Where Is Bryan Kohberger Now? What to Know About the Idaho Murders Suspect as He Awaits Trial

Yahoo

10-05-2025

Bryan Koberger is accused of killing four University of Idaho students — Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — in 2022
His trial is expected to start in late July
New details about the murders were revealed in a May 2025 Dateline episodeAlmost three years after Bryan Kohberger was arrested in connection with the November 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, his trial is set to begin.
Ahead of the trial — which will start in late July, per CBS News — the slayings of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were featured on the May 9 Dateline episode "The Terrible Night on King Road." The episode contained previously-unseen footage into the night of the murders.
Goncalves, 21, Mogen, 21, Kernodle, 20, and Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13. Two more roommates at the 1122 King Road residence, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were home and unharmed. Early in the investigation, the surviving roommates were ruled out as suspects.
In December 2022, Kohberger was charged with four counts of murder and one count of felony burglary. In May 2023, the judge ultimately entered a plea of "not guilty" for him.
Kohberger has since waived his right to a speedy trial. If he is convicted during his July trial in Ada County, he could be sentenced to death.Here's everything to know about Bryan Kohberger and where he is now.
Kohberger earned a bachelor's degree in psychology at a local community college near his eastern Pennsylvania hometown, The New York Times reported. In June 2022, he received a master's degree in criminal justice from DeSales University.
Jack Baylis, who befriended Kohberger in eighth grade, told PEOPLE that Kohberger was very interested in psychology as a teen.
"He is super curious. Probably the most curious [person] who you'll ever meet. Guaranteed," Baylis said. "He was really into psychology, how people thought and whatnot. He's always been really into that kind of stuff."
One of his classmates at DeSales, Brittany Slaven, told The New York Times that Kohberger seemed rather interested in serial killers, but that his behavior didn't raise any red flags for her at the time. "At the time it seemed as if he was just a curious student, so if his questions felt odd we didn't think much of it because it fit our curriculum," she explained.
In April 2022, Kohberger interviewed for a job as a graduate research assistant at the Pullman, Wash., police department.
According to email correspondence obtained by The New York Times, Kohberger sent a note to then-Police Chief Gary Jenkins with the subject line "Thank you" after his interview.
"Chief Jenkins, It was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety. I look forward to hearing from you," he wrote.
At the time of the murders, Kohberger was a Ph.D student in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., about eight miles from the Moscow, Idaho, residence where the four University of Idaho students were slain.
BK Norton, a classmate of Kohberger at Washington State University who took the same courses as him one semester, described Kohberger to PEOPLE as "intelligent but quiet."
Norton told PEOPLE that Kohberger was "more of a loner in the program," and claimed that Kohberger made disparaging remarks about the LGBTQ+ community.
Kohberger generally kept to himself, Norton said. But he noted, "I know that there were students meeting with him after the murders. He was quiet and stared a lot, but after the murders he seemed more willing to talk and hold a conversation."
An anonymous classmate of Kohberger's recalled him frequently taking contrarian viewpoints in classes and getting into heated arguments with other doctorate students, according to The New York Times. The classmate said Kohberger seemed to have more disagreements with women, including one incident that led to a female doctoral student storming out of the classroom after accusing Kohberger of "mansplaining."
While at Washington State University, Kohberger was also a teaching assistant. One of his students, Joey Famularo, said that his behavior changed after Nov. 12, 2022, when the murders occurred.
"Definitely around then, he started grading everybody just 100s," she told CNN in January 2023. "Pretty much if you turned something in, you were getting high marks."
Several months before the murders, Kohberger was warned about his interactions with women working and frequenting a bar in Bethlehem, Pa., Jordan Serulneck, the owner of Seven Sirens Brewing Company, told NBC News.
Serulneck explained that the bar staff scan IDs of all patrons and that they can add notes in their internal system. "Staff put in there, 'Hey, this guy makes creepy comments, keep an eye on him. He'll have two or three beers and then just get a little too comfortable,' " Serulneck recalled.
The brewery owner added that Kohberger would often sit alone at the bar, asking female staff and customers questions about where they lived and who they were at the bar with. Serulneck said that if women weren't interested in conversing that Kohberger "would get upset with them a little bit" and that Kohberger called a female staffer a "b----" when she wouldn't answer his questions.
