Bryan Kohberger, the criminology student arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary connected to the quadruple slaying of four University of Idaho students, may be signaling an intent to plead not guilty. Kohberger is currently represented by public defender Jason LaBar in Pennsylvania, who is handling the extradition order. LaBar told CNN that “Mr. Kohberger is eager to be exonerated of these charges and looks forward to resolving these matters as promptly as possible,” he said, forecasting that Kohberger intends to plead not guilty.
Moscow police have been unable to disclose what evidence they have against Kohberger that led to the arrest due to pre-trial rules in Idaho that restrict what information they can release to the public. Kohberger, however, does not intend to fight extradition, which will speed up the process of releasing the arrest and charging documents to the public.
LaBar revealed more details about Kohberger’s trip from Idaho to Pennsylvania, saying he left Idaho on Dec. 17 with his father, who met him in Idaho for the long drive home to Pennsylvania for Christmas break. The media frenzy has begun in earnest, and every person who has ever been in contact with Kohberger is being plied for interviews by reporters looking for any angle that will get those coveted clicks.
Related: Was Idaho Quadruple Murder Suspect Nabbed by DNA from Open Source Databank?
Reporters at the New York Times turned to Kohberger’s criminology classmates at Washington State University, who said that when the class discussed the murders, he was unusually quiet and didn’t participate in the discussions.
“We had quite a long conversation in class about it too. I don’t believe I remember him commenting about it at all,” classmate B.K. Norton told the New York Times.
Norton, a lesbian, weirdly accused Kohberger of making “anti-LGBTQ” comments but did not tell the reporters what those comments were. Her accusation was repeated in many news publications that lifted her quotes from the Times. At least one other student, who did not want to be named, backed up Norton’s account but didn’t elaborate on the actual comments, though they said the incident “somewhat isolated” Kohberger from other students and he had trouble making friends after that. Was Kohberger canceled by his classmates for wrongthink? Why didn’t the reporters who interviewed Kohberger’s classmates nail down what the “offensive” comments were?
Instead, they chose to leave that part of this story undisclosed and open to the interpretation of the reader to imagine some dastardly insult, when history proves that LGBTQ activists are so easily offended that the things one can’t say change almost hourly. Pardon my skepticism, but anyone crying “anti-LGBTQ” in the year 2022 needs serious vetting.
PJ Media contacted Norton and asked what was said and why other reporters hadn’t asked for details. Norton responded, “They asked but I was not comfortable elaborating.” When I pressed her for the statements she heard Kohberger make, she accused me of harassing her and deleted her public post. “Why would I tell some random person harassing me on my personal Facebook account,” she wrote. Norton’s Facebook account was open to the public at the time and I posted my question on a post of hers about the crimes. “Also, I’m not the only one who told the papers that,” she wrote. Norton is the only named classmate who told the NYT about “anti-LGBTQ” statements. The second classmate commented anonymously but also did not disclose the alleged statements.
And now she's removed the entire post after accusing me of "harassing" her for asking for details. pic.twitter.com/X0gOeW5uPc
— Megan Fox (@MeganFoxWriter) December 31, 2022
What’s revealing about this exchange is that reporters at the New York Times allowed someone they were interviewing not to answer an important question due to being “uncomfortable.” Why didn’t they simply say, if you can’t tell us what he said, we can’t report this? It’s amateur hour at the Times though, apparently, because they did report this student’s unverified accusation and because of it, there is now a narrative building that is painting Kohberger as a bigot.
This is the type of accusation that should never be printed without verification. The “anti-LGBTQ” statements could have been an argument about “hate crimes,” a highly controversial subject, during a criminology class, for all we know. It’s a sad indictment of journalism today that several reporters were fine with printing an unverified accusation that will smear an accused man without any evidence. Maybe it is true, but no one bothered to find out and the only alleged witnesses wouldn’t disclose any details. The question should be asked why the reporters, Rachel Sun, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, and Serge F. Kovaleski, chose to add such a vague accusation that only serves to cast Kohberger, who has the presumption of innocence, in a negative light.
PJ Media reached out to Rachel Sun, who is on Twitter, to ask why this was printed, and she blamed it on her co-authors. “This is a shared byline article and I did not personally interview the student you are talking about,” she wrote. “I can’t speak for the other reporters or editors other than to say I trust the judgement of the ones I’ve worked with.”
Hi! This is a shared byline article and I did not personally interview the student you're talking about. I can't speak for other reporters or editors other than to say I trust the judgement of the ones I've worked with.
— Rachel Sun (@Rachel_M_Sun) December 31, 2022
PJ Media reached out to her co-authors but did not hear back from them at the time of publishing. If they do respond, we will update this article with their comments.
Related: [UPDATE] LIVE Coverage of Police Press Conference on Arrest in Idaho College Murders
Other reporters got more useful information out of classmates that did not appear to be tainted by politics.
Ben Roberts, another classmate, told the Seattle Times that Kohberger seemed unusually tired. “He was starting to show up really tired,” Roberts said. “He’d always have a cup of coffee in his hand, and he kind of looked like he was riding the knife edge between worn out and completely exhausted.”
Fox News spoke with classmate Sarah Healey who went to high school with Kohberger and described him as a socially awkward kid who didn’t understand social cues and often offended people without knowing it. She also said that he was treated poorly by female students.
“It wasn’t meant to be offensive,” she said. “It was like childlike curiosity from an adult, who you would think would know better than to ask a question, but it was such a genuine curiosity. And that’s why I thought he was so sheltered, that he just had no idea about these things. And I really just don’t think he knew better.”
Those comments were echoed by a classmate at Washington State’s criminology and criminal justice graduate program.
“I had honestly just pegged him as being super-awkward,” Ben Roberts told The Tribune Democrat. Roberts, said that he took several courses with Kohberger, who sought to be seen as intellectual and “was always looking for a way to fit in.”
Kohberger has the presumption of innocence, and the burden to prove the charges rests on the state. As the media goes into epileptic fits of irresponsible glee and tries to convict him in the court of public opinion with unverified claims like the alleged “anti-LGBTQ” accusation that seems to be formulated for the sole purpose of finding fault with him, PJ Media will look for verifiable information and bring you sourced and factual evidence as it is released.
It is good to remember our system of justice should not rely on hearsay and rumor but on evidence that is admissible in court. We all hope the Moscow police did a careful and by-the-book investigation and that their diligence will bring the killer to justice. Until the evidence is presented, however, it’s anybody’s guess if the police got the right man, and Kohberger deserves a fair trial not tainted by the media’s insatiable desire to smear the right by any means necessary, including their favorite means: unverified, vague accusations.
If any of Kohberger’s classmates who heard the alleged comments want to reach out and give exact details, we are happy to report verified information. Email me at [email protected].
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