VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The country only learned the name Bryan Kohberger last week.
The Washington State University PhD student faces four counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students last November.
But Casey Arntz knew of Kohberger's name long before the national headlines.
"My mom called me... I picked up the phone and she asked ‘Do you know about the Idaho murders?'" she said. "Saw his mugshot and my stomach just [dropped]."
Arntz, who's lived in Virginia for roughly a decade, was born and raised in Pennsylvania. Growing up, Arntz said Kohberger was a part of a larger group of friends that included her younger brother, and that Kohberger would often visit her family's home on a regular basis over the weekends.
"[We] haven’t stopped shaking since Friday. It took a lot for me to calm down that day," she said.
Arntz doesn’t consider Kohberger the closest of friends. She said the two never spent any time alone together, but were close enough that she still remembers the regular interactions among the friend group while growing up.
After learning of the arrest this Friday, Arntz posted a TikTok to explain the connection, a post that's led to shares, reposts, and a flood of media outlets contacting her in hopes she'd share her story.
“Normally I wouldn’t want my name out there, but I do want to give insight into how I knew him. This is how law enforcement profiles a suspect, because maybe this helps. They’ll want to know who Bryan was, who did he go to school with? That’s why outlets have contacted me and my friends, because they want to know that," she said.
Arntz admitted she doesn’t have the details that’ll change the course of the case. But she’s choosing to share what she can in hopes it provides some kind of insight.
"That’s the craziest part about this. There are 7 billion people in the world, and it just happens to be someone I used to be friends with. It’s crazy to coincide Idaho and Pennsylvania, they’re on completely separate sides of the country. That’s what keeps me up at night," she said.
Kohberger will next appear in court Tuesday to begin the extradition process back to Idaho.
ABC News reports police identified Kohberger as the suspect through public genealogy databases.
