Bryan Kohberger’s mom had sent him a link to a gruesome article about the University of Idaho murders he had already committed — just weeks before he was arrested over the cold-blooded killings.
Cellphone data showed MaryAnn Kohberger had texted her 30-year-old son a link to the news report several days after the four students were found knifed to death in their off-campus Moscow home in November 2022, NewsNation reported.
The grim article detailed the savage injuries that one of the victims, Xana Kernodle, had sustained in the stabbing frenzy and how she’d put up a fight.
The nature of their exchange wasn’t immediately clear, but the data showed the deranged killer didn’t respond directly to the text in question.
The pair did, however, speak on the phone at various points that day, according to the cellphone data.
“He was on the phone with her for hours (on Nov. 17, 2022), but that night … he received a link from his mom,” Jared Barnhart, one of the forensic experts who examined the data, told NewsNation’s “Banfield.”
Start your day with all you need to know
Morning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.
Thanks for signing up!
“Looking at the timeline a little bit, you can tell that they’re actually speaking on the phone. What that tells us, and we can assume, is that they were talking about the Idaho murders on that night, and then the next morning, there’s just kind of nothing.”
The expert said Kohberger may have also been deleting the text exchange he had with his mother.
“There’s also this complicating factor that they’re on the phone all the time — and so the context could just be a voice call that we don’t have the words for,” Barnhart said.
There is no suggestion that Kohberger’s mother knew of his heinous crimes when she was texting him.
Kohberger wasn’t arrested until Dec. 30.
The bombshell revelation emerged after he was sentenced in July to life in prison without parole for stabbing Kernodle and three of her roommates — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin — to death.
Kohberger’s mother was spotted sobbing at times during his high-profile trial — including when the loved ones of the four victims gave crushing victim impact statements describing their grief during his sentencing hearing.
