Incarcerated at Idaho’s maximum security prison for less than a month, Bryan Kohberger has lodged five formal complaints to corrections staff, including over other prisoners threatening him with sexual assault.

The 30-year-old man, who confessed to killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, moved last month to the state prison complex south of Boise just hours after he was sentenced to consecutive life terms without the chance of parole. Before Kohberger agreed to plead guilty to four counts of first-degree murder, he awaited trial in police custody for more than two and a half years split between the jails in Latah County and Ada County.

Since arriving on July 23 to the Idaho Department of Correction facility, Kohberger’s stay has been turbulent. Already, he asked for transfer to another wing of the prison after a pair of fellow prisoners warned him of forthcoming sexual violence, according to state prison public records obtained by the Idaho Statesman.

An IDOC officer was present for one of the comments, which threatened Kohberger with rape. The comment toward the admitted mass killer was confirmed, but no further action was taken because the corrections officer could not positively identify who said it, he wrote in a report.

The prison system has tried to allay any concerns about perhaps its most high-profile prisoner, and pointed out that he remains in a cell for a single occupant and is closely watched by officers when moved for showers and other activities.

“Incarcerated individuals commonly communicate with each other in prison,” said Idaho prisons spokesperson Sanda Kuzeta-Cerimagic in a statement. “Bryan Kohberger is housed alone in a cell, and IDOC security staff maintain a safe and orderly environment for all individuals in our custody.”

During Kohberger’s sentencing hearing last month, family members of some of the victims told him to expect to serve a life of hard time, including physical — and possibly even sexual — violence visited upon him in prison.

Attorney Ingrid Batey, formerly with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, helped prosecute Kohberger. Now a senior chief deputy at the Canyon County Prosecutor’s Office, she said in an interview with the Statesman that incarcerated people should not face the threat of physical harm.

“Obviously as a prosecutor, as an officer of the court, I don’t condone any violence against anyone,” Batey said. “That being said, who among us would even know how we would respond if we were faced with somebody who murdered our child? So these families’ statements are really just a reflection of the pain and hurt that they are in, and I think it’s completely understandable that they feel that incredible level of of anger.”

The four victims were Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, and Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20. The three women hailed from North Idaho and Chapin was from western Washington.

Prisons official: ‘Give it some time’

In Kohberger’s first six nights of prison, he was held in a medical transition unit in the Idaho Maximum Security Institution’s C Block as he transferred in, the prison records showed. Four days later, and still lacking an account to the internal system called JPay that grants prisoners access to the commissary, he filed his first complaint.

On July 29, corrections officials moved Kohberger into a cell for a single occupant in administrative segregation on the second tier of the two-story J Block, known as J2. His first two nights there were not without incident.

Kohberger did not receive his lunch the day after his move to his planned long-term home, he wrote in a formal grievance. He also complained that day about fellow prisoners subjecting him to “minute-by-minute verbal threats/harassment,” which also entailed his new neighbors flooding his cell, Kohberger wrote in a resident concern form.

He suggested perhaps another cell block within max was a better fit.

“Unit 2 of J Block is an environment that I wish to transfer from,” the former Ph.D. student at Washington State University scrawled by hand to a deputy warden. “I wish to speak with you soon.”

Flooding of cells is “relatively rare” in his current confines, a high-ranking corrections officer assured Kohberger in writing, and prison staff consider J Block a “fairly calm and quieter tier.” Another area of the prison would not be any better for him, Capt. Brian Crowl added. “Give it some time.”

Food items also were missing on several occasions from his meal tray and not addressed when Kohberger asked, he asserted in another grievance.

“I wish to, without exception, receive these replacements,” wrote the man referred to in the prison system as Resident #163214. “The nutritional standard is not being upheld unless I receive my full tray.”

On Aug. 12, the prison held a housing placement hearing for Kohberger after he requested protective custody following repeat incidents on J Block. He acknowledged that the prison harassment would die down once news coverage of his murder case slowed down, the record showed.

The three-member corrections housing committee decided that administrative segregation remains the best course for Kohberger “for the protection of staff and residents, as well as for his protection.”

Kohberger, for now, asked that he continue to have recreation by himself and also be escorted alone. But he also told the committee that he wants to eventually be allowed to work and be productive in prison, and have shared recreation “just like another high-profile resident on J2 does,” Kohberger said.

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