PULLMAN, Wash – The City of Pullman is the latest agency to release documents related to the arrest of now-convicted killer Bryan Kohberger, including measures taken to transport Kohberger after his arrest.
Kohberger was living in Pullman when he killed four University of Idaho students. He was a PhD student studying criminology at Washington State University.
He had applied for an internship with Pullman Police, so many of the records released in relation to the case have to do with that process.
One document shows a message sent to Kohberger in April, asking to schedule an interview.
Kohberger was ultimately not chosen for the internship.
Among the hundreds of pages of documents, there’s a report from when Pullman Police investigated to see if Kohberger could be responsible for a burglary in the city in October 2021.
In that case, someone reported that a man in a ski mask broke into their home armed with a knife.
When Kohberger was arrested, Pullman Police looked into whether Kohberger could have been responsible.
They knew Kohberger had not enrolled at WSU until fall of 2022, but asked WSU if there had been any on-campus events for prospective graduate students during the time of the burglary in 2021.
Pullman Police ultimately determined that there had not been and that there was no reason to believe Kohberger could have been in Pullman and committed that crime.
‘Operation Turtle Shell’
The documents also include an operations plan shared between departments for Kohberger’s transport from Pennsylvania back to Moscow after his arrest.
Dubbed “Operation Turtle Shell”, the mission operations plan expresses concerns about high media interest and also the fact that someone could target Kohberger during the transport.
“Mr. Kohenberger [sic] is to be secured and placed into a ballistic vest and helmet… and placed into the prisoner compartment of the designated transport vehicle,” it reads.
Because Kohberger’s plan landed in Pullman, law enforcement agencies from both sides of the state line were tasked with manning certain areas to ensure the safe transport.
The plan included contingencies in case of a threat and secondary routes to take if needed.
The City of Pullman is the latest agency to release documents related to the case that have been sealed since the murders.
When Kohberger pleaded guilty in late July, a gag order was lifted and investigative documents related to the case could be released.
You can download the documents for yourself at this link.
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