() A police official in Washington state who rejected Bryan Kohberger for an internship in 2022 is talking about how he learned months later the failed candidate was suspected of murdering four University of Idaho students.
“The name sounded familiar,” says Gary Jenkins, former chief of the Pullman Police Department, who recalls needing a few seconds to make the connection. “The hair on the back of my neck stood up, knowing that I had interviewed him. Had I selected him, he would have been embedded with the Pullman Police Department.
“To know that, here he was the prime suspect in this quadruple homicide was chilling.”
Jenkins, the chief of police at Washington State University, spoke with “Banfield” on Friday to explain how his paths crossed with Kohberger, now that the judge overseeing the murder case has lifted a gag order. It has previously been reported that Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at WSU, sought an internship with Jenkins’ former department in the city of Pullman.
Jenkins shared details of his interview with Kohberger, which he says took place over Zoom with the grad student in his home state of Pennsylvania. He said the 30-minute meeting established Kohberger would be a bad fit for the internship because he “was not particularly personable.”
“He did not speak in a fluid or conversational manner, and so I just felt like he would not be able to establish that trust and rapport needed to be an effective researcher in the police department,” Jenkins said.
And that was that, until, months later, Jenkins was invited to attend what he thought was a routine briefing in nearby Moscow, Idaho, about the recent murders of four University of Idaho students that consumed the region in late 2022. Jenkins said local police informed him that crime-scene DNA evidence pointed to a WSU student, Kohberger, as the killer of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. All were killed at an off-campus rental property early Nov. 13.
Once he remembered his connection with the suspect, Jenkins said, “I told them I had his resume, I had a cover letter that I could share with them. They asked me to keep that information to myself for the moment and not even let my own department know that he had been identified.”
Kohberger, who was arrested in December 2022, early this month pleaded guilty to murder and burglary charges, under a deal that spares him the death penalty in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole. His formal sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday.
For Jenkins’ part, he’s glad he didn’t select Kohberger for the police internship three years ago.
“One of the best decisions I’ve ever made, I think,” he said.
