touch them."
So the speaker here is Dylan Mortonson and she was a surviving roommate. So she was actually there that night. So whether it was luck or circumstance, she survived that night. Uh and we could see all the emotions pouring out. And from the very start she comes, she sits down and she puts her hand up like this and she says something that sounds a lot like I can't even look at it. More or less along those lines.
"Time. All right."
And you'll notice that the prosecutor to her left, the gentleman with the white beard, leans in quite a bit to kind of try to block him from her line of sight. So I think that's what's going on there. But as she's very emotional and trying to get through it to start speaking, we are seeing a lot from Brian when she's talking about the emotional aftermath of her current life. She talks about how her chest is caving in, some just collapses to the floor. as he's listening to that, we literally see him perk up for a moment. So, he's listening and it's not just that he readjusts in his chair because he does. His arm moves a little bit, but if you look at his neck, there's this upwards perking up gesture and that's not baseline. And it's at this moment where she's falling apart over the repercussions of what he did. This happens again seconds later when she's talking about what if this happens again, what if I don't survive? So, she's talking about the thoughts that this caused her to have in her head. And again, we see his head perk up like this. This time with that chin just a little bit subtly poking upwards like this, which is part of the universal expression of pride. Everywhere in the world, when we feel pride, we perk up and the chin goes up a little bit like this. It's to expose the vital organs like we have nothing to fear.
The other thing to notice here is that he's much more still, focused, and dialed in throughout, which is different from the first testimony where we're seeing a lot more of those head bobbles, head shakes. That chair was swiveing a little. And I think there was an element in that first one where he wasn't seeing the direct repercussion of his actions because that was a spokesperson. So he was kind of antsy to move on to see the direct effect of what he' done.
Listen, what I'm going to say is going to sound sadistic, but it's the best way I could put it. There's a vibe to this second testimony that reminds me a lot of an artist looking at their work. He's taking it all in. He's registering. There are stretches where that blink rate is lower. He's very focused and dialed in. And we're seeing here this perking up. There's a lot here that to me seems like this is getting his interest quite a bit. And I know this is such a horrible way to explain something, but let's take a moment to consider that this is a man who plead guilty for not just the taking of four lives, but it was done in such a brutal way that one of them was impossible to recognize. Like it was a lot. And most of us, the vast majority, will never even come close to understanding how this kind of a brain works. So, I know a lot of what I'm going to say here is is pretty harsh, but we're looking at someone with a brain that is very far from the norm.
Now, this is a perfect point where I want to take a second to talk about the autism diagnosis because there are a lot of people out there who might have someone who's on the autism spectrum in their office or in their community and they're not really sure what that is. They see this case and they go, "Oh my god, this is what autism is." It it could be a person like this. And I think it's quite a big misrepresentation to look at this and go, "This is what ASD typically looks like." Because it's really not. Now, nobody could diagnose through a screen and the professional who examined him said that he has autism spectrum disorder. But I just want to talk about the differences between that and another word that's been thrown around a lot when it comes to Brian Coberger, which is psychopath. And I just want to talk about the distinctions because there are a lot of things that might seem the same, but they're actually quite different.
So a lot of people talk about a lack of empathy when it comes to both neurode divergent people on the autism spectrum and psychopaths. And although I could see how it manifests that way in both cases, there's a very important distinction. And to understand it, we have to understand what empathy actually is. So empathy is three stages that come together. The first is cognitive empathy. This is our ability to recognize someone else's emotional state and very often has to do with reading non-verbal cues. The second one is emotional empathy. And that's what most people think of when they hear the word empathy. It's our ability to connect with that feeling or that emotion and feel it ourselves. And finally, the third one is empathic action. This is our willingness to help or support someone once we have correctly identified and felt what they're feeling.
So people with ASD, you might be surprised to find out, don't typically have an issue with the second or third part of empathy. In fact, they often feel even more than neurotypical people and are willing to go to great lengths to help or remedy the situation. They typically have an issue with that first step, the cognitive empathy, in picking up the subtle non-verbal cues that allows them to know that there's an issue. But once they do know, they could be shockingly empathetic. So, the way I like to describe it is saying that somebody who has ASD is not empathetic is like saying that a deaf person in no way has the capacity to understand a movie. They can, they just can't hear it. But if you put the subtitles on where it's spelled out and they could communicate it right, everything's perfectly fine. And when it comes to people on the autism spectrum, it might be our fault as much as theirs because we don't communicate our emotions in a way that they can understand it. but it's a communication issue, not an empathy issue.
