Another inner monologue, presumably Kohberger’s/the killer’s, looks back on his years of criminology classes, including Advanced Crime Scene Investigations, and ponders that actually committing a crime (especially murder) is much different from school theory. In an evasive action, he has programmed a roundabout route into his phone, one that his police trackers will never expect. He tells himself that he’s been meticulous and vigilant, and that getting away with murder will be “easy” for him.

Within days of the massacre of November 13, the investigators, embarrassed by the inadequacy of the initial police response, angrily blame the emergency dispatcher. If only (they claim) she had conveyed the full horror of the crime scene, a forensics squad would have been dispatched right away. The author, however, asserts that the dispatcher did her job exactly as she was trained to do on busy nights; i.e., she categorized the emergency as an “unconscious person” situation, a catchall designed to save time. Just before noon on November 13, this alert is received by Sergeant Shaine Gunderson, who was running the police’s Operations Division. Gunderson, bored with the deskwork and paper-pushing that came with his sergeant stripes, jumps at the chance to go to the scene himself.