Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Bryan Kohberger's Professor Breaks Silence In New Interview

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

When Bryan Kohberger attended Washington State University in the fall of 2022 he worked as a teaching assistant for John Snyder, a professor and defense attorney. Kohberger's time in the department was marked by complaints from students and staff. Now Snyder has granted what will likely be his only interview to a friend: writer Brad Pearce, whose wife worked at the local bar where they would meet for drinks. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with Brad and Alexis Pearce about Snyder's thoughts in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Brad Pearce  https://substack.com/@thewaywardrabblerAlexis Pearce  https://www.facebook.com/PalouseCabooseProducer:Jordan ChaconCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. He said that he was really arrogant, but also was not very intelligent at all. A writer discovers his friend from the bar who's been venting about his annoying teaching assistant was supervising now convicted quadruple murderer Brian Koberger. I go through what Professor John Snyder has said about his time, working with Coburger with his friends, Brad and Alexis Pierce. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. When Brian Coburger made the move to Pullman,

Washington from Pennsylvania in 2022 to get his Ph.D. in criminology, he was only able to do this because he was receiving funding through Washington State University. Koberger got that funding in part because he was working as a teaching assistant for a professor in the department. That professor was John Snyder, a veteran defense attorney who started teaching at WSU's criminology department years and years ago. We now know that BK's time at WSU caused some chaos in the criminology department. It was during this time that BK murdered Maddie Mogan, Kaley Gonzalez, Ethan Chapin, and Zana Kornodal at the House on King Road in Moscow. there were complaints that Koberger was sexually harassing female students at WSU, and there were also complaints that he was grading female students more harshly than male students

and that one professor actually feared he was stalking women and that he might one day become a predator. All of this comes from Idaho State Police Reports documenting interviews with professors and students. And John Snyder, he also spoke to Idaho State Police detectives. Snyder told detectives he hadn't noticed bias in Coburger's grading and that one student had complained about this. Snyder also told the detectives he didn't know if Coburger was trying to curry favor with him or actually trying to control his time when he would show up at the end of the day on Fridays and talk about absolute nonsense. Snyder told the detectives this happened repeatedly on Fridays and that he also had trouble getting Coburger to complete his TA assignments. Snyder's name is redacted from these reports, but it's clear that it's him.

He also told the detectives that he had a fleeting thought after the King Road homicides that Koeberger could have committed the crimes, but that was it. Snyder also told detectives that he believed that Koberger stared at people to display dominance and that one female student had complained about this. Snyder hasn't spoken publicly about Brian Koberger. Until now, he granted an interview to a friend of his. from the local bar, the Poulouse Caboose. It was published in the New York Post.

Brad Pierce hangs out at the bar in Poulouse, Washington. His wife, Alexis, is the bartender there. I spoke with Brad and Alexis about their talks with John Snyder over the last couple of years and Brad's article and how it's being received. It's been really very positive. This is the largest place that I've really had anything published. And I often write about kind of niche foreign policy or, political issues. So it was something that was of wider interest, especially to people

in the small town that we live in. So I've gotten a lot of really positive feedback, both from people here, from editors that I know, from the general internet, the overall comments and responses on social media and on the New York Post's page were pretty positive overall, though, of course, anything like that, you get some people making random stupid comments, you know. So let's turn back the clock a little bit. Let's go back to fall semester. of 2022. Alexis, you work at the caboose and John Snyder. Professor John Snyder, he's a regular, right? Yeah, he's probably one of our favorite regulars. You know, if you spend any time at the same bar a lot, you have like this kind of like little bar family. So I could always kind of tell if he was

having like a good day or a bad day or if he wanted a fancy beer. I call it when he has something a little nicer than a course light, and he just kind of kept getting more and more run down as the semester went on. When did he kind of start talking about this TA who was kind of given him some trouble? I don't specifically quite remember when he was talking about it. You know, you get a little busy, you get kind of normal work complaining, chit-chatty. It was definitely, I know, closer or more towards the end of it, he was getting real fed up. I know from interviewing him, he said it was by midterms he had pretty much entirely given up on anything and getting any work or anything good out of Koeberger.

So, yeah, and I don't necessarily remember when the complaining started either, but from speaking to him, it was very early on he realized this guy was going to be a problem. And Brad, you go visit Alexis at work, and this is kind of how this whole thing starts. You're hanging out at the caboose visiting your wife, and John Snyder is somebody who comes in, and you're sitting there at the bar and you talk to him. And what does he start saying to you about this guy? I mean, you're just hanging out talking and people grape about work. It's what people do at the bar.

