Page 88
Pullman, Washington
T he WSU police chief, Gary Jenkins, is finishing up for the day when he sees that James Fry is calling his cell phone.
“Can you meet at our police department?” Fry asks.
Jenkins and Fry are old friends. Jenkins was recently reassigned to WSU, but prior to that, he ran the Pullman Police Department for twelve years.
It’s highly unusual for Fry to be as secretive and tight-lipped as he’s been about the Idaho Four, as the victims are coming to be known, but the chiefs have helped each other out on dozens of cases. Jenkins knows what his friend is trying to prevent: somehow tipping off the murderer.
So, as he drives over to the Moscow police station, he assumes Fry’s holding a second multiagency briefing, similar to the one where they asked for help searching for the white Hyundai Elantra.
But when Fry meets Jenkins at the front door of the station, the WSU chief senses this is different.
Jenkins follows Fry upstairs and into the conference room and sees a sea of faces. He realizes the entire team of investigators is gathered there, waiting for him.
What they are about to tell him, Fry says, is completely confidential, not to be shared even with his agency.
In that instant he realizes why he’s there.
They’ve found whoever did this.
And this person is at WSU. On his turf.
His heart sinks.
Brett Payne says, “We think we know who the suspect is, and he’s in WSU housing.”
And then he says his name: “Bryan Kohberger.”
Odd name, Jenkins thinks. But it’s an odd familiar name. It rings a bell, and then it comes to him.
“I know that name,” he tells the people in the room.
He sees astonishment on their faces.
“I think I interviewed him for an internship position when I was Pullman chief. I probably have his résumé and cover letter in my files.”
He goes straight back to his office and sends them over.
Payne and the team receive them, and their contents make it straight onto Payne’s draft affidavit, the one he’ll submit providing evidence to justify an arrest warrant for Kohberger.
It already contains what the police have discovered about the path of the Hyundai Elantra, Kohberger’s cell phone records, and what Dylan Mortensen saw that night.
Payne now adds to it the following:
Pursuant to records provided by a member of the interview panel for Pullman Police Department, we learned that Kohberger’s past education included undergraduate degrees in psychology and cloud-based forensics.
These records also showed Kohberger wrote an essay when he applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall of 2022.
Kohberger wrote in his essay he had interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations.
Kohberger also posted a Reddit survey which can be found by an open-source internet search.
The survey asked for participants to provide information to “understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision making when committing a crime.”
While Payne is writing, Jenkins is sitting in front of his computer, already running his to-do list through his mind.
He’s getting ready for what he’ll say when he’s allowed to share what he knows and for when his team gets the green light to write the warrants for the Moscow team to search Kohberger’s home and office.
Thank God he’d spoken to the guy in charge of camera security along Stadium Way, the main street in Pullman.
Soon after the murders they’d agreed it might be worth holding on to the footage of the night of the murders beyond the regular retention of sixty days.
He sees in his databases that the Pullman cops pulled over Kohberger in October. And he now sees that his guys, Officers Tiengo and Whitman, had identified the car a few weeks back.
WSU’s community is going to freak out when Kohberger is arrested. Jenkins knows this. He’s got a team of counselors on standby for the cops; he’ll almost certainly have to offer their services to the university.
He goes back to his database. What else was there about this guy that was missed?
There was a break-in near his apartment reported recently. Wasn’t there some story about a student being followed to her car?
What else?
His train of thought is interrupted by his phone. It’s Fry, thanking him for Kohberger’s résumé and cover letter. “No problem,” says Jenkins.
“Oh, and Gary, one more thing,” says Fry, letting out a small chuckle: “Aren’t you glad you didn’t accept his application?”
“More than you know,” replies Jenkins.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88 (Reading here)
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143