Investigators reveal new information they say links Idaho murders to Brian Coberg (2023)

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Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology PhD. student, accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November.Matt Locke/AP hide title

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Matt Locke/AP

(Video) Shocking Evidence Links Bryan Kohberger to Idaho Student Murders: Police

Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology PhD. student, accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November.

Matt Locke/AP

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Idaho murder suspect: What we know about Bryan Kohberger

Authorities in Idaho have released the most extensive evidence yet linking the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students to a suspect who was arrested and charged with murder last week.

The new information includes a DNA sample recovered from a leather sheath found in one of the victims' beds. It seems like a strong coincidence to Kohberger, along with the revelation that the victim's roommate woke up during the night to see a strange masked man leaving the house.

Authorities in Idaho charged Bryan Kohberger with the November murders in which four students were killed.

Kohberger, a 28-year-old Ph.D. in criminology. The student from nearby Washington State University was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

In the early morning hours of November 13, four students (Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Morgan, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21) were stabbed to death in their home in Moscow, Idaho, three of whom lived with two. others. student. The fourth victim, Chapin, dated Kernodle to a slumber party.

What roommates tell the police

Witnesses and friends said the hours leading up to the attack were a normal Saturday night gathering for the four victims. Chapin and Kernodle attend a frat party. Mogen and Goncalves go to a bar and pass a food truck on their way home. On the King's Road. The four of them were home by 2 o'clock. m. and most slept at 4 in the morning. m.

Two other roommates were not assaulted. in astatement issued ThursdayMoscow police said a roommate identified in the documents as "D.M." he was woken around by noises from upstairs, including what she thought was her roommate, Gonsalves, saying, "Someone's here."

DM he looked through his bedroom door but saw nothing, then heard more voices, he told investigators: crying, a man's voice saying, "Okay, I'll help you," more noise, a loud bang, a dog. bark

She opened the door again and this time saw "an individual dressed in black and wearing a mask" walking toward her, the affidavit states.

This is a strange man, She described him as being at least 5ft 10in, "not very muscular but bushy eyebrows, very muscular," she said.

While she was "in the 'frozen shock phase,'" the man ran past her toward the home's sliding door before the roommate locked herself in her bedroom, investigators said.

Police track car to and from crime scene

Investigators also searched the area of ​​the King Road home to collect video footage showing a white sedan, later identified as a Hyundai Elantra, driving toward the residence around 3:30 a.m. m., passing several times before leaving the neighborhood Zone 4:20 AM, "high speed".

Security footage from the Washington State University campus in Pullman, Wash., where Kohberger is a graduate student, shows a similar white sedan heading toward Moscow, about 15 miles across the border state, at about 8 p.m. 03:00, and then seems to return around 5:30

On Nov. 29, police conducted a search of the WSU student's registered vehicle and found a white 2015 Hyundai Elantra registered to Bryan Kohberger, originally with Pennsylvania plates and later registered in Washington.

Then they tracked his cell phone

After identifying Kohberger as a possible suspect, police discovered he had been arrested in August. At that time, he gave the Moscow police his phone number.

In late December, investigators reviewed cell phone records to try to determine if his phone had pinged cell phone towers near the crime scene or on the route to and from the crime.

Initial searches revealed that her phone did not actually ping any cell phone towers near the crime scene between 03.00 and 17.00. m. and at m. of 13 November.

But investigators noted that the lack of cellphone coverage may have been "to avoid alerting law enforcement" to a person's proximity to a crime scene, they said.

Authorities expanded their search and found that Kohberger's phone pinged a cell tower in Pullman around 6 p.m. 02.47. m., consistent with the phone leaving the Kohberger residence "and traveling south through Pullman," the affidavit states.

It was the last ping about two hours later, the researchers said.

Then at 4:48. m., the call resurfaced online, pointing along the freeway south to Moscow, then west across the Washington state border, then north back to Pullman: the timeline of investigators with white The Elantra's security footage is unanimous. famous.

The phone's disappearance from the network for two hours was consistent with efforts "to conceal his location in the quadruple homicide," the statement said.

There is no evidence in the affidavit that Kohberger's phone contacted any of the victims or anyone connected to them.

But investigators found her phone had made at least 12 calls to cellphone towers near her home on King Road before the killing, including on Aug. 21, the day before she began her graduate studies at Washington state. at night or early in the morning, the statement says.

The phone was returned to the crime scene around 9:15 a.m. on November 13, about five hours after the stabbing, before police were notified.

move coberg

In mid-December, after the Washington state semester ended, Kohberger drove the Elantra back to his home in Pennsylvania with his father, who had gone to Washington, so the two could drive long distances together.

Investigators noted evidence of the car's return to Pennsylvania: a Colorado license plate, a traffic stop in Indiana.

This week, Indiana authorities released video showing two traffic stops along Interstate 70 east of Indianapolis where two different officers stopped the Kohbergers on the morning of Dec. 15.

Body camera footage showed a young Kohberger riding in the car with his father in the passenger seat. Both times the officers let the Kohbergers go without a ticket after a brief but polite conversation.

possible DNA match

A wealth of evidence — descriptions of roommates, whereabouts of the white Elantra and cell phone data — seemed to point to Kohberger, and authorities in Idaho enlisted the help of Pennsylvania police to collect a DNA sample to compare to the sample. button A torn tanned leather The knife case was found on a bed near the body of one of the victims.

On December 27, Pennsylvania State Police found a sample of the waste outside Kohberger's home in Albrightsville.

The Idaho crime lab determined that a sample found in the trash likely belonged to the biological father of the man who left the DNA in the pod, according to the affidavit.

"At least 99.9998 percent of the male population is expected to be excluded from being the suspect's biological father," the statement read.

Three days later, Pennsylvania police arrested Coberg. He was quickly extradited to Idaho, where he is expected to appear in court on Thursday.

in ainterview on TuesdayKohberger's attorney, Jason LaBar, the chief public defender in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, said the suspect "believes he will be exonerated."