Bryan Kohberger Faced 13 Formal Complaints at Washington State — Including About These Offensive Comments

Bryan Kohberger had only just begun his first semester in the criminology doctoral program at Washington State University when university administrators received their first formal complaint about his conduct.

Over the next three months, 12 more complaints were filed, bringing the total to 13, according to newly unsealed documents and interviews with members of the WSU community obtained by PEOPLE.

The documents include interviews with several of the women who reported Kohberger. One divorced woman said the accused told her he didn’t date “broken women,” while a deaf classmate recalled Kohberger asking if she “would be comfortable procreating given the fact she had a disability.”

By September, one classmate told the Idaho State Police that Kohberger already had a reputation for “being a d—.”

The 2022 fall term at WSU began on August 18. One staff member informed Det. Gary Tolleson of the Idaho State Police that a complaint had been filed against Kohberger before the end of that month.

Kohberger quickly became a frequent topic in disciplinary meetings, according to the staff member. Discussions often revolved around his interactions with fellow postgraduate students, both in and out of the classroom, as well as his behavior toward some criminal justice professors.

Initially, the staff member believed Kohberger might simply be socially awkward. However, she later concluded that his problem lay in how he spoke to staff and students, including allegedly making “outspoken discriminatory comments which were homophobic, ableist, xenophobic and misogynistic in nature.”

She also noted, “He would stare at people and stand uncomfortably close or ‘lean’ over women, making them very uncomfortable.”

When Kohberger was invited into the office to discuss the complaints, he reportedly said his “comments had been misunderstood.”

An undergraduate working in the criminology department told the ISP that Kohberger would repeatedly enter her office and insist on talking with her or physically corner her as she left work.

Kohberger later asked her out, despite her telling him she had a girlfriend. She said she began taking precautions, such as getting rides home from her boss, because of him. At one point, she recounted her neighbor seeing someone suspiciously close outside her window, later learning that Kohberger lived nearby.

A female doctoral student described Kohberger as a misogynist who made her feel “deeply uncomfortable.” Complaints said he frequently spoke down to women and arrived late to classes taught by female professors, prompting classmates to track incidents on a board. She called him a “narcissist” who “never displayed empathy toward another person” and sought “to be seen as the strongest, smartest, most important person in the room.”

The victims of the Idaho murders included Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.

Male students also reported troubling encounters. One graduate student said Kohberger “verbally kidnapped” him into a three-hour conversation while he was trying to leave the parking lot, boasting about his ability to “pick up any woman he wanted” and complaining about not having anyone to have “guy talks” with. The student considered filing a formal complaint but declined due to anonymity concerns.

Eventually, multiple first-year doctoral students said they were required to attend discrimination training because of Kohberger’s conduct toward students and professors. The training occurred on November 8, 2022.

That same weekend, Kohberger murdered four University of Idaho students.

On July 23, Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four lifetimes in prison without parole for the murders, plus 10 years for a burglary charge. He is also required to pay approximately $250,000 in fines and civil penalties.

The 30-year-old appeared in an Idaho courtroom for sentencing three weeks after confessing to the murders of Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20. The students were found brutally stabbed to death inside a Moscow home on November 13, 2022.