As the prison bus jostled along the desolate Idaho desert under the scorching summer sun, Bryan Kohberger might have clung to an illusion of control.

Despite being arrested and convicted for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, and facing a life confined to a prison cell, Kohberger maintained a semblance of authority by entering a guilty plea. Throughout the trial, the 31-year-old remained stoic, even as a victim’s sister confronted him with raw emotion. He revealed nothing about his motives and kept details of his actions and the location of the murder weapon a mystery.

“He has a self-important personality. His ego transcends everything else,” remarked Howard Blum, a Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist and author of a book on the Idaho college murders, in an interview with the Daily Mail. “He was training to be a professor, and he carries an imperious detachment. He always feels that he’s right.”

Five months on, Kohberger’s self-perception may be unraveling.

“Murder is about control,” Blum continued. “And prison represents the ultimate scenario where control is stripped away. He’s struggling to adapt to that.”

‘Murder is about control,’ said Blum. ‘And prison is the ultimate situation where you have no control. He’s not responding well to that.’

Bryan Kohberger is pictured at his sentencing, on July 23 this year. He was given four consecutive life sentences for the November 2022 murders of the college students in Idaho

Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen (left) and Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle (right) were murdered on November 13, 2022

Guards at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution where Kohberger is being held view him as a ‘diva’, a prison source has told Chris McDonough, a retired homicide detective who now works for the non-profit Cold Case Foundation, which advocates for crime victims and their families.

‘The prison is already short-staffed,’ said McDonough. ‘They’re working 12-hour shifts. And then they are also dealing with his constant complaints. He takes up extra time because whenever a complaint is in writing, they have to respond to it.

‘He is just relentless in sending communications to the prison guards. And that’s taking away from other duties that they have.’

Kohberger’s problems began as soon as he arrived at the 535-man prison near the town of Kuna, 18 miles south of Boise.

The facility, said bail bondsman Kevin Corson, is ‘an awful, dark place’.

‘I certainly wouldn’t want to be sent there,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s isolated. It’s depressing. It’s in the South Boise desert, so it’s very hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

‘Every prison here is tough – Idaho’s kind of a cowboy state as far as punishment is concerned. It’s a little tougher here, but that is definitely one of the toughest prisons in the state.’

Kohberger has since his sentencing in July been kept in isolation, in Unit Two of J Block. He spends 23 hours a day in his cell, with an hour for exercise.  

Kohberger is seen pacing inside a prison cell inside Idaho’s maximum security prison in Kuna

It’s unclear whether Kohberger has been visited by any of his relatives – his parents Michael and Maryann live in Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains. He has two older sisters: Amanda lives in Pennsylvania while Melissa is believed to live in New Jersey. 

In Kohberger’s first two days, he filed two complaints: one requesting a move to another part of the prison; another complaining about the food.

His aunt and uncle said at the time of his 2022 arrest that he was ‘OCD’ about meals and once demanded that they buy new pots and pans that hadn’t touched meat before they prepared food for him.

On Kohberger’s first night behind bars, the menu included hot dogs, salad and Jello pie, a prison official told the New York Post: an assortment unlikely to appeal to the picky Pennsylvania-born killer.

‘I have on several occasions not received all items of food on my tray,’ he complained on July 31 in a handwritten note, obtained by The Idaho Statesman. ‘The policy book confirms items missing which are pointed out during service will be replaced. I wish to, without exception, receive these replacements. The nutritional standard is not being upheld unless I receive my full tray.’

The complaints kept coming: the bananas were the wrong type, and his fellow inmates were yelling abuse and threats at him. They would heckle him through the vents between cells, menacing him with warnings of sexual assault.

By the end of his fifth week in prison, he had filed five formal complaints.

‘Bryan is staying very consistent with his taking up of the staff’s time,’ said McDonough.

Kohberger’s sister Amanda and mother Maryann Kohberger attending his sentencing in July

Left to right: Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee’s shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke. Mortensen and Funke were the only survivors

Last month, an Idaho prison insider told the Daily Mail that Kohberger was threatening to harm himself unless he was moved to another part of the prison.

‘He has continued to complain to the staff that he’s going to harm himself, but he’s still in J-block,’ said McDonough, noting that Kohberger had not been moved to a cell for inmates deemed high-risk. ‘They must have done some type of evaluation because they would have moved him into a mental health cell if they felt he was a danger to himself.’

McDonough warned that Kohberger is also deeply unpopular with other inmates.

‘It’s a bad thing to draw attention to yourself when you’re in prison, because the inmates take note of everything in the facility. They’ve got all the time in the world, for the rest of their lives, so they watch and they listen.

‘Complaining about other inmates is not ever the right position to take in prison. You just want to shut your mouth and do your time,’ said McDonough.

Indeed, Kohberger’s attitude towards fellow inmates and guards is reportedly not winning him any sympathy.

‘He doesn’t talk to people: He talks down to people. He thinks he’s all that,’ said McDonough. ‘He’s patronizing.’

The student home at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, where the murders were committed

Perhaps, some of the apparent animosity from fellow inmates towards Kohberger is due to his ‘wealth.’ Supporters of the quadruple murderer donated $28,000 to him while he was in jail awaiting trial.

That money is available to Kohberger in a prison commissary for the purchase of hygiene products, extra food, writing implements and other items, which are not regularly provided to the general population. 

‘The amount of money put onto his books actually may have put him in a more high-risk situation from extortion in the prison,’ said McDonough.

‘If two people are in for the rest of their lives for murder and they have nobody outside, and their inmate next door has $28,000 on the books, and you have 50 cents – what are you going to do? They are going to say we’re going to share while you’re in prison.

‘It’s not like our culture outside. There’s a subculture within the prison system, and it’s a pecking order.’

Blum suspects that Kohberger will soon tire of his games with the guards and turn to another pastime.

‘I think sometime down the road, he’s going to be talking to people,’ he said. ‘I think that will be the next shoe to drop.

‘The question is, how soon does it occur? Will it be his old professor? Will it be someone else? But I think he will try to give his view of things, and I think he would like to be seen as an authority.’

Dr Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology at DeSales University, taught Kohberger while he was studying for his master’s degree in criminal justice.

So, is his seemingly haughty, arrogant demeanor behind bars in character? ‘Nothing about offenders surprises me,’ Ramsland told the Daily Mail.

‘He thinks he’s a professor in many ways,’ added Blum, ‘he’s going to be his vision of a Hannibal Lecter who can both be a serial killer and be above being a serial killer, being above the fray, commenting on it, and offering introspection and insight into the mind of a killer.’

For now, Kohberger seems content to keep complaining – regardless of the resentment it causes.

‘He keeps swimming upstream without realizing he’s in a fast-flowing rapid river,’ said McDonough.