Bryan Kohberger's student claims he became lax while grading papers, grew facial hair after Idaho murders
MOSCOW, IDAHO: New information has come to light about the behavior of the PhD student who has been accused of killing University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, in cold blood while they slept. After being apprehended on December 30, 2022, in Pennsylvania, thousands of miles from the scene of the crime, Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, has now been charged with four counts of first-degree murder. He has a court hearing scheduled for January 3, 2023.
Kohberger was a graduate student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University. The criminal justice PhD candidate had already completed his first semester at the beginning of December. Kohberger's demeanor in class and how his behavior changed after the Idaho killings is now being discussed by a Washington State University student who had Kohberger as a TA in his criminology class.
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"It was just like, totally jarring, totally shocking to realize that this person who had been grading my papers was allegedly this horrible murderer," Hayden Stinchfield said, according to 6 ABC. Although he only had encounters with Kohberger in the lecture hall, he described him as having a "pretty strict" grading policy. "He'd be grading you on what he ended up calling a 'higher standard,'" Stinchfield said, adding, "But what it really felt like to us was he was grading us like he would have graded himself as a PhD student. We were all annoyed by him."
In fact, according to Stinchfield, his lecturer allowed the students to get a "courtroom experience" for better grades at one point during the semester. "He brought in Bryan, and he was like, 'alright, go at him,'" Stinchfield said. "And he had Bryan stand up. And a few people were on his side because they wanted to keep their high grades... but for the most part, it was like half of a 150-person class just asking these real critical questions."
"It wasn't like yelling or anything, but it was certainly conflict," Stinchfield added. About a month before winter break when the killings happened, Stinchfield claimed his grading practices abruptly changed. "Around then, he started grading everybody just 100s," he said, adding, "Pretty much if you turned something in, you were getting high marks and he stopped leaving notes."
After the killings, Stinchfield stated he appeared less "well-kept" and had grown out his facial hair. He also described his conduct as being "preoccupied." "The previous mental preoccupation that we had been noticing, where it was like he didn't really want to be there, that was at an all-time high," Stinchfield said, adding, "He just didn't look like he was doing great."