"Empty eyes": Bryan Kohberger high school photo goes viral amid ongoing Idaho murders investigation

On November 13, 2022, 28-year-old criminology graduate Bryan Kohberger allegedly killed four University of Idaho students in Moscow, Idaho.

Throughout the course of the investigation, several journalists, netizens, and internet sleuths have probed Bryan Kohberger's origins, trying to find out why the seemingly normal PhD aspirant may have carried out such a brutal massacre.

Responding to old high school yearbook photos of the suspect, certain users noted that the alleged killer had 'empty eyes'.

Bryan Kohberger is currently under the custody of Idaho authorities.

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What was Bryan Kohberger like as a student?

According to Insider, various sources who claimed to know Bryan Kohberger in high school provided different accounts of how he used to be as a person. Sezen Kowal, who attended Pleasant Valley High School with Kohberger, said that the suspect used to get bullied by other students as a teen.

Kowal said that their high school was located in a small town with a relatively close-knit community.

She said:

"It's a small town. It's in the Poconos. Everyone knows everyone. We did have a large class — 500 kids. If you don't get out, you're stuck there forever."

She also said:

"(Kohberger) was more overweight and a lot of kids sort of bullied him, unfortunately. It's high school, I guess it was pretty common at that time."

Casey Arntz, a high school friend of Kohberger's, said that he soon took up boxing and weightlifting in order to lose weight. Arntz noted that after his physical transformation, he became aggressive.

Arntz said:

"He was rail thin. It was after that weight loss that a lot of people noticed a huge switch. When Bryan would get kinda angry with (my brother), he would gaslight him and get physically aggressive."

Another former friend of the suspect's, Nick McLoughlin, said that many of Kohberger's friends distanced themselves from him during the latter years of high school.

McLoughlin said:

“He always wanted to fight somebody, he was bullying people. We started cutting him off from our friend group because he was 100 percent a different person."

A former classmate of Kohberger's at DeSales University discussed his thoughts on Kohberger.

The classmate, who remained anonymous, said:

“He was very leveled and somewhat imposing. There wasn’t much emotion displayed by him."

Benjamin Roberts, who met Kohberger while at Washington State University, said that the suspect always wanted to seem intelligent:

"(He) seemed comfortable around other people. He was very quick to offer his opinion and thoughts. He would describe things in the most complicated, perhaps academic way possible."

Roberts continued:

"It was like he was trying to convince people that he knew what he was talking about."

Bryan Kohberger is facing four counts of murder and one count of felony burglary. If convicted, he could potentially receive the death penalty.