Bryan Kohberger Met With Police Chief Prior to University of Idaho Murders

Bryan Kohberger
FB, Latah County

Bryan Kohberger applied for a three-year position with the Pullman Police Department.

Bryan Kohberger met with a local police chief for a job interview months before being arrested and charged with the murders of four University of Idaho students.

“It was a great pleasure to meet with you today and share my thoughts and excitement regarding the research assistantship for public safety,” wrote Kohberger a few hours after the men met on April 12 in an email obtained by Inside Edition Digital. 

“Great to meet and talk to you as well,” responded Gary Jenkins, the chief of police for the Pullman Police Department. 

Kohberger had meet with Jenkins in hopes of getting one of two 3-year Graduate Research Assistantships offered by Washington State University. “The purpose of these positions is to support each agency through data management and analysis, and to position them for success when they seek external funding,” reads a job description posted by WSU. 

BRYAN KOHBERGER E-MAIL WITH POLICE CHIEF

It is unclear if Kohberger got the position, and the Pullman Police Department did not respond to requests for comment. 

The New York Times first reported on these emails.

It is unclear if this is the same position referenced in the probable case affidavit filed in the case, which claims that "Kohberger wrote an essay when he applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall of 2022." In that essay Kohberger wrote "he had interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations."

Jenkins would go on to accept a job as campus chief of police at WSU, where Kohberger was enrolled as a PhD student in the criminology program. 

That is the same police force that helped locate the suspect vehicle and carried out the search of Kohberger’s on-campus apartment and the office he shared with two other teaching assistants in the hours after his December arrest at his family home in Pennsylvania. 

That search turned up one nitrate-type black glove, one Walmart receipt with one Dickies tag, two Marshall’s receipts, a dust container from a “Bissell Power Force” vacuum, eight possible hair strands, one “Fire TV” stick with cord/plug, one possible animal hair strand, three possible hairs, one computer tower, one collection of dark spot that was collected without testing, two cuttings from an uncased pillow that had a reddish-brown stain and two top and bottom of mattress cover packaged separately, both labeled, multiple stains.

That evidence is now being tested to see if it links Kohberger to any of the four University of Idaho students who were brutally murdered on Nov. 13.

Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.

He is also charged with a single count of burglary. 

Kohberger is currently being held without bail at the Latah County Detention Denter ahead of a preliminary hearing in June, which is expected to last a week. 

His previous public defender has said that Kohberger maintains his innocence.

 

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