1/17/23
Bryan Kohberger told a fellow Washington State University graduate student living in the same on-campus housing complex that he submitted his DNA for consumer genetic testing to explore his ancestry, the neighbor told the Idaho Statesman. Kohberger, 28, was a Ph.D. student in WSU’s criminal justice and criminology department.
He now stands charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in the killing of four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13.
Kohberger’s neighbor said the two became acquainted while crossing paths on the residential property a handful of times after they each moved there in August. The WSU Ph.D. student lives across from the apartment where Kohberger resided until recently, and he said the two traded cellphone numbers.
In their longest interaction, on the first Friday night of the fall semester, they spent about an hour chatting, the man said. The Statesman agreed to grant him anonymity over privacy concerns to publish his account of his exchanges with Kohberger, including that conversation — months before Kohberger was arrested.
That August evening, the two grad students ran into each other in the large housing complex’s parking lot next to their buildings, the man said during an interview at his apartment. Kohberger then asked him if he wanted to walk and talk, he said, and the two got to know each other a little while taking laps around the asphalt parking area.
During their discussion, Kohberger asked his neighbor, who is not from the U.S., whether he could identify Kohberger’s ancestral background, the man said. The neighbor said he guessed Italy before Kohberger stated that he was of German descent. “He talked about his ancestors,” the 30-year-old neighbor said. “He had some sort of DNA test. I don’t know how he got to that point. … It was just interesting to him.”
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Read more at:
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article271252642.html#storylink=cpy