So what is he saying to you that you can recall where you're like, oh, man, that stinks? You know, it's not anything that specific. It was, you know, it's such a normal thing at a bar to talk about the problems with your job when you're there after work. You know, it's like there's the George Carlin joke, but everyone hating their job. And we have a support group for it that's called the bar. so it wasn't anything that specific it was really just repeatedly of not liking him of that he was difficult to get along with that the students didn't like him that you know he was getting complaints from students that he wasn't doing a good job really really everything that makes for a bad employee basically there's a reason crime fix is one of the top rank shows on youtube right now just like there's a reason why morgan and morgan is america's largest injury law firm they're a firm with more than a thousand attorneys and that's because they win a lot Morgan and Morgan has recovered more than $25 billion for more than $500,000 clients. In the last few months, a client in Florida received $12 million after the insurance company offered just $350,000.

In Pennsylvania, a client was awarded $26 million that was 40 times the insurer's $650,000 offer. Another client in Pennsylvania received $29 million after being offered only $500,000. even if you think your case is not worth millions, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan and Morgan makes it truly so easy. You can start a claim from your phone and just eight clicks. So if you're ever hurt, you can easily start a claim at for the people dot com slash crime fix by clicking the link below or scanning that QR code that you see on your screen. And is this anything that you had ever kind of really heard him complain about before? I mean, has grapes about their job. There are little things that bother you, but we're learning a lot

of detailed information now that these police reports have come out, that after the murders, and when they figure out that Brian Koeberger is the suspect, they go to WSU and they interview these students and the faculty. And my God, this guy was like accused of sexual harassment. There were a massive number of complaints. I mean, he was causing big time problems. in that department. Yeah, according to John, a lot of those people that keep talking to the media didn't really know him or weren't in the class for these things and are kind of just people that want attention. So it's kind of hard to say what the credibility of that is. Though, of course, he wasn't monitoring every interaction the guy had either.

But at least a few of the most prominent people, I don't have any names on mind. I probably shouldn't say them if I did. But he said he knows weren't there for the various situations that they're describing. so at best heard them secondhand. But regardless, he made a bad impression on basically everyone he met that is universally agreed on. Let's fast forward to late December. It would have been the very end of December, early January, 2023. When does John Snyder come in and drop this bomb on you guys that Brian Koberger is the TA that's been causing him these headaches all semester long?

At the bar I work at, we typically will close at least for holidays a little bit. And I think that year we had happened to decide to close between Christmas and New Year's. And I think he was arrested at the 26th. On the 30th. On the 30th. Okay. So, yeah, we happened to be kind of at a lull there. So it was the first day that the bar had reopened again.

And yeah, that's when he walked in. And I can always tell when he's having a bad day. And he looked probably the worst I've ever seen him. him. And he just kind of stared at me and there was a newspaper sitting on the bar and he just kind of picked it up. And I was like, it was him. Because yeah, I had put it together already and that has to be John's guy, you know, John's TA. So Brad, you had put it all together based on what you had heard in the news that that has to be John's TA. Yeah, I mean, I kind of just, I assumed it had to be just once they said that. I mean, it took me a little while, but yeah, it was my assumption

and then it turned out to be true. So what does he say to you guys when he comes in the bar and he holds up the newspaper? I mean, what does he start saying, if anything to you about, oh, my God, like this mass murderer, quadruple murderer is my TA. Like, what does he talk about? What does he say? He was mostly horrified the first probably a couple of weeks or so. He took a long time to kind of process it.

I mean, obviously for a variety of reasons. and he just he seemed to carry some kind of level of guilt I think just by even knowing him and being associated with him and it was really hard on him he you know

he went to talk to the police like immediately just with any help that he you know might be able to have he did try kind of try to keep comments to a minimum because being an attorney he knows what he shouldn't say with an ongoing investigation So we kind of just tried to cheer him up a little and just kind of be there for him.

Brad, what was your interaction like as far as that goes? Yeah, it was pretty clear he didn't want to talk about it, but it was mostly just him saying that he was an asshole whole time. And then, yeah, you know, they put the gag order on it really fast. I later learned that he wasn't actually under until the very end because he hadn't been called as a witness until like two months before the plea deal was made. But regardless, he was clearly playing it close to the chest. So I really didn't prod it until the plea deal when I started convincing him to let me do an interview.

