Bombshell Lawsuit: Bryan Kohberger Victims' Families Allege Idaho Murders Could Have Been Prevented If 'Proper Action' Was Taken

The loved ones of the four students murdered by Bryan Kohberger rightfully want justice, leading them to sue Washington State University on claims the brutal killings were avoidable.

The parents of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin are alleging in a new lawsuit that the killing "should not and would not have occurred if WSU had acted appropriately" in response to complaints and concerns about the criminology PhD student’s "inappropriate, predatory and menacing behavior."

Filed in Skagit County, Washington, on Wednesday, January 7, the lawsuit seeks a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages for negligence and the wrongful deaths of the University of Idaho students.

The 126-page complaint claims WSU — which Kohberger, now 31, attended up until his December 2022 arrest, less than two months after the murders — was aware of his "threatening, stalking and predatory behavior" shortly after accepting him into its criminal justice program and hiring him as a teaching assistant.

They said the school "repeatedly failed to take proper, necessary and decisive action to address Kohberger's behavior and eliminate the imminent and serious threat that he posed to the Pullman-Moscow community and the four young victims."

As such, "On November 13, 2022, a foreseeable — and, in fact, predictable — tragedy occurred when Kohberger entered the bedrooms of four undergraduate students and violently stabbed them to death," the document states.

It reiterates, "These deaths should not and would not have occurred if WSU had acted appropriately."

Records showed that at least 13 complaints were filed against Kohberger — who lived a short drive away from the victims' off-campus home — by other students in his criminology program.

"Almost immediately upon his arrival to the Pullman-Moscow community, Kohberger developed a reputation for discriminatory, harassing and stalking behavior, instilling substantial fear among female students and fellow WSU employees," the lawsuit claims.

Various classmates and professors considered him a sexist creep, with female students even avoiding being left alone with him. One faculty member went as far as to declare they wouldn't be surprised if Kohberger turned out to be a "future rapist."

The unnamed faculty member said, "Mark my word, I work with predators, if we give him a PhD, that’s the guy [in] many years when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing...his students at wherever university."

Kohberger was eventually placed on an improvement plan before he was fired from his teaching assistant role and lost his PhD funding in mid-December 2022.

The victims' families feel the records the have come out "paint a deeply disturbing picture of the breathtaking level of organizational paralysis and inaction by WSU that enabled Kohberger, over a period of months, to stalk his victims, and plan and commit these heinous murders."

The former PhD student is currently serving life in prison after pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty in July 2025.

The quadruple murderer said to be obsessed with notorious serial killer Ted Bundy resides at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.