With psychopaths, however, it's typically the complete opposite. They're actually very good at step one. They see the non-verbal cues, and they're very good at quickly reading people and knowing what that person is likely thinking or feeling. But then they have a really hard time with step two and three. They could see it, but they rarely connect with it and are rarely willing to do something to remedy it unless it somehow benefits them. This is why we typically call the type of empathy that psychopaths have cold empathy because they see it, they understand it, they recognize it, they know how to communicate with it, but they don't quite feel it the same way that the rest of us do.
So, as a result, it's not surprising that there isn't really a high correlation between ASD and violent crimes. In fact, a lot of research has shown that someone who's on the autism spectrum is more likely to be the victim than the perpetrator of a violent crime. However, there is absolutely a high correlation between being a psychopath and the committing of violent crimes.
Now, back to Brian Coberger. So, I could see why somebody would examine him and call out ASD because there's a bit of that social disconnect. There are moments here where he's not quite reacting the way we would expect him to. So, that kind of lines up with that. However, when he's looking at the statements and he's being told how the person feels and we're still not seeing that much, that's not that typical of ASD. It's possible. It's very possible that because of the overwhelming amount of emotions that they freeze up, but there does appear to be this coldness there and this stare that isn't that typical of ASD. And the reason I'm mentioning this is because I don't want people to look at this case and think to themselves, "Oh my god, this is what ASD is," and start being weary of people in their communities that are on the spectrum. It doesn't typically manifest this way. Although it can.
Okay, back to some behavioral analysis here. And something that I saw that's very, very familiar to me. Now, one of the reasons that I think I have a bit of an edge when it comes to this case is because the area where I learned and perfected my behavioral analysis is a little different from most people in my field. I learned as an entertainer while doing cold readings as a mentalist. Now, for those of you who don't know what that is, mentalism is a performance art. It's for entertainment and it mixes magic, literal magic tricks with psychology. So, we sprinkle a bit of psychology into it and it's very focused on trying to tell people what's in their heads. Like, we know things about them, their lives, and we can unlock their phones and we know the word they're thinking of. And in most cases, mentalists are very open about the fact that we don't have gifts or powers or abilities that we're using trickery and psychology. I'm very open about that. But one of my specialties is cold reading. And this is where we say certain things and we observe the person and based on their non-verbal reactions, we know where to go with our read and cater it and make it seem like we just know things about the person, but it's often because the non-verbal tells are helping us adjust what we're saying. So, I'm very used to reading reactions when the person isn't necessarily speaking.
And here there was a point where we saw the number one thing that I look for in cold reads that allow me to know something's going on. There's a disagreement. I have to switch. So it's immediately after she said that she's putting herself together piece by piece and learning how to live in this new version of life. And if you look at him, we see the eyes get a little shifty, but more importantly, the head kind of wiggles like this a little. And then we see a very obvious big kind of gesture like this towards his left.
"I'm learning how to live in this new version of life. It is not easy. It hurts."
And besides lip compressions, this kind of wiggling of the head with those little throwaways like this is the number one thing I look for while I'm cold reading to let me know that there's a disagreement. I have to switch. So, it's likely here that when she's talking about putting her life back together and moving on and trying to figure out how to, you know, live in this version of life, we're seeing this little bit of him thinking about it, going, "I'm I'm not so sure. We'll see." That's what that gesture is very consistent with.
We see this gesture again a little bit later when she's talking about the things that he will never be able to take from her, that he'll never be able to take the love that she had with her friends and the memories that they had. We see it again where the eyes get a little shifty like this and we see the head. This one's not so much a wobble like this, but there's this little bit of a side bob of disagreement. And this time, the chair even swivels away as he's contemplating what she's saying. I think there's some disagreement here from him once again as he's reflecting on it, going, "I'm I'm not so sure. I do think I took some of those things away from you."
"After Maddie's loss, Karen felt like she was spinning out emotionally emotionally collapsing in anxiety and depression. She sometimes asks, 'How am I supposed to go on when I've lost my favorite person in the world?' I felt the same, and we continue to struggle. The loss of Maddie has impacted so many beyond our family. We will grow old without our only child, our bright, beautiful friend and daughter. In the end, there are no words that can accurately capture the devastation of losing Matti. As for a sentence, we support the plea agreement. Society needs to be protected against this evil. As for the defendant, we we will not waste the words, nor will we nor will we fall into hatred and bitterness. Evil has many faces and we now know this. But evil does not deserve our time and attention. We are done being victims. We are taking back our lives."