So John Snyder, two months before the plea deal was announced, he was made aware by prosecutors, I assume, that he was probably subpoenaed. And he was told, we're going to need you to testify potentially. Actually, the defense subpoenaed him. and he says he assumes as a sentencing witness and, you know, they don't want to tell you why, but yeah, it was the defense that subpoenaed him. Interesting. That's interesting to me because John Snyder,

according to everything I've read in the police reports, did not have a positive interaction, a positive experience with Brian Koberger. Yeah, he also, I don't know, had no reason to believe he was violent until this happened and whatever else. You know, he also has a, low opinion of Brian's ability to remain safe and alive in prison. I really don't know.

You know, he said overall he conducted about 10 hours of interviews over this, which like as an attorney says it's not really that much for this large of a case, you know, between the police and both sides of it. So for one reason or another, it's the defense that decided to subpoena him even though he didn't know anything. What was John's reaction to Brian Cooper? are actually pleading guilty? He was relieved. I mean, we're in an area where, you know, there's a lot of firing squad jokes.

But also, again, as an defense attorney, he also understands what a full trial and appeals would mean for the victim's families and everyone else involved. So, you know, it's a mixed bag. But I think he was relieved that, at least a chapter is over in this entire situation. How did you convince him, Brad, to do an interview with you?

You know, there'd been speculation about him on the internet. And he had done a few emails back and forth like a New York Times reporter. But I do think he was over all ready to tell his story, even though he hadn't wanted to do so, just because his name had been mentioned so much with the case. So since he knew me and he knew it would help out my career and everything else, he didn't actually take very much prodding at all. got him to agree to it pretty easily. Hmm, interesting.

So how long did this take and how did it unfold? Well, I mean, I really arranged it the oldest fashioned way possible. I ran into him at the bar and got him to meet me there on a different day. And so, yeah, the interview was only a couple of days after we set it up. I interviewed him for two hours to write, The Ardole ended up being 1,500 words. This is kind of my writing style, generally, whether it's an interviewer or books or whatever, is that I get a whole lot of information, and then I distill it as well as I can. And then from there, it was a few weeks to get it published.

It actually turned out my editor was on medical leave shortly after I got this done. But regardless, then we got it out really fast once she was back and ready to work, because she was very excited about the piece. I'm sure. So talk to me about what exactly it was that John Snyder. felt made Brian Koberger fit the words he used to describe him. He said that he was really arrogant, but also was not very intelligent at all. You know, you do see other professors making statements, like, about how, like, the one said,

oh, he's so smart, you know, we'll have to give him a PhD in four years. He stays here, which is nonsense because he had already been kicked out of the TA program by the time he was arrested, you know. But, yeah, I mean, he basically felt like. like that he was really arrogant, despite not being intelligent, and that he was really desperate for attention and ways to control people. And that he was probably, you know, was really trying to get laid with the women and doing very unsuccessful

and getting them interested in him. You know, that was kind of the combination of traits that he felt like was making him so bad at his job, both like as a student and as a TA. Because, like, he both wasn't. helpful in class in terms of getting papers rated or writing tests or anything like that. He also wasn't teachable in terms of the aspect of John's job that is supposed to be teaching him to be a professor, you know. Did John feel like, and I don't know if you asked this, but did he feel like maybe Brian

Koberger was just using this whole criminology thing as a cover to commit crimes? You know, I kind of said that in the post article, because that's what I took from the interview and from the broader situation. He didn't really say that directly, though, I mean, it kind of seems self-evident to me that he was using studying criminology to become a better criminal not to help anyone solve crimes or prevent them or whatever. because that's I'm just wondering if he felt that way because and I'm saying because he became obsessed with serial killers and all these things so it's not he's obsessed with it because that's what he wants to be so it's just this whole I want to be a professor it's just all bogus you know I did actually I did kind of ask about that if he had ever been in a situation before where he thought like a student

was too, too interested in serial killers in such a way that it would make him think that it was something that they wanted to do, not something they wanted to understand for the common good or whatever. And he said that there's not that many students you get to know having a, you know, a huge amount of them, but that grad students usually you know more of them. But that it didn't, it hasn't really crossed his mind with any other student. And it didn't with Coburg or either. He primarily just thought that he had an exaggerated opinion of himself. You know, John Snyder was a defense attorney before he was a professor. So he's dealt with criminals his whole career.

