Friends of Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger reveal how his heroin addiction drove them apart

Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger’s classmates have revealed how he lost himself in addiction, even tricking one of them into taking him shopping for heroin and needles.

One estranged friend said the heroin “got him pretty fooled” while others claimed he was looking for “validation” on the drug scene while at the same time losing half his body mass and becoming more “aggressive”.

Kohberger faces four counts of felony first-degree murder in the violent slayings of college students Madison Morgen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Xana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20 on November 13.

The 28-year-old attended school in Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania, a region with one of the highest rates of overdose deaths and one of the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic in the US.

Casey Arntz, who graduated two years before Kohberger, said The Idaho Statesman: ‘I feel like he was looking for validation, and that’s why he fell into that crowd.

Former schoolmates Casey Arntz, left, and Jack Baylis, right, discuss Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger changed dramatically after becoming involved with drugs.

“And honestly, that’s why he fell into the whole drug scene.”

Casey, who belonged to the same friendship group as Kohberger along with her younger brother, Thomas, added that the alleged killer had manipulated her into helping him get drugs.

He literally used me to get it. I was freaking out and not happy about having heroin in my car and not even knowing it.

Locals described Kohberger, who had no known criminal record before he was charged with the slayings, as a normal kid, and Thomas said he was drawn to wit and observational skills.

But they reveal that his personality started to change when he started using heroin.

At the same time, he became obsessed with what he ate and began kickboxing every day, which caused him to lose more than half of his 300 pounds.

She lost so much weight so fast that she had to have a tummy tuck.

On a yearbook photo, Kohberger’s caption read that he aspired to be an Army Ranger. Previously overweight and bullied, he lost around 100 pounds and became a “totally different person.”

Former friend Jack Baylis, 28, said: ‘I think the drugs fooled him quite a bit. He was having a moment.

“He was telling me, ‘I’m clean now, I’m totally clean now,’ and he had blood marks on his arms.”

Kohberger is said to have been introduced to heroin by his neighbor Jeremy Saba.

A photo posted to Facebook in August 2016 shows Saba and Kohberger posing together.

It was about four months after Saba was arrested and charged with a DUI and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.

Speaking of Saba, Baylis said: “I don’t like him personally because he got my son into heroin.”

It had previously been revealed that Kohberger would also use heroin with his former classmate Rich Pasqua, 31.

Pasqua, who now works at a drug rehab clinic, told Fox News last month: “I didn’t have a lot of friends, so I would do anything to fit in.”

‘He was a huge heroin addict, and so was I… I work in treatment and everything, but back then he was using, and that’s how I know for sure he was using. I got high on him a couple of times.

Meanwhile, Thomas Arntz, who was a year behind Kohberger in school, told the Idaho Statesman, “He always wanted to be physically and intellectually dominant.”

“I had to prove that I was smarter and bigger than you, and try to put me down and make me feel insecure about myself.”

Kohberger, 28, is accused of murdering Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on November 13 in the sleepy college town of Moscow, Idaho.

Rich Pasqua, who now works at a rehab center, previously revealed that he had used heroin with Kohberger.

“A lot of it was torment and I didn’t want to be around him anymore.”

Kohberger was arrested in December while living at his parents’ home in Chestnut Pennsylvania, about 2,500 miles from the crime scene.

Before the arrest, he was working toward a Ph.D. at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, located 9 miles west of the University of Idaho in Moscow.

You are no longer enrolled at WSU.

Kohberger has yet to get a chance to plead guilty, and Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall has placed the attorneys and others involved in the case under a sweeping gag order.

The suspect is scheduled for a preliminary hearing, where the judge will decide if there is enough evidence to justify the felony charges, on June 26.

It comes after Dailymail.com revealed Kohberger was teased by girls at school when his classmates remembered him as a chubby misfit who was bullied and tortured by more popular students.

Kim Kenely, 27, the suspect’s former high school cheerleader, spoke to the FBI about her memories of Kohberger.

Kenely’s mother, Sandra, told Dailymail.com: “She told the FBI everything she could tell them,”

‘It was so long ago. She couldn’t imagine what she had to tell the FBI. I guess it was for the purpose of the character.

Kohberger, then a chubby, clumsy misfit, would become relentless in her pursuit, repeatedly leaving love letters in her locker and telling her that he liked her, according to the mother.

“He would always say, ‘Oh, Kim, I think you’re very pretty.’ Like the weird comments. And she was like, ‘My God, leave me alone.

“She didn’t give him the time of day,” the mother noted. ‘When children are small, they are mean. They don’t say, ‘My God, thank you, but no.’

Kenely and Kohberger were sixth graders at Pleasant Valley Middle School together.

Kohberger attended Pleasant Valley Middle School in Brodheadsville, Pennsylvania, where he fell in love with fellow student Kenely and began pursuing her romantically. Both are depicted in the school yearbook photos of her.

Kenely, 27, now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she works as an occupational therapist in an assisted living facility.

Despite the evidence against him, thousands of social media users have come forward as Kohberger’s defenders, with many insisting he is innocent.

Two Facebook groups titled ‘Justice for Bryan Kohberger’ have been created.

Together they have more than 16,000 members.

A Facebook group shows a cover image featuring the quadruple murder suspect alongside Ronald Jones, a Chicago man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a mother of three. His conviction was overturned.

“There is something so magnetic about Bryan. If he really scared women, I don’t know why. If he was looking at me intently, I would have walked up to him,” a Reddit user who frequents Kohberger’s pages told Fox News.