Thoughts On The Cases I’m Covering in Forensic Psychology

This blog post deals with several criminal court cases occurring over the last year. They involve murder, rape, and child abuse.

So, I am teaching a class in forensic psychology this semester, and I’ve told my students they must have put something out in the ether when they signed up for this class, because it has been an absolutely wild time in cases with violent crimes over the past several months. I haven’t even scratched the surface of some of these cases, as there is only so much time in a semester. I still don’t think they believe me about them putting something out in the ether, but, just to recap:

1. Samuel Hochstetler: On May 7, 2025, Samuel Hochstetler was charged with murdering his neighbor, Rosanna Kinsinger (in March of 2025). Over the course of the next year, Samuel Hochstetler’s confession was suppressed due to inappropriate explanations in the Miranda Warning, the suppression was challenged due to Miranda not being necessary (it wasn’t during a custodial hearing), and the suppression was upheld, with Samuel Hochstetler accepting a plea deal for a lesser charge on July 24, 2026.
2. Ruth Miller: On August 23, 2025, while vacationing as a family at Atwood Lake, Ruth Miller threw her 4-year old son Vincen in the lake before driving herself and her three older children into the lake in a golf cart. By March 3, 2026, she had been evaluated and found competent to stand trial, but – after 3 independent evaluations – also found incapable of understanding the wrongfulness of her actions and, in a bench trial, found not guilty by reason of insanity. An insanity defense is rare, it is usually done in less severe cases, and it almost never works. (But, the 3 independent evaluators did agree the she did not understand the wrongfulness of her actions, which often does happen.)
3. Bryan Kohberger: On July 27, 2026, a year after pleading guilty to murdering 4 University of Idaho students, Bryan Kohberger filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Although the motion to withdraw the plea is ongoing, it came up in class in the context of trying to withdraw a guilty plea. If his original plea was actually true, he murdered 4 people. If his new filings are true, he voluntarily, but falsely, confessed to murdering 4 people.
4. Gary Siders Sr.: On June 30, 2026, Gary Siders Sr., along with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law were arrested for multiple counts of child endangerment due to their treatment of his son and daughter-in-law’s children. Gary Siders Sr. was found incompetent to stand trial on September 9, 2026, and the charges were dismissed without prejudice (they can be filed again) on October 9, 2026. The case involves huge questions about what should be done in cases where competency cannot be restored. (There will likely be a civil commitment hearing at some point, but he will not be criminally tried.)
5. Kourtney Aumen: On December 19 – 20, 2020, 4-year old Jessica Mast was murdered and her 2-year old brother beaten. The 4 people charged with the crimes include her father (James), her mother (Mary), and two neighbors (Ethan Mast – no relation – and Kourtney Aumen). Almost 6 years later, the final defendant – Kourtney Aumen – accepted a plea deal. This case is such a wild ride that it needs a separate blog post to go through all of the motions, evaluations, and professional misconduct in favor of Kourtney Aumen.
6. We’ve also talked about the 1982 Tylenol murders and the Lindsay Clancy trial, but those aren’t complete yet, so there have been no final determinations.

It is worth noting that in cases involving children, victims are only named if they died. Therefore, not all victims’ names are known in these cases. However, in all of them, there has been at least one unusual legal outcome. In some, there have been several. But, the range of victims and perpetrators shows that violence exists in all groups.

Assuming he was truthfully pleading guilty, Bryan Kohberger was a 28-year old graduate student in a criminal justice/criminology doctoral program when he pled guilty to murdering 4 University of Idaho students. Gary Siders Sr. is 73-years old. Samuel Hoschtetler is a 19-year-old Amish man, and Ruth Miller is a 40-year-old Amish woman.

Kourtney Aumen was 21-years old when she murdered Jessica Mast, and her co-defendants were 35-years old (Ethan Mast), 28-years-old (James Mast), and 29-years old (Mary Mast). Interestingly, although articles mention the four were part of the same church, they don’t mention the church itself. According to people who knew the perpetrators or victims, they were part of a Plain Anabaptist denomination referred to as Charity (Charity Christian Fellowship). It sounds like law enforcement wanted to keep the focus off the specific church and avoid claims of a cult, particularly with claims the murder was due to “beating the demon out” of a 4-year-old.

The perpetrators include both men and women across a range of ages. I think, though, what really brings home that violence exists in all groups is that 3 of these cases involve Plain Anabaptists, religious denominations that are either conscientious objectors or pacifists. Despite this, one raped and strangled his neighbor, one threw her youngest child and drove her oldest 3 children into a lake, and four beat a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old so extensively that the 4-year-old died.

We need to stop pretending/assuming that belonging to one group or another automatically means that violence doesn’t happen. No group is immune to members committing violence. When we assume that a group is not capable of violence, we overlook the aspects of their culture that actually encourage violence, and we dismiss the people trying to point those aspects out. People are people; all groups are capable of violence. Let’s stop pretending that isn’t the case. It would be a small step in reducing cultural support for violence, reducing the resulting violence, and protecting and supporting victims.

But, well, the motions, evaluations, and complete and utter professional misconduct on the part of a defense expert in the Kourtney Aumen case…that’s a whole blog post in and of itself, so “To Be Continued”.