A childhood friend of Bryan Kohberger’s was disgusted to find out that her former pal was capable of carrying out a quadruple homicide — and she wondered if he ever thought about killing her.
Casey Arntz, 32, who played with Kohberger and her brother as a kid in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, said she “spiraled” after Kohberger shockingly copped a controversial plea in the Idaho University murders of Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle on Wednesday.
“Did he ever have thoughts like that before? Did he ever think that he wanted to kill me or my friends? Were we spared because we were friends with him?” Arntz told the Idaho Statesman.
Arntz said she and her younger brother, Thomas, were floored when Kohberger was initially accused of the gruesome November 13, 2022 stabbings and those feelings of shock rushed back this week with her former friend’s admissions.
“I’m disgusted that he could actually do something so heinous,” she said. “I understand why the families are so upset, they were starved for justice, and I would 100% be, too.”
“However, there was never any guarantee that he’d be given the death penalty. So I think him taking the plea deal was better for everyone,” Arntz told the outlet. “He’s locked up for life. Let the inside deal with him.”
Arntz’ brother Thomas said he was “relieved” by the guilty plea and said he was sorry for Kohberger’s family.
“I am deeply sorry that Bryan’s parents have to live with this as well,” Thomas told the outlet. “I’ve always thought they were kind people, and they didn’t deserve this. And for Bryan, God have mercy on his soul.”
Similarly, the guidance counselor at Kohberger’s high school also said she felt for his family and the families of the victims.
“I hope that his family will survive this horrendous ordeal and be able to get on with their lives,” counselor Donna Yozwiak said. “I also hope that the victims’ relatives gain much needed closure and heal after this tragedy.”
Another former friend of Kohberger’s, Jack Baylis, 31, said the guilty plea removed any doubt of Kohberger’s guilt because if he was innocent he would “be fighting tooth and nail” for his innocence, Baylis told the Statesman.
Baylis also said he believes that Kohberger committed the horrific killings to help him learn what it would be like to be a killer for his studies as a criminology PhD.
“I think he did it to see what it felt like, to experience it,” Baylis said. “If he wanted to write a paper about what killers feel and why they kill, to be accurate, you have to experience it yourself to truly understand it.”
“To get into the mind of a killer, you have to be a killer, would be my guess.”
Kohberger had been attending school at Washington State University when he drove to nearby Moscow, Idaho, to slaughter the four undergrads at their off-campus house while they were sleeping.
Kohberger had maintained his innocence and had been slated to go on trial in August and potentially faced death by firing squad if he’d been found guilty.
The plea deal allowed him to skirt capital punishment and instead receive life imprisonment without parole.
Some of the victims’ families were outraged by the deal that left them with unanswered questions that could have been answered at trial and deprived them of potentially seeing Kohberger executed.
Goncalves’ father, Steve Goncalves, told NBC’s “Today” Show that prosecutors “failed my whole family.”
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