Bryan Kohberger was eager to make friends, neighbors say — and so chatty one sometimes dodged him

• Neighbors say Bryan Kohberger was so chatty that one sometimes dodged him.
• Law enforcement has accused Kohberger of the grisly killings of four University of Idaho students.

For residents who aren't undergrads bouncing between parties and Greek life, living in the college town of Pullman, Washington, can feel isolating.

So when Arun Dash, a 28-year-old engineering student at Washington State University, got a new downstairs neighbor in his Steptoe Village apartment complex in August, he understood why the stranger was eager to make friends.

Dash said Bryan Kohberger — who investigators have charged with killing four students at the nearby University of Idaho in November — went out of his way to introduce himself and to try to make plans to hang out.

"He asked me what I was studying, where I am from," Dash, who moved to Pullman from India for his studies, said. "He would make just friendly small talk."

The unexplained stabbings of the 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves and the 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle at their off-campus residence in Moscow, Idaho, sparked fear across the college communities in the area.

When the manhunt dragged on for over a month, people around the US wondered what kind of person was capable of carrying out such gruesome killings and, it seemed at the time, walking away undetected.

On December 30, when law-enforcement officials charged Kohberger with the killings, the portrait of a loner — a gruff student of the criminal mind who kept to himself — began to form.

But interviews with Dash, his roommate, and others who casually knew Kohberger paint a different picture: one of a man who wasn't always introverted and could sometimes have an outgoing demeanor that left people feeling impressed or put off.

Popping in and out of Pullman coffee shops, dropping by local craft-beer establishments, and attempting to hang out with his neighbors — Kohberger didn't stand out as unhinged, but rather as a sometimes-chatty guy whose lengthy conversations might throw a wrench in his neighbors' days.

Kohberger lived beneath Dash and his roommate in a boxy unit at Steptoe Village Apartments, a popular development that houses graduate students.

It is on a windswept hilltop cut with roads and surrounded by similar-style buildings near the Washington State University campus. Most residents in the village are foreign-exchange students, many with families. In the back of Kohberger's building is a small children's playground. In front is a large blacktop parking lot.

Dash's roommate, who asked Insider not to name him out of fear of harassment, said Kohberger gave him his phone number and repeatedly suggested that they socialize.

"He talked to everybody, he was a very chatty person — not charming, but outgoing," the roommate said. "He would ask me to hang out."

One day, the roommate suggested to Kohberger that they work out together.

"He seemed like a very fit person, so I asked if he wanted to come to my gym with me," he said.

Kohberger had to decline because he had a commitment. Later, Kohberger asked the roommate to grab coffee.

This time, the roommate had a commitment. Kohberger continued striking up conversations each time they passed each other. Kohberger explained he was from Pennsylvania and liked living in eastern Washington, the neighbor said.

Over time, though, the man started to avoid Kohberger if he saw him coming — not because he didn't like him, but because their talks tended to drag on.

He said that when he saw Kohberger approach, he would quicken his step to appear in a hurry so it wouldn't look awkward to give Kohberger a passing hello rather than fall into a conversation.

"I know if I start, he won't stop," he told Insider.

Kohberger's relationship with his downstairs neighbors, a couple with small children, was less friendly.

Angela He described him as an insomniac who kept them awake at night by pacing and intermittently running his garbage disposal, sometimes until 4 a.m.

She said she considered having words with Kohberger but decided not to in the hope that he would be equally gracious if her crying children ever kept him awake.

Outside his apartment complex, Kohberger didn't stand out to many.

Kacia Julius, a bartender at The Land, the closest bar and restaurant to his apartment, told Insider she'd have to crane her neck back to make eye contact with Kohberger — who stands at 6 feet tall — when she served him.

But she said she remembered him simply because of his height and the last name on his credit card.

"He was normal," she said.

A server at brewery in Pullman also remembered Kohberger stopping in, but nothing standing out as particularly odd.

Many who knew him more closely, though, have now taken steps to disassociate from the heinous crimes investigators have charged him with.

At Wilson-Short Hall, where Kohberger studied on campus, his photo hung in a first-floor framed display of criminology students. By Friday, January 6, a blank space in the montage with ripped paper inside indicated that his photo had been torn out.

Several professors of criminology declined to speak with Insider.

A criminology student named Emilie, who asked to be identified by only her first name, had Kohberger as a teacher's assistant. She said he had been gruff and difficult to deal with early in the semester.

After the killings, though, he seemed to lose interest in teaching, assigning his students to write essays and handing back uniform high grades.

"Afterward, he didn't grade at all," she said. "He was not a great TA."

'Nothing suspicious ever'

In the days and weeks after the killings, fear tore through the college towns near the University of Idaho and WSU.

Nervous residents awaited any news; some left the communities altogether.

In fact, Kohberger was one of only a few students who kept appointments at a Pullman medical office after the crimes, a receptionist there told Insider.

Four days after the killings, Kohberger arrived at his appointment in his black North Face jacket and was so friendly with staff members that they took notice.

The receptionist at the office, who declined to give her name because discussing the interaction might violate medical-privacy laws, said Kohberger acted so friendly that it prompted her boss to comment.

"She said, 'He's so nice and charming' — she never says that about anybody," the receptionist told Insider. "I was like, 'Yeah, he really was.'"

He scheduled an ordinary follow-up appointment for the spring semester.

Dash, too, said Kohberger remained friendly in recent months and never went without his usual warm greeting.

"Nothing suspicious ever, ever," Dash said.

Dash's roommate said he presumed once his schedule cleared that he would grow friendlier with Kohberger. Yet he became busier as the end of fall semester neared, so he began taking steps to cut short his interactions with his seemingly gregarious neighbor.

This experience — being friendly, but not friends — is typical in the communities of Pullman and Moscow.

Tyler Engebretson, a 21-year-old native to Moscow, said residents in both communities were familiar with many, but friends with few.

Engebretson said he was particularly touched by the killings because Chapin was a regular at his parents' vape-and-pipe store in Pullman. Still, while recognizing faces is easy, making friends isn't, he said.

"If you really want to know this town, it's a lonely town," Engebretson told Insider. "It takes a lot of effort to meet people here."