Former Student Reveals “Peculiar” Text from Bryan Kohberger, Accused University of Idaho Killer
A former graduate student gives her account of meeting Kohberger months before he was accused of sneaking into an off-campus home and killing four University of Idaho students.
Months before Bryan Kohberger was accused of sneaking into an off-campus home and killing four University of Idaho students, he had a “peculiar” exchange with a fellow student, she says.
The woman — referred to only as a former graduate student named Holly by Dateline — opened up to the newsmagazine about her “awkward” meeting with Kohberger at a summer pool party months before the killings. The all-new two-hour broadcast, “The Terrible Night on King Road,” airing Friday, May 9 at 9/8c p.m. on NBC, will explore the shocking murders and the man at the center of the case.
Who is Bryan Kohberger?
Kohberger is slated to go on trial in the summer of 2025 for the murders of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, all of whom were found stabbed to death in the same Moscow, Idaho, residence in November of 2022.
Friday's special, reported by Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison, will feature new interviews and “never-before-reported evidence,” including video, photographic and digital materials that investigators believe track Kohberger’s movements around the time of the killings, according to the newsmagazine.
Morrison spoke to friends of the victims, as well as the mother of Mogen’s best friend, criminology experts, genetics experts, and former students who crossed paths with Kohberger, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
What a former grad student said about Bryan Kohberger
The interview subjects include a former graduate student named Holly who told Morrison, as seen in a preview clip from the broadcast, that she met Kohberger — then a doctoral student in criminology at the nearby Washington State University — in July of 2022 at a pool party.
“I was kind of mingling and socializing and started chatting with this guy, and he had told me that he had just moved and he was starting his PhD,” Holly told Dateline.
Holly had also recently relocated to the area to start her own graduate work in plant science. She told Morrison that there was something slightly off about her exchange with Kohberger.
“I definitely felt a little obligated to chat with him, because to me, he seemed a little awkward. Kind of like you might expect for a PhD student who didn't know anyone at the party and was maybe trying his best to kind of get out there and be social and make friends,” she said.
Holly said she told Kohberger that she was part of a hiking group and that the two exchanged phone numbers. The next day, she received what she described as a “kind of peculiar text” from him.
The text, sent on July 10, 2022 at 1:19 p.m., read: “Hey, I am pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday. I really enjoy that activity, so please let me know. Thanks!”
Holly was struck by the wording in the message.
“It was almost overly formal,” she told Morrison. “'I really enjoy that activity.' So, you know, can you follow up with me about that?”
Kohberger was arrested in December of 2022 for the brutal murders after police said they linked him to the crime through DNA found at the scene, according to NBC News. His trial is set to begin this summer.
To find out more about what Holly and others had to say about their time with Kohberger, watch Dateline on Friday May 9, 2025 at 9/8c p.m. on NBC or stream the episode on Peacock after it becomes available the next day.
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