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Pullman, Washington

C assie Handziak is a WSU freshman majoring in psychology and minoring in criminology.

Her largest class is the undergraduate criminal justice course with Professor John Snyder.

With white hair and a mustache, Dr. Snyder is one of the most popular professors in the department.

He’s the reason Cassie wanted to come to WSU. She’s excited.

But as she sits attentively during Snyder’s first class, Cassie encounters something off-putting. Rather, some one off-putting.

The professor talks and talks for forty long minutes, often calling on class members in his fun, benign way. A tall, thin guy with bulging eyes stands in front of the class facing them the entire time. He has a coffee in his hand. He fiddles with it.

Cassie wonders who the heck he is and why he’s staring. The way he holds himself exudes—not confidence, exactly, but self-importance, perhaps.

Finally, Professor Snyder introduces him: “This is your new TA, Bryan Kohberger.”

A couple of slides of a nice-looking family come onto the projector screen.

“Hi, I’m Bryan,” he tells the class. “I’m here to continue my degree from Pennsylvania. I’ve got a master’s in psychology. Here’s my family.”

They look normal, Cassie thinks.

Bryan tells them he’ll be here with Professor Snyder regularly and he’ll be grading their papers. Then he sits down.

Why didn’t Bryan just sit at a desk in the front row until he was introduced? Cassie wonders.

Her neighbor whispers to her that this guy is weird. Cassie smirks.

Cassie sees Bryan twice a week, every time she has a class with Professor Snyder. There are two TAs, both guys. One often has his laptop in front of him. Bryan just sits there staring at the class, fiddling with his coffee cup. He doesn’t say anything.

It’s strange.

Where he’s communicative, Cassie notices, is in his grading. She can tell he puts a lot of thought into marking her papers.

He gives her As. And writes a lot of commentary.

She assumes that’s because she’s good at writing essays. She doesn’t think she’s a standout student, though.

Until, that is, she hears from some of her female classmates that he’s not so generous with their grades. And when he thinks they’ve gotten something wrong, he writes pages and pages explaining why. He is tough, they say.

They think it’s because they’re women.

Walking to class one time, a couple of classmates tell Cassie they’ve emailed Professor Snyder about it.

Wow, Cassie thinks. That’s a step.