Page 45

Pullman, Washington

L ess than a month after their previous meeting with Bryan, so the cohort hears, graduate director Dale Willits and department chair Melanie-Angela Neuilly are once again confronting Bryan about his behavior. There are no friendly suggestions this time.

Drs. Willits and Neuilly tell Bryan what he already knows: Short of a miracle, he’ll be fired.

The cohort hears that the discussion about grading had not gone well. Women had later complained to Dr. Snyder and said Bryan had stared at them, that he’d positioned himself by the door and they’d had to get uncomfortably close to him to exit the room. One suggested he followed her to her car.

As if. Bryan is so pissed. They’d be lucky to get close to him.

He has stopped showing up to teach.

So two weeks ago, John Snyder had formally notified Bryan he had failed to meet expectations as a TA.

The students assume that Professor Neuilly wants to give students the benefit of the doubt, and that is why she and Professor Willits are giving Bryan a chance.

Today, Drs. Neuilly and Willits suggest an improvement plan for Bryan, a way for him to show them he can lose the misogyny and genuinely behave professionally at an institution that expects that of both students and teachers.

This improvement plan, they agree, will be emailed to Bryan, and they will meet again in a month to see how it’s going.

Bryan listens. Bryan’s career as a graduate student is over. In this room now, they’re just going through the motions. His bubble is bursting. His dream of a new life, a new persona, is being cut short.

Professor Snyder emails the plan to him the next day. It contains words like courtesy and respect .

The kind of thing he considers politically correct bullshit.

So they want change…

On page 118 of his manifesto, Elliot Rodger wrote that he planned to carry out his day-of-retribution scheme in November. At first he’d planned to do it on Halloween, because, he said, it was the ultimate party night:

There would literally be thousands of people crowded together who I could kill with ease and the goal was kill everyone in Isla Vista, to utterly destroy that wretched town.

But then… I saw there were too many cops walking around… The Day of Retribution would have to be on a normal party weekend, so I set it for some time during November 2013.

In the early hours of November 13, 2022, police allege, Bryan leaves his home in Pullman. At 2:47 a.m., his phone shows he’s moving southeast of his Pullman home. One minute later, his phone stops reporting to the network—or any network—and doesn’t come online again until 4:47 a.m.

Between those times, Corporal Brett Payne alleges, a masked intruder fitting Kohberger’s description enters 1122 King Road. As they are sleeping or relaxing in what they assume is the safety of their own home, Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin are fatally stabbed.

What no one knows is why.