One of the most disturbing things we learned about Bryan Kohberger after his arrest in the University of Idaho murder case? The fact he was a graduate student in criminology of all things.
It didn’t take a large leap to connect that interest to the murders. After all, the killings — as far as investigators can tell — were not driven by the usual motives. Kohberger was a stranger to the four students. Hell, he didn’t even go to the same school. The brutal slayings of Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin seem, like serial killings, to be more about the killer than the victim. Was the study of criminology because he always wanted to do this? To help him try to get away with it? Or just to be close to these kinds of cases?
It’s chilling to think about, right?
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Well, Kohberger’s interest in crime and law enforcement apparently goes WAY back. It turns out he actually got into a program during his high school years which, if it had gone differently, would have resulted in him becoming a cop! *shudder*
Former Monroe Career and Technical Institute administrator Tanya Carmella-Beers revealed Kohberger’s aspirations on the most recent episode of a podcast called The Idaho Massacre. She said she couldn’t say too much because of student privacy laws, but she felt comfortable saying the accused murderer did not get close to becoming an actual cop as part of the “protective services program”:
“It wasn’t gonna be an ending up in the police academy kind of thing for him. It was gonna be a little bit more of a challenge for him to get there.”
Speaking about the strange juxtaposition of law enforcement and committing such a crime, Tanya teased that it oddly “makes sense” to her:
“Ultimately what had him removed from the program, when I look back on it now, makes sense… the fact that he wanted law enforcement more than anything else in the world, if you look at it from just that perspective alone not knowing what I know… you’d be like, I’m so shocked. In that respect I am, but I know another little piece, which is the piece that occurred at the school… so that makes sense.”
Tanya explained that students were held to a very high moral standard, and anything that might get a real police officer fired would also mean removal from the program — and there was an incident.
“A complaint was made, and the teacher reported it to me, and said, ‘You know, this is not something we can have.’”
A complaint? Yep — by a group of female students. If you’ve followed Kohberger’s case you know that’s a recurring theme for him. He also had complaints from women as a grad student — leading him to be fired as a TA just before his arrest. Carmella-Beers continued:
“An investigation needed to be conducted. Other students were interviewed. Bryan was interviewed. And there comes a time when decisions have to be made, whether it’s the decision the student wants or not… I don’t think that maybe he necessarily grasped the depth and breadth of the issue at hand.”
She couldn’t go into too much detail, but whatever it was the girls were upset about caused Kohberger to be cut from the program. He studied air conditioning repair instead.
Innerestingly, Fox News reports that Kohberger used the protective services course on his resume when applying for a security guard job at nearby Mount Pleasant High School in Delaware — not mentioning, of course, getting kicked out.
[Image via 13WMAZ/YouTube/Maddie Mogen/Instagram.]
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