Bryan Kohberger Watches Cable News About Himself in Jail: Reports

• Bryan Kohberger is awaiting a preliminary hearing on charges over the deaths of four University of Idaho students.
• Kohberger has access to cable television in Latah County Jail and reportedly obsessively follows news coverage about his case.
• Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer says inmates are given access to television as a way to distract and entertain them.

Bryan Kohberger is reportedly glued to news coverage about himself while in jail awaiting a preliminary hearing on charges over the deaths of four University of Idaho students.

Kohberger, 28, is accused of fatally stabbing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 20. Their bodies were found in a rental home near the university's campus on November 13.

Kohberger was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania and extradited to Idaho. At the time of the slayings, Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman. He is no longer enrolled at WSU.

He hasn't yet entered a plea to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary, but a lawyer who previously represented him in Pennsylvania said he was "eager to be exonerated." His preliminary hearing is due to begin in late June.

It has recently emerged that Kohberger has access to cable television in his cell at the Latah County Jail, where he has been held since early January.

And according to a DailyMail.com report, he obsessively follows news coverage about his case. "He watches himself all the time. It's really kind of bizarre," an inmate told the outlet.

Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent, says inmates are given access to television as a way to keep them distracted.

"This shouldn't be too surprising, at least for those that are in law enforcement," she said on NewsNation. "Anytime I went and visited a jail, even prisons, they have cable and they do it for distraction. They do it for entertainment of the inmate."

Coffindaffer said she was appalled when she first visited a prison and discovered inmates had televisions.

"But essentially, it's what they use to really keep the inmates under control and distracted and entertained," she said.

Coffindaffer also said it was not surprising that Kohberger would follow the news coverage about his case.

"If anyone had been charged with the crime, whether they did or did not commit it, they would be glued to the information that they could get from it. So that made a lot of sense to me," she said.

"If I were in his shoes, I would be having the television on, I would be looking at all the news reels. I'd want to know what people are saying about me and what evidence they have so I can counter that."

Newsweek has contacted Coffindaffer for further comment.