The Associated Press first reported Monday that the Washington State University faculty member had urged other staff to cut off the funding Kohberger, now 30, was receiving for his Ph.D. program.
“He is smart enough that in four years we will have to give him a Ph.D.,” the professor told colleagues, according to the AP, which cited a 550-page police report published by Idaho State Police last week.
“Mark my word, I work with predators, if we give him a Ph.D., that’s the guy that in that many years when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing … his students at wherever university,” the professor’s warning continued, according to the documents, which were also reviewed by PEOPLE.
Kohberger’s fellow grad students also shared reservations and concerns about his behavior, which they described to police as sexist and creepy during a number of police interviews after Kohberger was arrested in connection with the murder of four University of Idaho students in November 2022.
“Based on how he talks to women and treats women, people in the department thought he was a possible future rapist,” the Idaho State Police report says, though no one suspected him of committing the Moscow murders.
One faculty member told police Kohberger “was aggressive towards women and made them feel uncomfortable,” adding that “the faculty discussed how they could intervene” with his behavior.
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A student also told police “she had never met anyone who acted in such a condescending manner and wondered why people in power in the department did not address his behavior,” adding that “the way he spoke to females in the department was unsettling to them.”
Idaho State Police reported that some instructors even kept a tally on a white board in their offices to count “the number of times when Kohberger was late to class when female instructors were presenting or when he would cut off a female when she was speaking.”
“In reference to the Moscow homicides, he would say that it was horrible,” the police report, based on the interviews with fellow students and Washington State faculty, said. “In discussing whether the murderer would be caught, he said maybe it was a one and done type thing.”
Kohberger pleaded guilty to the murders of four University of Idaho students last month: Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without parole in late July.
