Bryan Kohberger asked a young woman for her number, and then turned to her friend and asked the same question.
A Washington State University student shared details of his encounter with Bryan Kohberger in a new interview.
Basseth Salamjohn tells Air Mail, a digital media outlet, that in the summer of 2022 he met Kohberger at a pool party being held at The Grove at Moscow, an off-campus apartment complex popular with students at the University of Idaho.
Kohberger had been invited to the party by his neighbor at the WSU dorms, Christian Martinez. This detail was shared by Martinez in a number of interviews after Kohberger's arrest, along with the fact that he invited Bryan after being approached by his father Michael Kohberger on the day he moved his son into his WSU dorm.
“I met his dad in the parking lot. He just stopped and started talking to me,” Martinez told Law & Crime. “His dad was wanting to introduce me to Bryan. And he said something, I don’t remember the exact word he used to describe him, but it was something that was like, ‘He has a hard time making friends,’ or, ‘He’s kind of shy.'"
Once at the party, Kohbegrer met Salamjohn, a friend of Martinez.
“We were just shooting sh*t, but he was definitely one serious dude,” Salamjohn tells Air Mail. "Nice enough, though.”
When Salamjohn got up to talk to friend, Kohbegrer made his way to the DJ booth, where he also made an impression.
"He was asking me about my speakers. All kind of technical stuff,” Zach Cartwright tells Air Mail. “But he had this way about him. You know those people who don’t understand personal space? He was one of them. He’d get real close. It was off-putting.”
Cartwright says he eventually had to dismiss Kohberger, telling him: "I’m DJ-ing, man. I’ll catch you later."
Salamjohn soon joined Kohbeger by the pool, but the now suspected murderer did not stay for long according go his new acquaintance.
"[Salamjohn] watched as Kohberger abruptly jumped up without warning and approached a girl in a black thong bikini with pink hair and a complex tattoo design on her left thigh. Then Kohberger, after only a brief conversation, asked her for her phone number. And he got it," reports Air Mail.
Kohbegrer allegedly did not top there either, next moving on to the woman's friend.
"Next, as if a man on a mission, he turned to the pink-haired woman’s friend, also in a black two-piece, and asked for her number, too. And he succeeded once again," according to Air Mail.
Kohberger then left the party according to Salamjohn.
The two women later told Air Mail that they never heard from Kohberger, but both did say that they "received several hang-up calls in the aftermath of the party."
Four months later, four University of Idaho students would be found dead in an off-campus home just a mile down the road from The Grove.
Three of the victims — Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20 — lived in the home. The fourth victim, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, was in a relationship with Kernodle.
Kohberger is now charged with those four murders and heading to trial later this year. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death,
He is due back in court today for motion hearings.
Kohberger told a previous public defender that he expects to be exonerated at trial. In May he declined to enter a plea after being formally charged with four counts of murder. The judge in the case entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
