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By Danya Gainor, CNN
(CNN) — In the days and weeks after Bryan Kohberger was arrested in connection with the brutal killings of four undergrads at the University of Idaho, students and instructors at nearby Washington State University told investigators the suspect seemed creepy and intense, with one predicting Kohberger could become the type of professor that harassed and stalked students, according to a trove of newly released documents.
Kohberger pleaded guilty to the killings in July and has been sentenced life in prison without parole.
One student who was in a class with Kohberger in the fall of 2022, when he worked on his PhD in criminology, told police he would act aggressively, staring at his classmates when he wasn’t dominating group discussions.
In a December 2022 interview conducted on the day of Kohberger’s arrest at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, the student said the class often sat through his hours-long verbal sparring with professors as he tried to come across as the “strongest, smartest, most important person in the room,” according to the records.
The student described having a “bad feeling” about Kohberger from the moment they met at orientation in the fall of 2022, months before the November 13 murders of Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen.
Over the distressing semester that followed, she told investigators, Kohberger would trail her after class, block her path when she tried to leave conversations and stare with such intensity that she kept a tally of the encounters.
Her account is one of many in the latest release of investigative files from the Idaho State Police around the murders, where classmates, professors and other university staff describe alarming interactions with Kohberger to police before he was apprehended.
The accounts, scattered across classrooms, offices and hangout spots, carried the same refrain: Kohberger’s presence often set people on edge. They captured the reflex in his peers to become shields for one another against a man who would soon be accused of murder.
He was known to ‘aggressively’ stare at women, peers said
Kohberger appeared to be well known on campus for his silent, unblinking stares, which several of his colleagues described as his attempt to assert “dominance.”
One WSU faculty member described Kohberger’s “keen interest” in her fall 2022 undergraduate assistant, whom he watched fiercely.
She said Kohberger would stand at the assistant’s desk, even directly behind her at times, looking over her shoulder as she worked. Another professor was asked to escort the assistant to her car after work because of Kohberger’s behavior, according to the documents.
One student said whenever she looked up, Kohberger, who was a teaching assistant in her class, was “always” staring, according to the records. He rarely spoke to students, she told police. She felt he would time his exit to leave when she did and then follow her to her car.
The graduate student who met Kohberger during orientation said she caught him “aggressively” staring at her as many as nine times in one class and said she was also followed after class.
“Kohberger always seems to want to be in the general area of her and others in the program that did not want to have anything to do with him,” the student told police, according to the documents.
CNN has reached out to WSU for comment.
Kohberger confronted peers, blocked exits, documents say
Professors and faculty were troubled by Kohberger’s behavior, according to the documents, and had fielded several complaints from students and colleagues.
Multiple WSU staff members told police that faculty met before Christmas 2022, days before Kohberger’s arrest, to discuss each of their students, but discussions about Kohberger dominated because he was “highly problematic.”
The files show that faculty swapped stories about Kohberger and debated pulling his funding and TA position, citing unnerving classroom conduct.
“Mark my word, I work with predators, if we give him a PhD, that’s the guy that in many years when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing … his students,” one of Kohberger’s teachers told her colleagues during the meeting, according to the documents.
One professor said Kohberger tried to keep him from leaving his office, an act he described as “power tripping,” according to the files.
Kohberger would show up late in the day and keep talking as the professor tried to go home. When the professor pushed back, Kohberger called him ‘snarky,’ the documents said. Kohberger then refused to leave when the professor asked, following him down the hall when the professor decided to walk away.
“Preventing him from leaving his office was a way of controlling,” the documents said.
Students described to police how Kohberger stood close enough to trap them at their desks.
In an office used by female students, one of his professors said Kohberger would position himself in the doorway, physically blocking it until she stepped in, “allowing the female students to leave.”
Peers shielded each other from Kohberger
In several separate interviews, students and professors described stepping between Kohberger and others – intercepting him in hallways and inserting themselves in conversations for others’ security.
One WSU faculty member said her “maternal instinct” wouldn’t allow her to leave a female student alone in an office on campus with Kohberger, so she kept herself busy until he left. She didn’t say any specific behavior of his prompted her to feel this way, the documents said.
When he left, she told the student to email her with the subject line “911” if she ever needed help.
In August 2022, a University of Idaho student said she met Kohberger in an apartment lobby and pointed him toward a pool party. She said she became uncomfortable with his staring and awkward conversation.
During the party, “Kohberger made very direct eye contact with her and made a bee line towards her” and a friend “got up to intercept him” after realizing the student was uncomfortable, according to documents.
In another instance, a male worker at a bookstore on WSU’s campus described acting “as a buffer” between his female coworker and Kohberger as he frequented the store, the documents show. The man believed Kohberger “was attempting to flirt” with the woman “and was absolutely zeroing in on her.”
The man started “telling Kohberger she was on the phone when he would come in so she wouldn’t have to interact with him,” according to the documents.
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CNN’s Jean Casarez, Lauren del Valle, Dakin Andone, Andy Rose, Nicquel Terry Ellis and Nicki Brown contributed to this report.
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