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Friends of alleged murderer Bryan Kohberger have revealed the 28-year-old was an obese, heroin-addicted bully, desperate to be the "alpha".

Kohberger was charged with first-degree murder, stabbing four university students to death – Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20 – on November 13 last year.

In a series of interviews, Kohberger's pals revealed more about the criminal "creeper" and his desire to be dominant.

READ MORE: Idaho murder suspect may have 'posted to Facebook revealing key details of killings'

When they met, 27-year-old Army veteran Thomas Arntz thought Kohberger to be a normal teenager – "awkward and fairly reserved".

The pair played video games together, until Arntz reported a troubling change in behaviour.

Arntz told the Idaho Statesman: “He always wanted to be dominant physically and intellectually."

The army vet explains this overbearing personality may have explained Kohberger's desperate yearning to become a cop, despite weighing more than 21 stone.

“He had to show that he was smarter and bigger than you, and try to put me down and make me feel insecure about myself”, reports Arntz.

This torment worsened into violence after Kohberger took up daily running and kickboxing classes, losing at least half his bodyweight, and becoming aggressive.

“For no reason, he’d try to grapple me and put me in headlocks when I didn’t want to. He tried to portray it as just boys being boys, but that’s not the way I ever took it,” Arntz recalled.

His former friends report that Kohberger lost so much weight that he needed surgery for his loose skin, and developed an eating disorder that led to hospitalisation.

Arntz eventually cut ties with the militant vegan. “It almost seemed to me he had a desire to be the alpha,” he said. “So much of that was a torment and I didn’t want to be around him anymore.”

As he alienated his circle of friends, Kohberger found a new friendship group that were introduce him to hard drugs. At least two of those friends later overdosed and died after a string of drug busts, according to the Idaho Statesman.

“Honestly, I feel he was looking for validation, and that’s why he fell into that crowd,” Arntz’s 29-year-old sister Casey told the Statesman, “and honestly, it’s why he fell into the whole drug scene.”

According to Casey Arntz, Kohberger also spent time in rehab, revealed in a message shared from 2013 (the year Kohberger graduated high school).

Arntz accused the drug-addicted Kohberger of tricking her into driving him around to secretly buying heroin and needles. “He literally used me to get it,” she told the Statesman. “I was freaking out and not happy I had heroin in my car and didn’t even know.”

Once clean, Kohberger reportedly told friends that he “only used” heroin when “in a deep suicidal state.”

“I think drugs goofed [Kohberger] pretty bad,” a high school pal, Jack Baylis, 28, reports. “He was having a time. He’d tell me, ‘I’m clean now, I’m totally clean now,’ and he’d have bleeding track marks” on his arms.

Rich Pasqua, 31, was a former drug-buddy of Kohberger, and previously told Fox News that the murderer “was a big heroin addict.”

“He didn’t have many friends, so he would do anything to fit in,” said Pasqua, who now works at a rehab clinic.

Despite signs of worrying behaviour, Kohberger's neighbours never thought he would kill.

“No bells ever went off,” said Barbara Tokar, 58, a previous neighbour of Kohberger’s, and mother of an ex-classmate. “It makes me sick in my stomach. You never know. You just never know.”

After allegedly murdering the four students, the PHD criminology student at Washington State University was eventually arrested at his family home, a 10 minute drive from the scene of the murder.

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