A university professor warned Bryan Kohberger would sexually abuse students just months before he murdered four undergraduates, according to a police report.

Kohberger, a 30-year-old criminal justice student, was sentenced to life in prison without parole last month after stabbing and killing a group of University of Idaho students in November 2022 while they slept.

A Washington State University (WSU) faculty member who met the doctoral student at a criminal justice programme said she warned colleagues he would likely stalk or sexually abuse his students if he became a professor.

“He is smart enough that in four years we will have to give him a PhD,” the woman told colleagues, urging them to remove him from the course, according to a report by Idaho police.

“Mark my word, I work with predators... when he is a professor, we will hear [he] is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing ... his students at wherever university.”