Did he feel like at all that he saw this, saw anything in Coburg or kind of in hindsight that made him feel like this guy, he's not studying criminology. He's somebody who has criminal thinking, you know, he is a criminal. Yeah, well, I mean, he was going to, he didn't see him in class that much, and he saw him the most when Kilberger was, you know, just bothering him after, after work and stuff like that. But he did say, because I asked about this, that he doesn't feel that his time as a defense attorney made him, you know, really better at spotting evil than the average person because he only dealt with, you know, a few homicides and all that time. He did occasionally have really evil people, but, you know, it's a, his county is about 50% associated with the university. So as a defense, a public defender, especially when you're only dealing with people that, you know, don't have their own resources, it's overwhelmingly, you know, younger people that screwed up or, you know, people that repeatedly drive without a license or just various, um, various kind of mistakes or crimes of immaturity or poverty as opposed to, you know, as opposed to people that are really career criminals or inherently violent or anything else. So he just said that nothing about that career really prepared him for, you know, picking out some. someone being extraordinarily evil. Right.

What was it like when these murders first happened? I mean, you're over in Pullman. So it's about a 15-minute drive from Moscow. I mean, was there fear in Pullman after these murders happened? Okay, so let's clarify, actually. We live in the town, the city of Paloos, which is about 15 miles north of both Pullman and Moscow. Klein, Pullman is only eight miles from Moscow, actually. That's one of the things Howard Blumman.

had wrong in that book. Anyway, so those campuses are only about eight minutes apart. A little triangle. So it's just, I mean, it's just as if it happened in Pullman, basically. You know, they were looking at other crimes in Pullman that might be related, you know, everything else. But, I mean, it was crazy. Like, so I do my grocery shopping in Moscow because everything's cheaper. And I was in Moscow shopping in the time between these murders being committed and it being reported doing my shopping. So I get home. And, you know, you know, there's that initial report of four people, you know, oh, there was a call up something unconscious and they found four people dead.

All this, you know, wild speculation started happening of like, oh, maybe they all died of fentanyl. And that's not really how fentanyl overdoses work that all four people, four out of four people would be dead and none of them would be there to call the cops. You know, that's not what happened. People were speculating wildly about, oh, yeah, I don't know, it's a drug murder. It's this or that. And, you know, in fairness, we, you know, like a, it sounded like a gas leak or

something when they say like oh there was a call for someone being unconscious and four bodies were found there um and so then it was just absolutely shocking that there was a homicide like this you know the last homicide in moscow was like five years before and it was some guy that went crazy and shot up his landlord's office or whatever it wasn't a who done it at all um so yeah i mean there was a lot of fear like you know we started locking our doors into town where no one ever does that you know everyone did like sleeping with guns next to your bed which to be fair in north idaho is not not that unusual. But, you know, everyone, everyone was extremely alarmed.

And, you know, the police messaging was just awful because, like, oh, we have no reason to believe that there's, you know, a danger to the public. And they were basing that on nothing. We know now. And then later they'd be like, okay, well, this guy that committed a quadruple homicide is on the loose. So yes, we do have to assume whoever this is is a danger to the public. So, yeah, it was really scary for everyone in a way that we're not used to here.

But it is important to remember that even in a city with, you know, a high amount of homicides, like, you know, Baltimore or St. Louis or something, you think of that as being in poor neighborhoods or drug murders or this person was doing something wrong. Like, no matter where you are in America for, like, nice college students, you know, who are doing everything right or whatever, getting murdered in their home would shop any city in America. Oh, most definitely. I don't care what size city you would be in. this would be, it would be shocking. I think it's more shocking just because of how safe Moscow seemed to be. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a generally really safe area and most people around here have gone to U of I or WSU, so it was, it was scary and it was also very sad.

You know, we've all been, you know, a lot of us have been in college and, you know, knew those friendships that you make there. So it was really heartbreaking as well. Well, is there anything else, Brad, that you would like to add about your interview with John or about how, and Alexis, about how this has, you know, it's, how this has impacted the community or what John said. I mean, it's just, it's one of the worst. I've covered a lot of horrible cases, but this is one of the worst I've covered. I would just again like to thank John for, you know, agree to the interview and thank the New York Post for how. wonderful they were to work with and getting this out.

I think it was a good opportunity to showcase, you know, our community that show that, you know, he really is a very nice person that was negatively impacted by this and to show that, um, I don't know, kind of that we're all still here and strong and more than this one crime happening, even though, you know, it does just bring more publicity to the crime. Um, so I mean, I guess that is the main thing I would say about it. Yeah, I'm just happy that, um, John finally got to kind of say his piece. He truly is a really kind and wonderful man. And, you know, with internet sleuths and stuff, some weird things can get out there.

And I think a lot more people got to see what I get to see. Well, Brad and Alexis Pierce, thank you so much for talking with me. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for having us on. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

Thank you.