CHILLING details about the investigation into Bryan Kohberger have finally come to light in recently released police documents.
The recently unveiled records provided new insights into the killer, highlighting his unsuccessful attempt to join the police force just months before the brutal murder of four University of Idaho students.
Documents released by Washington state police pertaining to the investigation into Kohberger, 30, were made available on a website for the city of Pullman on Monday. The release comes weeks after Kohberger received a life sentence without parole for the fatal stabbings in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022.
Kohberger lived in Pullman and studied criminology there at Washington State University at the time of the quadruple murders.
During his time in graduate school, Kohberger sought to become a Ph.D. graduate research assistant with the Pullman police department, according to the records.
The documents disclosed a disturbing email exchange between Kohberger and the Pullman chief of police following Kohberger’s interview for the role on April 12, 2022.
In his email to then-Chief Gary Jenkins, Kohberger stated, “It was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety.”
Seven months following this correspondence, Kohberger broke into an off-campus residence in Moscow, where he fatally stabbed Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, and Xana Kernodle.
After he was arrested for the killings in December 2022, Pullman police revisited Kohberger’s application, knowing that he was a suspect in the brutal crime, according to the documents.
Messages between former Pullman Police Chief Jake Opgenorth and administrative assistant Darby Baldwin revealed that Baldwin told Opgenorth that people on social media were starting to speculate about Kohberger’s previous application.
“We were not talking to media just playing it safe with the gag order,” Opgenorth told Baldwin.
She replied, “Copy. So it’s ok for me to come up with a canned response for those inquiries?”
The situation was then passed over to be handled by the city attorney’s office.
The newly released documents also revealed that Kohberger was briefly under suspicion about a break-in in Pullman following his arrest for the 2022 killings.
TERRIFYING BREAK-IN
In a report bearing eerie similarities to the Idaho murders, a student reported a break-in at a Pullman apartment belonging to four college students in 2021.
A 20-year-old woman told cops that a man wearing a burgundy ski mask and carrying a knife came into her bedroom while she was sleeping, the police report said.
University of Idaho murders timeline
On November 13, 2022, a brutal home invasion claimed the lives of four University of Idaho students.
Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in a Moscow, Idaho, off-campus home.
A six-week manhunt ensued as cops searched for a suspect.
On December 30, 2022, Bryan Kohberger, 30, was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania – 2,500 miles away from the crime scene.
He was taken into custody and charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University, was linked to the crime scene through phone records, his car’s location, and DNA evidence found at the home where the murders took place.
The house was demolished in December 2023 despite backlash from the victims’ families.
Kohberger was held at Latah County Jail where he awaited trial.
On September 9, 2024, an Idaho judge ruled to move the upcoming murder trial out of Moscow after Kohberger’s lawyer argued that the town was prejudiced against him.
The trial was expected to start in August 2025.
But on June 30, 2025, Kohberger struck a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to the charges on July 2.
The move was blasted by the victims’ families, who wanted Kohberger to face justice through a trial.
On July 23, Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four consecutive life sentences in prison with an additional 10 years for burglary.
Friends and family members of the four victims shared powerful impact statements at the sentencing hearing, as roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke also spoke out for the first time.
The woman said she woke up and kicked the intruder in the stomach, causing him to run out of the room.
She then called the police with her roommate.
The intruder was never caught.
Police records show that after Kohberger was arrested in 2022 for the Idaho murders, cops revisited the incident and considered the possibility that he may have been the intruder.
However, the investigation revealed he wasn’t related to the close call.
Cops determined Kohberger wasn’t living in the area at the time and that he didn’t have reason to be on campus.
Following Kohberger’s sentencing, more of his creepy behavior has come to light now that the gag order has been lifted.
Prosecutors recently revealed that when he was arrested, Kohberger had ID cards belonging to two women he knew in the years before the murders.
Plus, a woman shared a chilling account of speaking to the killer on Tinder before he brought up stabbing someone to death.
