Inmate number 163214 is now settling into his new home inside Idaho’s maximum security prison.
But, according to a law enforcement source, it’s been far from smooth sailing.
The Daily Mail has learned Bryan Kohberger is being relentlessly tormented by his new jail-mates, who are shouting through the vents into his cell at all hours of the day.
It is rattling the criminology student turned quadruple killer so much that he has made complaints to prison guards about the inmates keeping him awake at night.
‘It’s driving him crazy. The inmates are tormenting him at night and almost all hours of the day – taunting him through the vents in his cell,’ Chris McDonough, a retired homicide detective who now works for the Cold Case Foundation, told the Daily Mail.
‘They are literally getting up into the grate and yelling at him. The inmates are taking it in turns doing it. It’s relentless.’
He added of Kohberger: ‘He’s extremely annoyed and frustrated. He’s complaining to the authorities that he can’t sleep because of them.’
Kohberger was sent to the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna after being sentenced to life in prison for the November 13, 2022, murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
Now, inside the state’s only maximum-security prison – home to the most notorious, dangerous inmates – Kohberger is being held in solitary confinement on J block’s restrictive housing unit.
This means he is locked inside his single-person cell for 23 hours a day with only one hour of outdoor recreation in what is known as ‘the cage’.
During the rare 60 minutes outside the cell, Kohberger is moved around wearing restraints. He is also only allowed to shower every other day.
An insider told McDonough that the inmates in the nearby cells have joined forces to work together to target the newest face on J block, taking it in turns to shout through the air conditioning and heating vents connecting the cells.
McDonough said it is unclear exactly what the inmates are saying to Kohberger but it is clear ‘they are not happy about his notoriety’.
‘What it tells us is that the inmates are not happy with him and he’s just started in the prison system,’ he said.
The infamy of Kohberger and his heinous crime makes him a target for other inmates, McDonough said.
‘Because he is serving four life sentences his threat assessment will be extremely high,’ he said.
‘There’s some inmates that would want nothing more than to hurt him just to make a name for themselves.’
Based on his 40-year law enforcement career, McDonough said it is unlikely prison staff will take much action to stop inmates tormenting Kohberger because, in solitary confinement, he is not in physical danger.
Over time, if prison officials deem it safe to do so, Kohberger could end up being moved to general population.
But, in the more than two years between his December 2022 arrest and sentencing, fellow inmates found Kohberger’s behavior inside prison ‘weird’.
Newly-released Moscow Police records reveal that one inmate told investigators Kohberger would spend hours on video calls with his mom MaryAnn while behind bars.
The inmate reported one incident when, during one of these calls, he had said ‘you suck’ at a sports player he was watching on TV.
The remark rattled Kohberger, causing him to respond aggressively, thinking the inmate was speaking about him or his mother, the records show.
He ‘immediately got up and put his face to the bars’ and asked if he was talking about him or his mom, the inmate told investigators.
Other than that incident, Kohberger came across as highly intelligent and polite behind bars, the inmate said.
But he also displayed unusual habits such as washing his hands ‘dozens of times a day,’ spending ’45 minutes to an hour in the shower’ and staying awake almost all night, only napping during the day.
During Kohberger’s sentencing in Ada County Courthouse in Boise on July 23, some of the victims’ families warned him what may await him behind bars.
Goncalves’s mom Kristi Goncalves told her 21-year-old daughter’s killer that she was disappointed he would not face the firing squad but that ‘hell will be waiting’ in prison.
‘You are officially the property of the state of Idaho, where your fellow inmates are anxiously awaiting your arrival,’ she said.
Goncalves’s younger sister Aubrie Goncalves also told him in a statement read by her mother: ‘You may have received A’s in high school and college, but you’re gonna be getting big D’s in prison.’
Judge Steven Hippler told Kohberger he would spend his dying days in prison, hitting him with four life sentences with no possibility of parole and 10 years on the burglary charge.
Under the terms of a controversial plea deal, Kohberger also waived his right to appeal.
On July 2, the 30-year-old killer pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary for breaking into an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in the early hours of November 13, 2022, and stabbing the four students to death.
Two other roommates – Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke – were also inside the home at the time but survived.
Prosecutors learned Kohberger took just 13 minutes to carry out his murderous rampage.
The net closed in on Kohberger after he left a brown leather Ka-Bar knife sheath behind at the scene.
DNA on the sheath came back a match to the criminology student, who was living just over the state border in Pullman, Washington, at the time.
Surveillance footage on nearby homes and businesses also captured his white Hyundai Elantra circling the home multiple times in the hour before the murders before speeding away from the scene.
Since his sentencing, a sweeping gag order has been lifted and new details are emerging about the case.
But Kohberger’s motive remains a mystery and who his target was that night remains a mystery.