(NewsNation) — A police official in Washington state who rejected Bryan Kohberger for an internship in 2022 learned months later the failed candidate was suspected of killing four University of Idaho students.
“The name sounded familiar,” says Gary Jenkins, former chief of the Pullman Police Department, who recalled needing a few seconds to make the connection. “The hair on the back of my neck stood up, knowing that I had interviewed him. Had I selected him, he would have been embedded with the Pullman Police Department.
“To know that, here he was — the prime suspect in this quadruple homicide — was chilling.”
Bryan Kohberger interviewed at Pullman police force
Jenkins, the chief of police at Washington State University, spoke with NewsNation’s “Banfield” on Friday to explain how his paths crossed with Kohberger, now that the judge overseeing the murder case has lifted a gag order. It has previously been reported that Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at WSU, sought an internship with Jenkins’ former department in the city of Pullman.
Jenkins shared details of his interview with Kohberger, which he says took place over Zoom, with the grad student in his home state of Pennsylvania. He said the 30-minute meeting established Kohberger would be a bad fit for the internship because he “was not particularly personable.”
Kohberger, a former graduate student in criminal justice at Washington State University, faces murder charges for the deaths of Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Ethan Chapin, who were killed at an off-campus house near the University of Idaho on Nov. 13, 2022. He had pleaded not guilty. 
Bryan Kohberger, charged in the murders of four University of Idaho students, appears at the Ada County Courthouse, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Boise, Idaho. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool) 
Bryan Kohberger, charged in the murders of four University of Idaho students, appears at the Ada County Courthouse on July 2, 2025, in Boise, Idaho. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool)
“He did not speak in a fluid or conversational manner, and so I just felt like he would not be able to establish that trust and rapport needed to be an effective researcher in the police department,” Jenkins said.
And that was that — until, months later, Jenkins was invited to attend what he thought was a routine briefing in nearby Moscow, Idaho, about the recent killings of four University of Idaho students that consumed the region in late 2022. Jenkins said local police informed him that crime-scene DNA evidence pointed to a WSU student, Kohberger, as the killer of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.
Once he remembered his connection with the suspect, Jenkins said, “I told them I had his resume, I had a cover letter that I could share with them. They asked me to keep that information to myself for the moment and not even let my own department know that he had been identified.”
Bryan Kohberger takes guilty plea
Kohberger was arrested in December 2022.
Kohberger pleaded guilty to murder and burglary charges earlier this month, under a deal that spares him the death penalty in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of parole. His formal sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday.
For Jenkins’ part, he’s thankful he didn’t select Kohberger for the police internship three years ago.
“One of the best decisions I’ve ever made, I think,” he said.