Police have ‘no record’ of whether Bryan Kohberger was offered an internship position

Police had "no record" of Bryan Kohberger being given an internship position months before the Idaho killings.

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The Washington state police agency, which interviewed Bryan Kohberger for an internship months before the Idaho killings, had “no proof” that he was offered the job.

The Pullman Police Department received a public records request from The Independent earlier this year, requesting any papers related to Mr. Kohberger’s application for the research assistantship for the public safety post.

One of the main aims of the request was to find out if Mr. Kohberger had been given the job, as the department had previously refused to answer that question.

On Friday, a public records officer responded to the request with ten papers, but with a huge proviso.

“The Pullman Police Department does not have any record indicating whether or not Mr. Kohberger was selected for the internship job,” the officer said in an email.

Mr. Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of murder in the November 13 stabbings of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin in an off-campus rental residence in Moscow, Idaho.

He was detained in Pennsylvania on December 30 and is now being held in Idaho awaiting his preliminary hearing in June.

According to an arrest document, Mr. Kohberger sought for an internship with the Pullman Police Department, which has played an important role in the investigation of the murder.

Last month, emails between Mr. Kohberger and then-Pullman Police Department Chief Gary Jenkins revealed a brief discussion about the assistantship post, which Mr. Kohberger had applied for in April.

According to the records provided to The Independent last week, Mr. Kohberger was one of four applicants for the post.

On August 22, applicants were notified if they had been chosen for the position, which was intended to “assist [Pullman PD] via data management and analysis.”

Mr. Jenkins, who no longer works for the department, told The Independent on Monday that he had been asked not to speak on the situation.

Although there is no email trail on Mr. Kohberger’s employment offer or rejection by the department, the WSU Ph.D. criminology student wrote an email to Mr. Jenkins after a 45-minute online interview.

“It was a wonderful joy to meet with you today and share [his] views and excitement,” Mr. Kohberger wrote. Mr Jenkins said, “It was also lovely to meet and converse with you.”

The internship was previously noted by law enforcement in the arrest document for Mr. Kohberger, which was issued on January 5th. It added in an article that Mr Kohberger “had an interest in aiding rural law enforcement organizations with how to properly gather and evaluate technical data in public safety operations.”

Mr. Kohberger completed a study project “to explore how emotions and psychological qualities impact decision-making while committing a crime” around the same time he applied for the internship. He reached out to Redditors following his imprisonment on December 30th, with the terrifying poll emerging.

“This research tries to uncover the story behind your most recent criminal conduct, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” according to the article.


Mr. Kohberger applied to Pullman PD before beginning his first semester at WSU last autumn. As part of his graduate program, he worked as a teaching assistant in the criminology department in August.

It has recently revealed that within a month, he was already under investigation by the institution because of “behavioral difficulties” and a “sexist attitude towards women”, according to NewsNation.

The source got a thorough history of his troubles in the department, which revealed that Mr Kohberger was cautioned about his behavior many times and was summoned to several meetings with academics owing to their worries.

His attitude towards women was noted as a prominent worry, with the criminal justice student reportedly being “rude to women”, evaluating the women that he taught differently than the men, and having a “sexist attitude towards females he interacted with at the institution”.

Mr. Kohberger allegedly got into many fights with one of the instructors, Professor John Snyder, during his brief four-month stay as a teaching assistant.

Mr. Kohberger was sacked from his WSU teaching position on December 19, just eleven days before his arrest, according to NewsNation.

The defendant, who is now facing the death sentence for four counts of murder, was linked to the killings by DNA recovered on a knife sheath left at the scene, telephone data, and surveillance video of what authorities think is his white Hyundai Elantra leaving the site after the killings.

After meeting the killer in the aftermath of the killings, one of the victims’ surviving roommates was able to partially describe him to detectives.

Police in Washington issued search warrants for Mr. Kohberger’s apartment in Pullman and his workplace at Washington State University in January (WSU).

The searches took place on the same day he was apprehended by authorities in Pennsylvania. Investigators collected a number of things from his residence, including suspected human and animal hair strands, a disposable glove, objects with red and brown stains, and a computer, according to the released records.

The murder weapon, a fixed-sharp-blade knife, was not found throughout the searches and the location is still unknown.

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