(NewsNation) —Bryan Kohberger’s former professor told investigators the convicted murderer was “obsessed” with serial killers, wrote a paper on burglary and was flagged by several female classmates for sexist behavior.
An interview that a criminology professor at Washington State University, where Kohberger was a teaching assistant pursuing a Ph.D. in criminology, gave to Idaho State Police was revealed in a document drop first reported on NewsNation’s “Banfield.”
The professor, who wasn’t named in the documents, told investigators that she warned other professors and supervisors that Kohberger might be a predator.
“Kohberger is smart enough that in four years, we will have to give him a Ph.D. Mark my word, I work with predators, if we give him a Ph.D., that’s the guy that in many years, when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing,” the note read.
The warning was sent months before Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were killed on Nov. 13, 2022.
The professor said she saw Kohberger in class a week after the murders with a bandage on his fingers. When asked, Kohberger said it was from a “silly accident” at home, but the professor said she remembers it looking like it was a scrape from asphalt.
She also recalled several incidents of female students citing concerns over Kohberger’s sexist and condescending remarks as well as harassment.
“Kohberger would go into an office where several female grad students worked and physically block the door,” the professor said. “Once in a while, she would hear one of the female grad students say, ‘I really need to get out of here,’ and she would intercede by going into the office and allowing the female student to leave,” the report stated.
In another incident, a female student came to the professor crying over Kohberger aggressively disagreeing with her to the extent that she felt she needed to leave the area.
The professor said Kohberger talked a lot about serial killers in class and wanted to study burglars.
She also told investigators she felt like he was “stalking people.”
The former graduate student accepted a plea deal weeks before he was set to go to trial for the murders of four Idaho college students.
That deal took the death penalty off the table in exchange for a guilty plea in which he also agreed to waive his appeals in the killings and burglary charges.
The former graduate student was handed four life sentences last month.
NewsNation’s Patrick Djordjevic contributed to this story.