Okay, now we're hearing from Madison or Mattie Mogan's stepdad. But there's one gesture that I saw that is certainly quite more deliberate. It's when the stepfather says, "We will grow old without our only child." And you'll notice that whereas typically it's more of a bobbing like this, in this case it's a more assertive chin down like this, an acknowledgement. And I think in that moment it's him going, "Yes, you will."
Towards the end when the stepfather says that society needs to be protected from this evil, we do see that head bob again like this, but it seems to be at an odd place cuz usually he kind of does it in this like let's move it along type of gesture. But in this case, it's like there's some stillness and then when the man says that, we get this bobbing.
"Society needs to be protected against this evil. As for the defendant..."
He did it earlier as well as a response to certain statements as to how they reacted to the loss. After Matty's loss, Karen felt like she was spinning out emotionally, emotionally collapsing in anxiet into anxiety and depression. And I think that in this case it is registering and to a certain extent like you know locking that in. Okay, got it. And almost even a bit of agreement like here when he's being told that society needs to be protected from this evil. I think there's a little bit of him going yeah people need to be protected from me. I don't know.
When the gentleman is talking, he has these more calculated and reactive yeses like this to confirm certain things that with the women wasn't the same. It was more like just kind of bobbing along just to get along with the story. As uh the stepfather is saying that he doesn't deserve attention, that he doesn't deserve to be talked about. We see a lot of stuff going on with the lips. A lot of tongue pacifying, thinning out, a lot of lip activity. And I think that he doesn't like this suggestion that he shouldn't get attention because remember li when lips thin out or you see tension around the lips, this is never a positive thing. Typically stress, disagreement, self soothing, anger, these are all negative reactions. So some kind of negative reaction there too. He doesn't deserve attention. And this is something that we saw very consistently when the men were speaking.
So with the women, he has a certain coldness to him and a certain stiffness. With the first one, she was speaking on someone else's behalf. So, there was a little bit more movement. There was a little bit more, you know, let's get to the ones who were actually affected by this in his behaviors. But with a lot of the women, and we're going to see some great examples of this coming up with another woman who's going to speak, a lot of staring, a lot of stillness. And I think there was a conscious effort to not give any reaction, to just stare them down. But with the men, we saw a lot of shiftiness, a lot of those adapters that self soothing with the mouth. We saw it with Mattiey's stepfather a little, but we also saw it a lot with Mattiey's biological father where he was up until that point the most shifty that we've ever seen. And we saw quite a few of those self soothing gestures as well. This was also very apparent with Zana's father who spoke later on after a bunch of women had spoken. He took the podium and this is the part where we saw the most shiftiness. There was some grooming happening. We saw some moments where the chin went down. We even saw some turtling. This is where things close in a little bit like this when we're feeling defensive or uh like we need to protect ourselves.
So, when the women are speaking, there's a lot of stillness, a lot of that stare. With the men, a lot of shiftiness and a lot of signs of insecurity, and they have his attention a little bit more. And we're certainly going to see a lot more examples of that with the next speaker that we're looking at, which is Kay's father, Steve Gonzalez. and he comes in like a raging bull to begin with and his entire tone is very different from everyone else. Take a look at some of these clips.
[Music]
"Today we are here to finish what you started. Today you've lost control. You tried to break our community apart. You tried to plant fear. You tried to divide us. You failed. Instead, your actions have united everyone in their disgust for you. I just learned from these lead investigators to their shock. They worked in an investigation and actually in worked with Pennsylvania police officers and the federal FBI. You united everyone. Everyone was united after you. None of us are divided. We were united in our disgust and our love for these children. The world's watching because of the kids, not because of you. Nobody cares about you. You're not worth the time, the effort to be remembered. In time, you will be nothing but two initials forgotten to the wind. No visitors, nothing more than initials on an otherwise unmarked tombstone. From this moment, we've all started."
