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The Idaho murder suspect used to be tormented at school and was a self-destructive overweight heroin addict in the years before the gruesome murders, according to his former classmates.
Bryan Kohberger, 28, was bullied and lost 100 pounds in his senior year of high school before taking hard drugs, two of his former friends have revealed.
PhD student Kohberger is currently charged with the quadruple murders of Idaho students Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, who were found dead in a college house on November 13.
Details about the suspect’s past are now coming to light, including that he was an “isolated” person who used his criminology studies to “try to understand humans and to understand himself.”
Kohberger ‘stalked’ the home of his four victims on twelve occasions before killing them, the evidence seems to suggest
Casey Arntz, who was friends with Kohberger, has revealed what she was like at school
Kohberger lost 100 pounds in high school and was previously bullied, according to his former friends.
Two of her high school friends, Casey Arntz and Bree, who asked that their last names not be kept private, said Kohberger was overweight and was bullied at school.
The alleged Idaho killer lost nearly 100 pounds in his senior year after being the butt of pranks by his classmates, which is when people noticed a change in him.
Arntz said CBS’s 48 Hours: He was skinny as lightning. It was after that weight loss that many people noticed a big change.’
After losing weight, it was Kohberger who began bullying Arntz’s brother, choking him and becoming physically aggressive towards him.
Bree said the ‘self-destructive’ Kohberger also started using heroin. She added: ‘You’ve just seen him become more self-destructive. He really remained isolated.
In the years after high school, the suspect seemed to be getting his life back on track, telling Bree that he was “going to be better.”
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.
Bree (pictured) said the ‘self-destructive’ Kohberger also started using heroin. She added: ‘You’ve just seen him become more self-destructive. He really kept himself isolated’
She revealed: ‘He was telling me that he wanted to be sober, that he was getting sober. And he wanted to tell me: ‘I’m going to do better’. I’ll be better”.
Both women last saw Kohberger at a friend’s wedding in 2017, where they said she looked “fine” and seemed to have a new lease on life.
Arntz said: ‘I gave him a hug and said: ‘You look so good. I am so proud of you.”
And Bree said of her new focus on her criminology studies: ‘Her goal was just to change the world around her for the better. She wanted to do something that would impact people in a good way.
“People were not his forte. he added: “And I think through his criminology studies, he was really trying to understand humans and trying to understand himself.”
The suspect is believed to have driven about 2,300 miles from Moscow to Pennsylvania. He was attending college in nearby Washington state.
Bryan Kohberger, accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November, smiles in court on January 5, 2022 after being denied bail
Speaking about Kohberger allegedly being the Idaho killer, Arntz said, “Honestly, I think he did it because he wants to see if he can get away with it.” Where did it go wrong? What happened…why didn’t I see it?’
Damning evidence from an affidavit just unsealed this week showed how police were able to link Kohberger to the crime scene, after he allegedly “stalked” the college house twelve times prior to the murders and also returned to the scene of the murder. crime five hours later.
Kohberger lived eight miles from the crime scene in Moscow, Idaho, and was driving the white Hyundai Elantra that police were looking to track.
And with the help of genetic genealogy, cell phone data, CCTV footage, and evidence left behind at the crime scene, they were able to hunt down the suspect and charge him with the quadruple murder.
The affidavit recounts the moments when Moscow police officer Brett Payne entered the house on Kings Street and found the four university students brutally stabbed to death.
If convicted, Kohberger faces the death penalty for the murders of Idaho students Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20, and their best friends Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21.
Kohberger was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police at a home in Albrightsville, a small town in the heart of the Poconos Mountains on December 30, more than 2,000 miles from where the gruesome murders occurred.
After the November 13 murders, Kohberger and her father, Michael, drove 2,500 miles in a white Hyundai Elantra from Idaho to Pennsylvania.
On November 29, police obtained surveillance footage from the parking lot of Kohberger’s apartment building, about 10 miles from the crime scene, in Pullman, Washington state.
Kohberger now faces the death penalty if convicted or admits to killing the four students.
Moscow police officers visited the parking lot to obtain a license plate for the vehicle, as it matched the description of the car they saw on footage the night the students were killed.
They did a search and found multiple incidents where the car and its owner, Bryan Kohberger, had been pulled over multiple times in the past.
Under Kohberger’s name, police zeroed in on him and reviewed historical surveillance camera footage, along with phone records, dating back several months.
Then, following his initial suspicions, Kohberger was pulled over twice while passing through Indiana on December 15, once for speeding and once for following too closely.
Cell phone tower data also appeared to link him to the crime scene, as well as a single male DNA left on a knife sheath along with two of the victims killed at the home in Moscow, Idaho.