Idaho prison officials say they have no plans to transfer quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger despite reports that his many complaints behind bars had authorities sick of him enough to “aggressively” seek an out-of-state alternative.
“The Idaho Department of Correction is not aware of the source of this information and is not considering a move for Bryan Kohberger,” spokesman Ryan Mortensen told Fox News Digital Thursday.
While convicted serial killer Keith Jespersen has for months suggested Kohberger should seek a transfer to the Oregon State Penitentiary, where he is being held himself, reports that prison officials were actually considering such a move surfaced in the Daily Mail Wednesday, citing Chris McDonough, the director of the Cold Case Foundation and a retired detective.
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Contacted by Fox News Digital, McDonough stood by the report, saying he had “solid” information from a prison insider and that the move could take place in about a month.
“I’ll put $2 million on it,” he told Fox News Digital. “We’ll see in a couple of weeks.”
Kohberger, now 31, has repeatedly complained about prison conditions — about issues ranging from a lack of vegan food options and brown bananas to constant harassment from fellow inmates.
“One could argue that Kohberger would have been safer on Death Row,” Jespersen, known as the “Happy Face Killer,” told Fox News Digital in July. “That way he will be out of harm’s way from the general population in Idaho’s prison system.”
Kohberger is currently being held in a special wing known as J Block, where he is separated from other inmates.
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“J Block is a unit that can house up to 128 individuals and includes populations in general population protective custody, long-term restrictive housing, and death row,” corrections officials previously told Fox News Digital.
He is serving four consecutive life sentences plus another 10 years with no chance of parole at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna.
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He pleaded guilty last year to the murders of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
Kohberger stabbed all four of them to death in a home invasion ambush around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022. He killed three of them in their sleep, and only Kernodle showed signs of having fought back, according to unsealed documents from the investigation.
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Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, about 20 miles from the victims’ home. In a pitch proposal released last year after his conviction, he told professors he wanted to focus on his research on sexual burglary.
While there, classmates and undergrad students filed numerous complaints about his behavior, with several women saying they were uncomfortable being around him. One professor even warned her colleagues that he would become a predator.
“Mark my words, 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,” a WSU faculty member told colleagues well before Kohberger was identified as a suspect in the Idaho student murders, according to court documents.
More than a month after the murders, Kohberger took a cross-country drive home to Pennsylvania with his dad riding shotgun in the suspect vehicle. Police arrested him on Dec. 30, 2022.
