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Pullman, Washington

J ournalist Evan Ellis is live on air that Friday when he sees a text from Chief Fry:

There are many press conferences held by the Moscow PD these days, so Ellis doesn’t pay much attention. This was a mistake, he later realizes, because the chief had never given him a heads-up about any of those.

Ellis is still on air when the news breaks in Pennsylvania. It’s a leak: Agents there have arrested Bryan Kohberger, a WSU criminology PhD student.

Oh, shit, Ellis thinks, experiencing a rare feeling of shock.

The murderer had been walking among them.

He needs to report. If Kohberger was at WSU, he’s been living in Pullman. And if he’s been living in Pullman, the Moscow team is going to be raiding his apartment right around now.

Ellis phones a source in law enforcement and asks where in the area he might “bump into” out-of-state authorities executing a search warrant.

The source tells him, “I’d go to the Steptoe Village Apartments.”

Ellis arrives just as the raid is getting started and records it for his Facebook page.

But even as he clocks the scene in front of him, his mind is racing to what comes next.

Based on his experience, he fears that the administration at WSU, his alma mater, will go into communications lockdown.

“My wife works there and she shows me some of the crap that WSU sends out [internally], which is: ‘Do not say anything. Do not talk to anybody… This is not happening. You’re not talking.’ And of course, they can’t prevent people [from doing] it, but they’re extremely vindictive up there and everybody is scared. ”

Ellis and the WSU vice president of marketing and communications, Phil Weiler, have long had a contentious relationship. “I fight with WSU on a weekly basis,” he said, “about hiding information and shutting out the taxpayers… It’s completely disgusting and sad, but WSU has been doing it for years.”

Today is no different, he thinks. In fact, it’s worse. Evan phones Weiler. He texts him. He emails. Nothing.

At noon, the school issues a statement.

Law enforcement officials in Pennsylvania have arrested Bryan Christopher Kohberger, a Washington State University graduate student, in connection with a quadruple homicide that took place in Moscow, ID in November.

“On behalf of the WSU Pullman community, I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of the law enforcement agencies that have been working tirelessly to solve this crime,” said Elizabeth Chilton, chancellor of the WSU Pullman campus and WSU provost. “This horrific act has shaken everyone in the Palouse region.

“We also want to extend our deepest sympathies to the families, friends, and Vandal colleagues who were impacted by these murders,” Chilton said. “We will long feel the loss of these young people in the Moscow-Pullman community and hope the announcement today will be a step toward healing.”

This morning, the Washington State University Police Department assisted Idaho law enforcement officials in the execution of search warrants at Mr. Kohberger’s apartment and office, which are both located on the WSU Pullman campus.

WSU Police are working closely with local, state, and federal law enforcement officials as they continue their investigation.

Kohberger had completed his first semester as a PhD student in WSU’s criminal justice program earlier this month.

Ellis thinks this isn’t good enough.

Where is the transparency? Accountability for hiring Kohberger? Any apology?

He posts a Facebook video that afternoon in which he repeats Weiler’s name three times for effect: “We have reached out multiple times to WSU spokesman Phil Weiler for more information on Kohberger as a WSU student. Phil Weiler has failed to return any emails, texts, or phone calls in regard to this arrest of a WSU student, doctoral student in criminology, and any more information from WSU on this suspect has been denied at this point with no response from Mr. Phil Weiler, the spokesman at Washington State University.”

He later tells his listeners that part of his frustration with the college is based on history that goes back two decades.

Bryan Kohberger is not the first high-profile criminal connected to the WSU Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.

On Route 270 between Moscow and Pullman, Evan tells his listeners, there’s a road sign commemorating three WSU fatalities.

In 2001, a twenty-two-year-old student, Frederick Russell, was charged with the vehicular homicide of three WSU students and of injuring four others in a horrific crash on that highway. Fred was drunk at the time.

His father, Gregory Russell, was the head of the criminal justice department.

Fred was arrested, but three days before he was due to stand before a preliminary hearing, he escaped, accompanied by a WSU criminal justice graduate student and Russell family friend.

He spent six years on the lam and was featured on the US Marshals’ Most Wanted list before being captured in Ireland.

Evan doesn’t hide his disgust.

“This is how deep it goes with that dumpster fire of an institution that I went to,” he said.

As it happens, the mayor of Pullman, Glenn Johnson, who is a regular on Evan’s show and a friend of his, also knows the story of the Russells.

Mayor Johnson, who holds a master’s degree in journalism and a PhD in mass communications, shares Evan’s frustrations with WSU’s stonewalling.

That the school where he taught classes in subjects like television news and communications management for thirty-five years before becoming mayor employed the guy arrested for the Moscow murders is a bridge too far, he thinks.

Something needs to happen at that school. Something needs to change.

So when he finds himself in an emergency meeting with WSU chancellor Elizabeth Chilton, he says: “Elizabeth, in case you hadn’t been told, this is the second time there’s a bad story coming out of WSU’s criminal justice department.”

He figures she probably does not know about the Russells because she’s new. She started in January 2022.

“So, the point is,” he says in conclusion, “this”—he means Kohberger—“is the second black eye [for the WSU criminal justice department].”

He adds with a flourish: “You only have two eyes.”