DNA on knife sheath links suspect to mysterious Idaho student killings, roommate saw masked man, police say in new arrest documents
A roommate in the house where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in November told authorities she saw a tall, masked man dressed in black inside their home at the time of the early morning attacks, according to newly released court documents Thursday.
Police said they zeroed in on suspect Bryan Kohberger, 28, through a combination of DNA evidence left on a large knife sheath found at the scene, trash collected from his parents' Pennsylvania home, surveillance video, cellphone records and license-plate readers that tracked his car on a cross-country drive.
The whereabouts of the knife itself are unknown, and police have said they were still looking for the murder weapon. The documents also don't detail why police weren’t alerted until nearly eight hours after the killings likely occurred or any potential motive in the case, leaving it unclear if the suspect knew the students before their deaths.
Students Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were killed in the Nov. 13 attack in Moscow, Idaho, that stirred panic in the small college town. Kohberger was a doctoral student in the criminal justice and criminology department at Washington State University in Pullman, about 10 miles away.
He was arrested Friday in Pennsylvania on four counts of first-degree murder and a count of felony burglary and appeared in court in Idaho on Thursday.
Jason A. LaBar, a court-appointed public defender in Monroe County, Pa., told the Today show that Kohberger has been calm in conversations with him and maintained his innocence. "He said this is not him, he said he believes he is going to be exonerated. That's what he believes, those were his words," LaBar said.
A mystery, no leads, then a break in the case:Timeline of the Idaho student murders investigation
READ THE DOCS:Police affidavit outlines evidence, tracking of suspect in Idaho student killings
No motive revealed, suspect was near home 12 times before attack
Police in seeking Kohberger's arrest left out any mention of a possible motive. But authorities noted his phone had been tracked near the students' rental house at least 12 times in the six months before the attack, and "all of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours."
Police did not indicate whether Kohberger had any other reason to be in the area at those times, nor did they detail any indication that he knew the students before their deaths.
Idaho roommate saw person in black clothing, mask
One of the roommates told law enforcement she was awoken at 4 a.m. the morning of the killings by what she thought was Goncalves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms, located on the third floor, the documents say.
The roommate then heard Goncalves say something like "there’s someone here," according to the roommate’s statement to law enforcement in the affidavit. The roommate opened her bedroom door and saw nothing. She opened it again when she thought she heard crying from Kernodle's room and heard a man say something like, "It’s ok, I’m going to help you," according to the affidavit.
The roommate said she opened her door a third time and saw "a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose" walking toward her, according to the affidavit. The roommate said she stood in "frozen shock" as the man walked past her and out a sliding glass door. She then locked herself in her room, the documents say.
She later described the man to law enforcement as tall, not very muscular but "athletically built with bushy eyebrows," the documents say.
DNA, trash at home, video evidence point to suspect
Police said the roommate’s account, phone records and videos led investigators to believe the killings happened between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. that morning.
At 4 a.m., Kernodle received a DoorDash order at the residence, police said. Kohberger was not employed with DoorDash, the company said.
At 4:17 a.m., security camera video from outside the home picked up distorted voices or a whimper "followed by a loud thud," police said.
Other neighborhood security camera videos played a key role in identifying a white Hyundai Elantra, which police say was owned by Kohberger. The car was seen on video at least four times between 3:29 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. before speeding off, the document says.
Police also used cellphone location data to track the suspect's location, and noted his cellphone was either turned off or put into airplane mode for a time overlapping the attacks, from 2:47 a.m. to 4:48 a.m., "consistent with Kohberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide," the affidavit said.
On Dec. 27, they collected trash from the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger's parents and determined that a man who lives there was 99.9% certain to be the father of the person who left the DNA on the knife sheath, which was emblazoned with the U.S. Marine Corps emblem, found at the scene, the documents say.
Suspect may have returned to scene hours after killings
Authorities suggest Kohberger may have returned to the crime scene hours after the killings.
