5 Revelations From University of Idaho Killings Affidavit

• Court documents released Thursday reveal a number of new details about the Idaho killings investigation.
• An affidavit shows the evidence police gathered against the suspect in the months since the killings.
• Bryan Kohberger, 28, was charged Thursday with four counts of first-degree murder.

The suspect charged in the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students appeared in a state court on murder charges on Thursday. The hearing prompted the unsealing of a police affidavit that for the first time shed light on the morning of the gruesome stabbings and two-month hunt to find the accused killer.

Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in connection to the deaths of 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves and 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. All four victims were found stabbed to death on the second and third floors of the home they rented near the University of Idaho campus.

Kohberger has been held without bail pending trial.

Here are 5 of the biggest revelations from the affidavit:

Phone records placed the suspect’s phone near the crime scene at least a dozen times in the months leading up to the killings 

Police obtained access to the suspect’s phone records dating back to June 2022 and learned his phone had been near the victims’ home on at least 12 occasions prior to the killings.

“All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours,” the affidavit said.

The suspect returned to the scene hours after the killings

The affidavit said Moscow police tracked the device’s movements between November 12 and November 14, revealing that the suspect’s phone was at the crime scene at 2:47 a.m. the night of the killings, and was either turned off or placed on airplane mode until 4:48 a.m.

Police said phone records then showed the suspect’s phone on the highway, moving away from the crime scene and later arriving at the suspect’s home. But at 9 a.m., the phone began moving again and arrived at the crime scene at 9:21 a.m. The phone left again 11 minutes later.

Authorities found the suspect’s DNA on a knife sheath at the scene, matching it to DNA from his parents’ trash

The affidavit said authorities recovered male DNA, believed to be from the suspect, from a tan, leather knife sheath found next to Mogen’s body. The DNA was found on the sheath’s button snap, and the sheath’s exterior had the US Marine Corps abbreviation “USMC” and insignia stamped on it. It was compared to trash recovered from a garbage can outside Kohberger’s parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. The Idaho State Lab determined the DNA from the trash belonged to Kohberger’s father.

Law enforcement sources previously said they used public genealogy databases to link Kohberger to the crime, and a forensic genetic genealogy expert told Insider the standard process involves comparing the suspect’s DNA to that of nearly 2 million members of the general public to find a relative of the suspect. From there, genetic genealogists would have pieced together a family tree using public records, and determined a likely suspect.

 

 

Associated Press/Ted S. Warren

 

One of the victims’ roommates saw the suspect, but nobody called 911 until noon the next day

One of the surviving roommates, identified in the affidavit only as “D.M.,” told police she heard a number of strange noises the night of the killings and opened her bedroom door three times before catching a glimpse of the suspect.

She said she first woke up around 4 a.m. hearing noises that sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog upstairs. Shortly afterward, she heard Goncalves say, “there’s someone here.” The affidavit said the roommate looked but didn’t see anything, then opened her door a second time when she heard “crying” coming from Kernodle’s room and a male voice saying something like, “It’s OK, I’m going to help you.”

The third time the roommate opened her door, she saw a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her.” She said he had bushy eyebrows, was tall, and athletic-looking. The roommate told police she watched the man leave the house through the back sliding glass door as she stood in a “frozen shock phase.”

Authorities have said they didn’t receive a 911 call until just before noon on November 13, reporting an “unconscious” person. Moscow Police Chief James Fry has said previously that police don’t know why the call was not made when the killings occurred.

 

 

Nicholas K. Geranios/AP Photo

 

The suspect had previously applied to an internship at the police department that helped investigate the crime

Kohberger, who was getting his Ph.D. in criminology from Washington State University Pullman, had submitted an application for an internship at the local police department sometime in the months leading up to the killings on November 13, according to the affidavit.

Kohberger graduated from DeSales University in Pennsylvania, where he’s from, with a master’s degree in criminal justice.

In the application, Kohberger said he was hoping to help rural law enforcement agencies better “collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations,” according to the affidavit.

The affidavit also references a Reddit survey Kohberger posted in June, asking people who had recently committed crimes to share their “thoughts and feelings throughout [their] experience.”

Kohberger wrote that he wanted to “understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision making when committing a crime.”