Idaho quadruple ‘killer’s’ criminology professor reveals he was ‘a brilliant student’

Bryan Kohberger, a former college professor for the accused quadruple murder suspect, told DailyMail.com that he was among the smartest students he ever had.

In an exclusive interview, DeSales University professor Michelle Bolger said she is absolutely shocked after hearing what her former student was accused of.

“He’s a brilliant student,” he told DailyMail.com exclusively from his home in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania.

“I am in shock at what he has been accused of. I don’t think so, but I get it,” she said.

Kohberger is currently in jail awaiting extradition to Idaho, where he has been charged with the murders of students Kailee Golcalves, 21, Maddie Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

All four were stabbed to death in their beds in the early morning of November 13.

Police had been searching for the killer for seven weeks amid mounting criticism that they were getting nowhere. But on Friday, Kohberger was finally arrested at his parents’ home in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, 2,500 miles from the crime scene.

His white Hyundai Elantra was confiscated. That model was seen near the murder house in Moscow, Idaho, the night of the murders, and the police had considered it their best lead in their search for the killer.

Bolger, 33, who has been an adjunct professor at DeSales for the past eight years, said she taught Kohberger, 28, in an online class last year and helped him with his master’s thesis project.

“He was an online student in the criminal justice master’s program and graduated in June 2022,” Bolger said.

DeSales is a small private Catholic university in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, about 60 miles north of Philadelphia.

US News and World Report ranks the DeSales online criminal justice program #27 in the country.

The program has a simulated crime scene house where it “gives our students hands-on experience investigating criminal activity,” said Joe Walsh, Instructor of Computer Science and Criminal Justice and Director of the Master of Arts Criminal Justice ( MACJ) Program.

The total cost of the 30-hour master’s program is approximately $24,000.

Bolger said he never met Kohberger in person, but knew him from his work online.

“I never saw him in person, I couldn’t tell you how tall he was or how much he weighed, my only interaction with him was via email and Zoom,” Bolger told DailyMail.com. ‘I didn’t know anything about him, if he was married, had a girlfriend, etc.’

But she said she never saw a “dark side” in the 27-year-old graduate student. ‘This news is disturbing; I haven’t slept at all since I heard about Bryan.

‘Him’ seemed normal to me, but then again, I only knew him from teaching him online. I didn’t know anything personal about him. I think he worked full time, as do most of our graduate students.

She said she only taught him one class, but called him a “great writer and a “brilliant student.”

“He was always perfectly professional when I had any interaction with him. In my 10 years of teaching, I have only recommended two students for a PhD program and he was one of them. He was one of my best students, ever. Everyone is in shock over this.

He said he believed Kohberger wanted to pursue an academic career after graduating from Washington State University.

Bolger says that she was one of his professors who helped him with his proposal for a graduate thesis that included what many have called an unusual research questionnaire.

‘I was one of the professors who helped Bryan with his graduate thesis proposal, his capstone project. He issued a routine questionnaire for his thesis. It looks weird, I get it from the public eye. But in criminology it is normal.

‘It’s a criminological theory called script theory, it’s a normal theory about how and why criminals commit their crime, etc.’

Bolger said that Bryan didn’t even end up using any of the data he got from the questionnaire, “you won’t find it anywhere.”

Instead, he said, because his time was running out, “his graduate thesis was information-based narrative.”

Then she said that she went on maternity leave and another teacher took her place; she never had any professional interaction with him after that.

Kohberger is currently being held at the Monroe County Jail in Stroudsberg, Pennsylvania. He is due in court on Tuesday.

His attorney, top public defender Jason LaBar, has said he will not fight the extradition because he is eager to be exonerated in Idaho.

‘Mr. Kohberger has been accused of very serious crimes, but the American justice system covers him with a veil of innocence, LaBar said in a statement.

“You must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, not be tried in the court of public opinion.”

After leaving DeSales in 2022, Kohberger enrolled as a graduate student in Washington state at Pullman, just 15 miles across the state line from Moscow.

WSU’s online directory shows that she worked as a teaching assistant for the university’s criminology and criminal justice program. She was also a PhD student in the department.

Ben Roberts, a criminology student, told the Fox affiliate that Kohberger was “confident” and “outgoing” but still seemed like he was “always looking for a way to fit in.”

Speaking about the horrific allegations against Kohberger, Roberts said: ‘It’s pretty much off the mark. Honestly, he had been pegged as super clumsy.

Roberts began studying at WSU in August at the same time as Kohberger.

“One thing he always did, almost without fail, was find the most complicated way to explain something,” he said.

BK Norton, a student in the WSU Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said Friday they didn’t know Kohberger well, but they didn’t like him.

“We interacted in class, but personally I was not a fan of Bryan because of the comments he had made about LGBTQ+ people,” they said in an email to The Associated Press.