Okay, so obviously Kayle's father is a lot more confrontational. He walks up to the podium very deliberately and quickly. He turns the podium to face Brian and his entire tone is a lot more angry. Whereas other people before were sad, grieving, you know, missing, even soft at points, this is a verbal attack. And by the way, I think that the Gonzalez family spent a lot of time thinking about what is this guy about and how do we get him? because they're going to say a lot of things that that really do seem to push the right buttons and they know that for someone who has this intellectual superiority that we have a lot of evidence that he does have and we even saw in his behavior earlier. He knows that when he says you failed, that's a very important key word. And he says that right when he's talking about how he tried to instill fear in the community, how he tried to tear them apart, and he says, "You failed straight to him."
We see Brian Coberger straighten up. And it's not this perking up from before. It's a straightening up. The chair moves forward. And we've seen him move that chair before, kind of swivel a little bit, but this is one of the rare times where we see that moving forward. And whenever we move forward in our chair, this is the mind getting ready for some kind of altercation. So anytime you're in a boardroom, you're in a meeting, in a conversation, someone's sitting comfortably, all of a sudden something is said and they kind of sit a little bit more forward. That's them trying to plant their feet down because in their mind there might be a confrontation coming up. And that's what we're seeing here. He's forward. He's confrontational. Something happened here. He's responding.
Then he goes beyond that to say that not only did he fail, that he actually united people. And this again is very clever to tell someone who has a lot of intellectual arrogance that not only did their plan fail, but the opposite happened. That's a very clever way to chip away at that. And we see there that the chair starts to wiggle a little bit like this and his blink rate skyrockets. We start to see like blink blink blink blink blink. And I think that the father is chipping away. He's hitting the right spots. Oh, and one more thing at the end again we see a forward lunge with the chair specifically after he talks about how he will be forgotten to the wind. No visitors, nothing. He will be no one. And again, this is a soft spot and we're these gestures aren't important because you know the chair is moving forward. It's because it deviates from his baseline. Whereas earlier he was doing different stuff with the chair twice while this man is speaking, we get this forward kind of lunge which is very consistent with confrontation. So there's something happening here. where this guy is pulling something different out of him.
"Hello. I'd like to start by thanking the court for allowing me the time and opportunity to speak today. My name is Olivia and I am the big sister of Kaylee Gonzalez and I was blessed to love Madison Mogan as a sister, too. I'm not here today to speak in grief. I'm here to speak in truth. Because the truth is my sister Kaylee and her best friend Maddie were not yours to take. They are everything that you could never be. loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave, and powerful. Throughout this entire process, I've written my feelings down at every moment. My my wishes, my love, my denial, my anger, and as one final act of love, I'd planned to read these thoughts, even jarring and discombobulating and not even making sense. Because for me, that was true love. as bare and as naked as it could be. I will call you what you are. Sociopath, psychopath, murderer. I will ask the questions that reverberate violently in my own head. So loudly that I can't think straight most any day. Some of these might be familiar. So sit up straight when I talk to you. How was your life right before you murdered my sisters? Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your apartment? You thought you were elite because your online IQ test from 2010 told you so. All of that effort just to seem important. It's desperate. There is a name for your condition though. Your inflated ego just didn't allow you to see it. Wannabe. You act like no one could ever understand your mind. But the truth is you're basic. You are not profound. You're pathetic. You aren't special or deep. Not mysterious or exceptional. Don't ever get it twisted again. No one is scared of you today. No one is intimidated by you. No one is impressed by you. No one thinks that you are important."
Okay. And then we have the statement that everyone on the internet is talking about, which is Kayle's sister, Olivia Gonzalez. And again, I think that this woman put a lot of thought into what does this person want in front of me? How do I not give them that thing? And how do I give them the things that will affect them the most? There's a lot of thought behind the specific way that she's talking about stuff. So, I do encourage you guys to go watch her entire speech. Again, link in the description. But she starts by attacking his notion of love, how he's never been loved. So she starts with that.
At some point early on while she's speaking, we see him very clearly clock the camera. He looks directly at the camera and immediately after that, we see the most shiftiness that we've seen from him at any point during these statements. All of a sudden, he's wobbling in the chair. He keeps readjusting. It looks like his legs might be moving under there. He readjusts again. He looks down. He looks up. He looks at the camera. He looks down again. And it seems like we're seeing this massive amount of stressful energy coming out in this moment. And I think what this might be, and we're going to see a few more clues towards this coming right up, is that he had a plan in his head to not give these people anything, to not react, to be very stoic. And I think at this point, because she's insulting him and demeaning him, he looks at the camera and realizes that even if he's stoic, these words that they're saying, the world out there is going to hear, and it's not a good look for him. And I think in this moment it slips and he just tries to desperately go back to that I'm stoic. I'm listening. I'm unaffected. But it takes him quite a long time.
