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The Idaho lockup housing Bryan Kohberg is downplaying claims that fellow inmates have been tormenting and taunting the convicted killer by yelling through vents — saying that’s just how prisoners communicate.
Kohberger, who was hit with four life sentences last month in the slayings of four University of Idaho students, was transferred from jail to the only maximum-security prison in the state and is now being held there in solitary confinement.
‘”We are aware of Kohberger’s complaints about what he considers taunting,” the Idaho Department of Corrections said in a statement to The Post.
“Incarcerated individuals commonly communicate with each other in prison. Bryan Kohberger is housed alone in a cell, and IDOC security staff maintain a safe and orderly environment for all individuals in our custody,” the statement said.
Prisoners at Kohberger’s new digs at Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna have had it out for the former criminology student — taking turns shouting into the vent that leads into his cell most hours of the day, a law enforcement source previously told the Daily Mail.
Kohberger, 30, has made multiple complaints to prison guards that he’s been unable to sleep, according to Chris McDonough, a retired homicide detective who works for the Cold Case Foundation.
“It’s driving him crazy,” McDonough told the outlet. “The inmates are tormenting him at night and almost all hours of the day — taunting him through the vents in his cell.”
“They are literally getting up into the grate and yelling at him. The inmates are taking turns doing it. It’s relentless,” McDonough continued. “He’s extremely annoyed and frustrated. He’s complaining to the authorities that he can’t sleep because of them.”
Kohberger is being housed in the prison’s restricted unit in the facility’s J block, away from the general prison population.
He’s kept in a cell by himself at all times, except for one hour a day when he’s let into “the cage” outside for recreation, while he wears restraints. And he’s only allotted one shower every other day.
The high-profile nature of Kohberger’s case and the fact that he copped to such abhorrent crimes make him a target for other inmates who would want to harm him “just to make a name for themselves,” McDonough explained.
And since the other inmates don’t pose a physical threat to Kohberger while he’s in solitary, prison staff aren’t likely to intervene, the former cop claimed.
Still, as attention moves away from Kohberger over time, prison staff may eventually be willing to move him back to the general population, McDonough explained.
At the jail in which Kohberger was previously kept pending trial, other defendants said he did unusual things like spending hours on the phone with his mom, MaryAnn, washing his hands compulsively, taking hour-long showers and staying awake at night, only to nap during the day.
Last month, Kohberger took a surprise plea deal just weeks before his highly anticipated trial was set to kick off. The deal saw him skirt the possibility of the death penalty, enraging some of the families of his victims and leaving loved ones with no explanation for why he committed the heinous murders.
He admitted killing Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, and Ethan Chapin on Nov. 13, 2022, in their off-campus house in Moscow.