During Serulneck's final interaction with Kohberger, he said, "Hey Bryan, welcome back. We appreciate you coming back ... I just wanted to talk to you real quick and make sure that you're going to be respectful this time and we're not going to have any issues.'"
Kohberger seemed shocked at his remarks and told the owner, "'I don't know what you're talking about. You totally have me confused.' " Kohberger never returned to the bar after the conversation, Serulneck says.
While authorities have not revealed if the victims knew Kohberger, the suspect's now-deleted Instagram account — which was reviewed by PEOPLE before it was removed — followed the accounts of Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle. None of the victims followed him back.
Two weeks before the students were killed, Kohberger sent a series of messages to one of the victims on Instagram, an investigator familiar with the case told PEOPLE.
"He slid into one of the girls' DMs several times but she didn't respond," a source told PEOPLE. "Basically, it was just him saying, 'Hey, how are you?' But he did it again and again."
The source added that the victim may not have ever seen the messages, as they went into the message request folder on Instagram. "There's no indication that he was getting frustrated with her lack of response," the source said, "but he was definitely persistent."
Kohberger also allegedly visited the Mad Greek restaurant in Moscow — where both Mogen and Kernodle worked as servers — in the weeks leading up to the slayings. According to a former employee, he came in at least twice to grab vegan pizza.
According to the case's probable cause affidavit, which was reviewed by PEOPLE, a sheath of the knife used in the murders was left at the scene in the bed where Mogen and Goncalves were found. The affidavit states that this is where detectives found DNA linking Kohberger, which they then matched to trash taken from Kohberger's parents' home in Pennsylvania. In June 2023, prosecutors revealed that a DNA sample taken directly from Kohberger matched DNA found on the sheath of a knife.
The affidavit also alleged that around 4:20 a.m. on the night of the killing, a white sedan referred to as "Suspect Vehicle 1" in the affidavit was seen leaving the area of the home. The document also stated that the vehicle and a phone associated with Kohberger returned to the scene between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m.
Additionally, the affidavit alleged a cell phone associated with Kohberger pinged in the area of the 1122 King Road home on at least twelve occasions prior to November 13, 2022.
"All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days," the affidavit read.
A source familiar with the investigation told PEOPLE that Kohberger also had photos of one of the female victims on his phone. They did not specify whether the images were taken by Kohberger or pulled from social media.
"He had more than one picture of her," the source said. "It was clear that he was paying attention to her."
After Kohberger was arrested, body camera footage was released that showed him getting pulled over twice in one day while on a cross-country road trip from Washington to Pennslyvania with his father.
Kohberger was driving a white Hyundai Elantra — the same vehicle authorities were searching for in connection with the case — and was stopped both times for following a vehicle too closely. He was released with a verbal warning on both occasions.
After Kohberger's arrest, the vehicle was taken from his family home.
"At the time of the traffic stop, there was no information available on a suspect for the crimes in Idaho, to include identifying information or any specific information related to the license plate state or number of the white Hyundai Elantra which was being reported in the media to have been seen in an around where the crime occurred," the Hancock County Sheriff's Office said in a statement obtained by multiple outlets.
Though Kohberger has largely remained silent after he was charged, a police source who was involved in the process told PEOPLE that he spoke to officers while he was being extradited.
"He seemed really nervous," the source said. "He was narrating to himself everything that was happening. At one point, he was saying something to himself like 'I'm fine, this is okay.' Like he was reassuring himself that this whole thing wasn't awful."
While Kohberger didn't speak directly to officers about the case, the police source said he did make an offhand comment about it. "He did say, 'It's really sad what happened to them,' but he didn't say anything more," the source said. "He's smarter than that."
According to Kohberger's defense attorney, his client was driving outside of Moscow on the night of the murders. The defendant claims he went to "hike and run and/or see the moon and stars."
The defense will attempt to corroborate the alibi using Kohberger's cell phone data.
After a location change from Latah County — where the killings took place — to Ada County — which is more than 300 miles south, Kohberger is currently awaiting trial in a local jail.
His trial is expected to start in late July.
Read the original article on People