Families of murdered students sue Washington State University over Brian Kohberger not being disciplined by WSU

[Anonymous]

The families of the 4 students from Idaho who were murdered by Brian Kohberger, a Ph.D student and Teaching Assistant attending WSU, when he entered their house and stabbed them all to death are suing Washington State University.

Aside from the murdered students, it brings up an issue what (if anything) are universities doing to keep students safe. If what the lawsuit is claiming is true, it really seems like WSU ignored repeated violations of policies and procedures to control conduct and prohibit and prevent discrimination, harassment and stalking. Females students were extremely afraid of him and needed security escorts.

Was did WHU not do anything? How could they allow him to continuing teaching undergraduates? Were they fearful that Kohberger would claim he had a disability, so it would be discriminatory to discipline him?

https://pcva.law/wp-content/uploads/2026-01-07-Goncalves-Complaint-Conformed.pdf


The lawsuit states:

WSU brought Bryan Kohberger to Pullman, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest, to serve as a Teaching Assistant in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department, while he also worked to obtain a Ph.D., with a study focused on sexually motivated burglars and serial killers. Kohberger was heavily reliant on WSU, who paid him a salary, provided free on-campus housing, medical benefits, and free tuition, all conditioned on his behavior and subject to being revoked...

Almost immediately upon his arrival to the Pullman-Moscow community, Kohberger developed a reputation for discriminatory, harassing, and stalking behavior, instilling substantial fear among young female students and fellow WSU employees, necessitating regular security escorts for multiple females. Despite receiving at least 13 formal reports of Kohberger’s inappropriate, predatory and menacing behavior, WSU failed to respond in any meaningful way and allowed Kohberger’s escalating behavior to continue unchecked...

Despite receiving at least 13 formal reports of Kohberger’s inappropriate, predatory and menacing behavior, no one respond in any meaningful way and allowed Kohberger’s escalating behavior to continue unchecked...The WSU office of Compliance and Civil Rights (CCR) in charge of acting on those complaints later reported that she had neither met nor even spoken with Kohberger...

During one of several faculty meetings where Kohberger was discussed extensively, one faculty member remarked: “Mark my
words, I work with predators, if we give him a Ph.D that’s the guy that in that many years when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing . . . his students.” This same WSU professor believed that Kohberger was already stalking people.

Despite having a formal Threat Assessment Team—a now common practice at universities to proactively identify, assess and manage individuals who may pose a risk of violence—WSU wholly failed to follow that process with Kohberger and, instead, allowed his dangerous behaviors to escalate while it simultaneously continued to support him financially, provide him with access to university resources and students, and keep him housed rent-free in the Pullman-Moscow community.

[Anonymous]

Wow. I hope the families get millions.

[Anonymous]

Families of killed Brown students might do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Families of killed Brown students might do the same.

Oh please there's no comparison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Families of killed Brown students might do the same.

Oh please there's no comparison

The Brown shooting happened in a classroom so they are more liable.

[Anonymous]

Omfg the Brown shooter was in a PhD program in 2000 and dropped out in under one year.

[Anonymous]

I just don't see how an employer can become responsible for everything their employee does off the clock just because he was creep at work. If he were harassing any of these students on campus and followed them home, or if he used his university access to get their address, etc, that might be one tthing. If it's just they knew he was a creeper, and he also randomly murdered these people, that's a stretch.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

U of I isn’t involved in this lawsuit…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I hope the families get millions.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

U of I isn’t involved in this lawsuit…

The murdered students attended Idaho. PP didn’t say U of I was involved in the lawsuit, they said WSU doesn’t have a duty to students at U of I.

I think whether any employer could have a liability in a murder case would depend on what kind of complaints/reports they had and ignored or failed to act appropriately on regarding their employee, and whether any of those complaints or reports might have resulted in his arrest before the murders took place. Otherwise, at worst the employer should maybe have fired him, but that would not have prevented him from stalking and murdering someone. I also fail to see how WSU is culpable here, but I’m not a lawyer, nor particularly familiar with the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

U of I isn’t involved in this lawsuit…

The murdered students attended Idaho. PP didn’t say U of I was involved in the lawsuit, they said WSU doesn’t have a duty to students at U of I.

I think whether any employer could have a liability in a murder case would depend on what kind of complaints/reports they had and ignored or failed to act appropriately on regarding their employee, and whether any of those complaints or reports might have resulted in his arrest before the murders took place. Otherwise, at worst the employer should maybe have fired him, but that would not have prevented him from stalking and murdering someone. I also fail to see how WSU is culpable here, but I’m not a lawyer, nor particularly familiar with the case.

I’m just confused because you said “U of I might settle anyway” so I was saying, what are they settling if they aren’t involved in the lawsuit? Unless you mean WSU might settle?

[Anonymous]

Even if they had fired him earlier than they did, it doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have murdered these students. He had seemingly been planning these murders for months- casing the house and stalking the girls. He may have stuck around the area after being fired and gone through with it regardless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

PP. Sorry, I mean "Washington State might settle anyway."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unfortunately, I don’t think the school’s failure to act was the proximate cause of the murders. If a student or employee at Washington State sued after the school received complaints and failed to act on them, that would seem viable. Students at a different university…I don’t think so. Washington State doesn’t have a duty to students and employees at University of Idaho. University of Idaho might settle anyway.

U of I isn’t involved in this lawsuit…

The murdered students attended Idaho. PP didn’t say U of I was involved in the lawsuit, they said WSU doesn’t have a duty to students at U of I.

I think whether any employer could have a liability in a murder case would depend on what kind of complaints/reports they had and ignored or failed to act appropriately on regarding their employee, and whether any of those complaints or reports might have resulted in his arrest before the murders took place. Otherwise, at worst the employer should maybe have fired him, but that would not have prevented him from stalking and murdering someone. I also fail to see how WSU is culpable here, but I’m not a lawyer, nor particularly familiar with the case.

I’m just confused because you said “U of I might settle anyway” so I was saying, what are they settling if they aren’t involved in the lawsuit? Unless you mean WSU might settle?

I’m not the PP.