At some point she says that she's going to ask the questions that reverberate so hard in her head that she can't think straight most days. And in an otherwise speech of attack here she's showing a little bit of vulnerability because the rest of her speech is about strength. So here she's showing a little bit that he has affected her. And in that moment, we see again that chin slowly come up like this. And this is noteworthy because again in this speech when she's speaking, he's very still for great lengths of time, just staring her down. So, you know, if it was one where he was doing a lot of these things, it might masquerade a little bit better. But here, as she says that, we kind of see this upwards chin like this. And you can contrast that with how stoic he is when she says, "Sit up straight when I'm talking to you." There's no movement. There's nothing. I think there's a conscious effort to not move in order to defy the thing that she said. Like you could speak to me, but I don't listen to you. I don't answer to you.
When she starts going off on his intelligence, how he thinks he's smart in other people, but he's not profound. He's not deep. We see a couple of things. For one thing, his blink rate is through the roof. It's just going and this was not happening throughout. There were stretches where that happened. And another thing that we see just after she says that he's not that profound, he's pathetic. We see a very slight shiftiness in that chair and he strains up like this and we see a deep breath. And again, I think the reason that these are such smaller gestures, you know, like we're not seeing this big jittering in the chair, is because I think he's making a very conscious effort to give her nothing. So these little things that we're seeing, although in a lot of cases would be very micro, maybe unimportant for someone who's trying to not move, they tell a story because it's a deviation from that attempt to be still. We're seeing that deep breath. We're seeing that, you know, small shift. We're seeing him straighten up. And these are all happening around the same time, right? When she's going after the thing that matters the most to him, his intelligence.
So, at the end of the day, what do I think we have here? We have someone that, as Olivia Gonzalez pointed out very effectively, really prides himself on his intellectual superiority. This is why he corrects other people. This is why he prides himself on his education and his IQ. It might even be a big contributor as to why the professional who examined him said that he has ASD because people with ASD, especially at that level one where they're verbal, do score very high on IQ tests and are very good at logical reasoning and pattern recognition.
As for him being non-reactive, let's take a second to talk about what's expected in a situation like this. So, if you look at the rest of the courtroom, the lawyers, the gallery behind them, it I wouldn't describe it as highly reactive, right? You see people who are sitting there a little bit to themselves. You could see them looking up sometimes, often looking down. You see droopiness on the face. You see expressions that suggest some kind of empathy, but it's not actively reactive. This isn't a comedy show or some kind of rock concert to where you're responding to what's going on. When you look around a funeral or a sad event, when people are listening to someone speak, it's rarely very reactive. People are just sitting there taking it in. So people who are saying that it's odd that he's just sitting there not reacting. It's not really that odd that he's not reacting. I wouldn't expect him to have these big visible reactions. The thing that's odd is that we're not seeing any signs of empathy at any point to where he's connecting in any emotional way to the devastation that he's caused. We're not seeing any of that on his face.
Could this be because of ASD? It's possible. It's possible that in emotionally overwhelming situations, someone with ASD would freeze up. But in a lot of cases, they can feel when it's clearly spelled out for them, this is how this person is feeling, what they're going through. I think it's most likely an attempt from someone who values intelligence and information to not let anything slip out. They've taken his freedom from him. He's going to jail. And he's seeing that they want certain answers. And I think that he knows that his last remaining move is if you don't give them those answers, you keep the upper hand on information and intelligence. And that is exactly why when at the end the judge gave him the opportunity to make a statement. He said, "I respectfully decline." And I think there's an element of mockery to this. He knows that they want the answers. Olivia said it. She listed the questions that she would want answered. And if there was an ounce of empathy to him and him trying to connect with that, he would maybe say something to answer those questions or a statement to alleviate some of the anything that's going on, even an attempt. But I think him saying that he's not going to make a statement is him holding his cards very tight to his chest and saying they want information. I'm not going to give it to them. I win this war of information. Cuz that's how important it is to him.
But let me know in the comments what you think. Do you believe that this is someone who doesn't quite understand or isn't picking up on the emotions that he's caused and that's why we're not seeing too much of a reaction? Or is it someone who sees it, understands it, but won't give in to that empathy or give these people what they want or deserve? Let me know in the comments what you think and I'll see you on the next.