Location data suggests Kohberger's phone left his residence around 9 a.m. on Nov. 13, traveled to the area of the killings, stayed there for about ten minutes and returned about half an hour later, police said in documents.
Kohberger got new license plates 5 days after killings
Police indicated they initially had trouble tracking the vehicle seen near the crime scene because it lacked a front license plate. In Pennsylvania, where Kohberger's from, vehicles only need a rear plate.
Security camera footage from the neighborhood on Nov. 13 showed a white sedan with no front license plate. Police used the footage to track the sedan as it traveled from Moscow to an area close to Washington State University in Pullman.
Five days later, on Nov. 18, Kohberger registered his white, Hyundai Elantra in Washington and got new plates, police said. Until then, the car had a Pennsylvania plate.
On Nov. 25, police asked for the public's help in finding a white Hyundai sedan. Three days later, campus police at Washington State University identified Kohberger's car the Washington plates.
Moscow authorities were then able to link the movements of his car and his cellphone, in part, because he had been stopped for traffic infractions in August and October, according to the affidavit.
Officers also noted his car was tracked crossing into Colorado on Dec. 13, pulled over by Indiana State Police on Dec. 15, and located on surveillance footage in Pennsylvania on Dec. 16.
Kohberger applied for police internship
According to the affidavit, Kohberger applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in Washington in the fall of 2022 and wrote an essay claiming he had an interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with "how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations."
He previously received an associate's degree in psychology from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania and graduated with a master of arts in criminal justice from DeSales University in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
University of Idaho killings:What we know about Bryan Kohberger
Seven months ago, a Reddit user by the same name, identifying himself as a student investigator, made a post in the "Prison" and "ExCons" sub Reddits inviting users to participate in a research project to understand "how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime."
'He was just kind of generally distant,' student says of Kohberger
Washington State junior Hayden Stinchfield remembers the "shocking realization" when he learned his criminal justice class teaching assistant became a suspect in the quadruple killings.
Stinchfield recalled Khoberger “looking at the ground a lot,” often giving “canned responses” in the class.
“He was just kind of generally distant, not super present in class, even when he was literally in class,” Stinchfield said.
After the stabbings, Stinchfield said Kohberger continued teaching at Washington State but he was consistently absent as the end of the semester approached.
Stinchfield thought nothing of it but the moment police announced Kohberger's arrest, it was a moment of “shocking realization,” Stinchfield said.
“It was like, ‘Oh, it's this guy?’ I know him, kinda,” Stinchfield said.
While he says many students interested in criminal justice graduate to become lawyers or police officers, Stinchfield thinks Kohberger is in this “other group” that's fixated on doing harm.
“It seems like it became something of an obsession, probably,” Stinchfield said. “Sometimes you end up with people that will be a little weirdly comfortable with these horrible crimes we're talking about.”
Kohberger appears in court in Idaho
Kohberger made his first court appearance in Idaho Thursday morning where Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall ordered he would be held without bond.
Wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, Kohberger looked stoic and replied "yes" when Marshall asked if he understood his rights as she read each of the first-degree murder and burglary charges filed against him.
The judge also issued a no-contact order for Kohberger with the two surviving roommates and the victims’ families.The murder charges Kohberger is facing could carry sentences ranging from life in prison to the death penalty if he's convicted. The death penalty is legal in Idaho.
Earlier this week, Marshall issued a gag order preventing authorities, attorneys and other officials from "making extrajudicial comments, written or oral, concerning this case." Another hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 12.
The hearing came a day after Kohberger was flown back to Idaho by the Pennsylvania State Police to a small airport near the Idaho state border and handed over to local authorities.
Authorities announced Friday they arrested Kohberger in his parents' home in northeastern Pennsylvania, about 2,500 miles from where the stabbings happened. He agreed to be extradited back to the state during an initial court appearance in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.
Contributing: Josie Goodrich