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Bryan Kohberger is up for a rude awakening as he attempts to settle into life at Idaho’s maximum security prison in Kuna, according to current and former inmates and a former prison minister.
“I think he’ll have a target on his back – child molesters, rapists and woman beaters get smashed, and he’ll be stereotyped like that,” said Seth Ferranti, a former Most Wanted fugitive who became a documentarian after serving a 21-year sentence for trafficking marijuana and LSD. “Depends on the security level he’s at or if he’s in a protection unit.”
Kohberger, 30, is serving four consecutive life sentences plus another 10 years with no chance of parole after pleading guilty just weeks before the expected start of what could have been the most high-profile U.S. murder trial since OJ Simpson’s in the 1990s.
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Bryan Kohberger has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of four University of Idaho students. (The Idaho Department of Correction)
“When guys with big cases or who were in the headlines hit the compound everybody knows,” said Ferranti, whose most recent project is “A Tortured Mind,” which explores a mental health condition Kohberger will never have to worry about called post-incarceration syndrome.
“Some dudes will talk to the new guy, some dudes won’t. Some will press him or extort him or offer him some type of friendship or protection,” Ferranti told Fox News Digital. “The hype will fade though, and he’ll just become a normal inmate, or he’ll get punished in time.”
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Up until Wednesday, Kohberger spent his time locked up in county jails – first in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, then in Latah and Ada Counties in Idaho, respectively. The environments are completely different.
Jeffrey Dahmer got killed not because of his notoriety or fame. He got killed because he kept freaking other inmates out.
“In county jail people are going through the court process and waiting to get sentenced,” Ferranti said. “In prison you are actually serving your sentence. So it’s a big difference.”
Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and two other housemates in Goncalves’ final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
Kohberger will spend the rest of his life locked up with other lifers who have nothing to lose.
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The killer is reputed to be lacking in social skills – illustrated by what his attorneys called a “piercing stare” and lack of social awareness in court filings. Over the past two and a half years of confinement, he appears to have lost some weight, too.
“He doesn’t want to stare at anybody in prison, and if he’s getting frail, that will just mark him as weak and an easy target,” Ferranti said. “I’ve seen dudes strung out, turned out, court chaos, catch new cases, get killed, get shipped out. Anything can happen in prison, it will make you or break you.”
Kohberger pleaded guilty to the murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, on July 2 in order to avoid the potential death penalty. They were all asleep except for Kernodle at the start of the massacre. He was formally sentenced and shipped off to state prison Wednesday.
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University of Idaho students from left to right: Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21. All four were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. (Jazzmin Kernodle via AP/Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
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“His biggest weakness in prison is going to be the same thing as Jeffrey Dahmer’s biggest weakness in prison, getting on other inmates’ nerves because they’re weird,” said Keith Rovere, a former prison minister and the host of “The Lighter Side of True Crime” podcast. “Jeffrey Dahmer got killed not because of his notoriety or fame. He got killed because he kept freaking other inmates out by pretending to eat body parts.”
Dahmer was a cannibalistic serial killer and rapist who targeted men and boys between 1978 and 1991. In 1994, a fellow inmate named Christopher Scarver beat him to death in a Wisconsin prison. Dahmer was 34 years old when he died. Kohberger is 30.
Scarver told the New York Post in 2015 that he was disgusted by the serial killer and believes guards left them unattended together just to give him an opportunity to kill him with a metal bar from the weight room.
Serial killer Jeffrey L. Dahmer enters the courtroom of judge Jeffrey A. Wagner on August 6, 1991. Dahmer was later beaten to death by a fellow inmate who said he was “disgusted” by him in prison. (EUGENE GARCIA/AFP via Getty Images)
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Police documents unveiled Wednesday revealed new details about Kohberger’s encounters with other inmates in jail. They described him as a “f—ing weirdo” and complained of his obsessive-compulsive tendencies like excessive handwashing and staying up most of the night. One also said he hogged the shower and spent hours talking to his mom on video calls.
“Prison is all about blending in and not standing out,” Rovere told Fox News Digital. “His people skills are not going to be where they need to be in a place like prison, when you’re dealing with murderers.
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Kohberger is expected to begin his prison term in isolation, but things could get ugly quick if he’s introduced to the general population or placed with a cellmate, Rovere said.
“I can’t imagine a scenario where Bryan doesn’t aggravate [them] by staying awake all night when he’s trying to sleep, or constantly washing his hands, among other idiosyncrasies,” he said.