Report: Bryan Kohberger's complaints behind bars

It's a milestone Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin will never reach. On Friday, Bryan Kohberger marked his 31st birthday inside Idaho 's maximum security prison in Kuna - his home since being convicted of the November 13, 2022, murders of the four University of Idaho students. But, if he is thankful for another year around the sun, it certainly doesn't seem to show. The mass killer has found several things to complain about behind bars in the four short months since his sentencing this July, filing multiple formal complaints to guards and requesting a transfer to a different part of the prison.

And now, according to a source inside the penitentiary , he has found a new, bizarre thing to add to his growing list of grievances. Chris McDonough, a retired homicide detective who now works for the Cold Case Foundation, told the Daily Mail he has learned the mass killer is moaning to guards about the food. In particular, he is disgruntled with one specific fruit on his meal tray: bananas. 'He's complaining about the type of bananas he's being served,' McDonough said. 'They're not the kind that he likes. I'm not sure if that means they may have bruises on them and he doesn't like that or if there is a particular type of banana that he likes. But he's complaining about the food he's getting.'

McDonough added: 'You can't make this stuff up, right? The guy is a quadruple killer and he's complaining about his bananas not being the type that he likes.' McDonough said prison staff, unsurprisingly, aren't taking this grievance too seriously: 'The prison is saying well, deal with it.' It is part of a larger pattern that has taken shape since Kohberger landed at the prison, with the former criminology PhD student making complaints about several aspects of life behind bars. The Daily Mail exclusively revealed back in August that he started complaining about his fellow inmates almost immediately.

Kohberger - known as inmate number 163214 - was being relentlessly tormented by his new jail-mates when he arrived. They were reportedly shouting through the vents into his cell at all hours and disrupting his sleep. McDonough told the Daily Mail at the time that they were 'driving [Kohberger] crazy' - so much so that the criminal filed a formal handwritten complaint one day after he arrived on the J block restrictive housing unit following the intake process. In the complaint, he requested a transfer to another part of the prison citing 'minute-by-minute verbal threats/harassment' from other inmates. 'Unit 2 of J Block is an environment that I wish to transfer from,' he wrote.

Days later, he filed another complaint - alleging he was the victim of sexual threats. In that note on August 4, the mass killer claimed one inmate told him 'I'll [expletive] you' while another said, 'The only [expletive] we'll be eating is Kohberger's.' A prison guard confirmed he had overheard 'vulgar language' being directed toward Kohberger, according to an incident notification report. The report concluded Kohberger felt safe to remain on J block. A housing placement hearing was held in the prison on August 12 after Kohberger requested being placed in protective custody over the incidents with fellow inmates, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Both Kohberger and the committee agreed he should remain segregated from other inmates for now. But, the mass killer revealed his desire to eventually be able to join other inmates for recreation and work inside the prison 'just like another high-profile resident on J2 does.' In total, Kohberger filed at least five formal complaints within the first month of his incarceration. They range from issues with items being missing from his meal tray to being unable to access the online commissary system. Idaho Department of Corrections said in a statement at the time that Kohberger is 'housed alone in a cell, and IDOC security staff maintain a safe and orderly environment for all individuals in our custody.'

After releasing the formal complaints in August, IDOC said future public records requests of the same nature would likely be denied. Since then, IDOC has not released those records when requests have been made by the Daily Mail. Though, the complaints - at least verbally - haven't stopped. McDonough revealed Kohberger is also complaining about 'the type of cell that he's in, the size of the cell and where it's located.' The sense is that Kohberger believes he should be getting special treatment because of the infamy of his crimes, McDonough said. He added, 'It's about power and control… He was a nobody until he murdered four people… he was irrelevant to the world.

'And now he's Bryan Kohberger who has slaughtered four people. And, because he didn't have to stand up in court and tell the world how brutal these crimes were, he holds the cards. And he's trying to leverage that.' As a former veteran homicide detective and an expert in predator behavior, McDonough said he believes Kohberger is 'going to keep pushing the envelope and pushing the boundaries as far as he can get them.' In recent weeks, Kohberger has also tried - unsuccessfully - to avoid paying additional money to the Mogen and Goncalves families to cover the cost of urns for their daughters who he murdered. On the third anniversary of the November 13, 2022, killings, Judge Steven Hippler ordered him to pay around $3,000 in additional restitution.

That was on top of the $251,227.50 in criminal fines and fees to the state, $20,000 civil judgment for each of the families and $28,956.88 restitution to Kernodle and Chapin's families and the state's crime victim's compensation fund Kohberger was previously ordered to pay. In handing down the decision, the judge also revealed that Kohberger had received a staggering $28,360.96 in donations from his family and other unidentified individuals while held in the Latah County and Ada County jails awaiting trial. Kohberger broke into an off-campus student home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, in the early hours of November 13, 2022, and stabbed the four students to death. He was arrested around six weeks later at his parents' home in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania after his DNA was found on a knife sheath left at the scene.

At the time of the murders, Kohberger was a PhD student in criminal justice at Washington State University (WSU), living just over the state border in Pullman, Washington. The Goncalves family announced last week that they plan to sue WSU - where staff and students had complained of Kohberger's creepy, sexist behavior around the time of the quadruple homicide. In a statement, the family said the suit is about gaining ‘accountability and transparency.’ Kohberger struck a plea deal in July, avoiding trial and sparing him from the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison. His motive remains unclear and no connection has ever been found between the killer and his victims.