Bryan Kohberger’s Classmates Recall Seeing Him Covered in Injuries for Weeks After Idaho Murders

On Nov. 13, 2022, Bryan Kohberger murdered Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin inside their off-campus home at the University of Idaho.

That same day he would return to the crime scene while on the phone with his mother before going back to his apartment, which was located on the campus of Washington State University.

He would attend class Nov. 15, 2022, though the professor covering that day told Idaho State Police he arrived incredibly late.

Two days later, that same professor said “Kohberger sent an email about not being there.”

The following day, Nov. 18, Kohberger changed his car registration from Pennsylvania to Washington, which made tracking his car more difficult for authorities.

Then, after that, he disappeared for a week.

The next time someone recalled seeing Kohberger was on Nov. 29, when classes resumed at WSU following Thanksgiving break, according to documents that have been unsealed by Idaho State Police, Moscow State Police and the Pullman Police Department.

And the first thing someone noticed that day was Kohberger’s injuries, per an interview with the ISP.

That female classmate said Kohberger had “cuts on his hands” which were “similar to cat scratches” that he had tried to cover with Band-Aids.

Another graduate student at WSU told police she saw Kohberger with “bloody knuckles,” though she was unsure if that was after or “just prior to the homicides.”

That student added that “the hands looked really beat up like he was hitting something.”

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Another classmate said in her interview with police that Kohberger came to class after Thanksgiving with visible injuries to his left hand that he did not try to hide.

That classmate got the best look, perhaps, as she sat just three-feet away from Kohberger, and described the injuries to police as: “bruised knuckles,” “redness halfway up the back of the left hand from his knuckles,” and “a cut on his ring finger.”

When she asked about the cuts, Kohberger claimed to be a boxer.

He still had bloody knuckles in December, said another classmate, who described the cuts as “bad” to police.

That classmate jokingly asked if “he had been punching drywall in anger.”

Kohberger said an indoor accident was to blame, she told police, which she did not believe because it looks as though the scratch was caused by asphalt.

There was also a third scenario, according to another classmate who saw scratches on Kohberger’s hands and face.

Kohberger told him that he was in a car accident, he said in his interview with police.

Multiple classmates also said in their interviews that Kohberger started to wear a puffy jacket to class for the rest of the semester.

They could never figure out a reason, though it may have been to cover his arms from visible injuries. Kohberger also had his arms visibly covered in the selfie he took just a few hours after the murders.

That selfie only provides a partial view of one of Kohberger’s hands, but a Band-Aid can be seen on the ring finger.

If he did sustain those injuries on the night of the murders, they were likely caused by Xana Kernodle, the one victim who was awake at the time.

After realizing someone was in the house, Kernodle resisted and fought back once cornered by Kohberger, according to police.

Sgt. Shaine Gunderson noted in his incident report that she is the one victim who was not found in her bed and that “there was blood cast-off on the walls in various places, including above Xana’s body.”

Her autopsy report reveals that she had more than 50 stab wounds covering her body, which were “mostly defensive,” and that she died from one laceration in her right lung and two lacerations in her heart.

Sgt. Gunderson wrote in his report that “it was obvious an intense struggle had occurred” between Xana and her killer.

The struggle between the two also caused enough of a “commotion” to get the attention of Dylan Mortensen, the surviving roommate who then opened her door to check on her roommates and instead saw Kohberger as he exited the residence, making her the lone eyewitness in the case.