University of Idaho Murders: What Happened and Who (Allegedly) Did It

Twenty-eight-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ house in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania on December 30, 2022. He is charged with a count of felony burglary and four counts of first-degree murder, in connection with the stabbings at the University of Idaho roughly six weeks prior on November 13, 2022.

Kohberger has been transferred from the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania to Latah County Jail in Idaho, as of January 4, 2023. After appearing in Idaho court on January 12, his preliminary hearing was set for June 26, 2023. To provide his defense team with enough time to prepare for the case, he waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing.

Kohberger was a Ph.D. criminology student and teaching assistant at Washington State University’s campus in Pullman, Washington, a short drive from Moscow, Idaho, the location of the University of Idaho. On December 31, the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the university responded to the news of his arrest in a statement on the university’s website on the department’s homepage: “The Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University is aggrieved by the alleged horrendous acts of one of its graduate students. We are relieved that justice will be carried out. Our hearts are with the victims’ families.”

The four victims are 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, and 21-year-olds Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen. The latter three all lived together with two other roommates, and the first, Chapin, was the boyfriend of Kernodle. He stayed over at the house the night of the attacks.

The night before the murders, Saturday, November 12, Mogen and Goncalves went out to the Corner Club bar and Chapin and Kernodle went out to the Sigma Chi house. Both pairs arrived back at the house at 1:45 a.m. in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 13.

The murders occurred between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m., police believe. It was around this time that one of the surviving roommates thought she heard crying from Kernodle’s room. She opened her door to see a man in a mask and black clothing walk past her towards their sliding glass door, before locking herself back in her room.

Later in the day, the two roommates and some friends found one of the victims and thought they were passed out and not waking up. So, one of the roommates called 911 for help with an unconscious person at 11:58 a.m. The responding officers found the four victims.

It was later concluded by a coroner that the victims were probably asleep when the attack occurred, all the victims were stabbed multiple times, and some also had defensive wounds.

A white Hyundai Elantra was found on surveillance video footage going by the house three times before entering the area at 4:04 a.m. Its route that night was then traced back to Pullman, Washington, the city where Kohberger was living. Kohberger’s phone was tracked as well, showing it going to Moscow before the murders. “Consistent with Kohberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide,” according to the affidavit, the phone was off from 2:47 a.m. to 4:48 a.m. His phone records also show him returning to the area roughly five hours after the attack at around 9 a.m., and near the house at least 12 times prior to the attack, all in the early morning or late evening, excepting one occasion, from as early as August.

A knife sheath at the crime scene was found to contain Kohberger’s DNA after trash recovered from the Kohberger family residence in Pennsylvania on December 27 was tested at the Idaho State Lab, according to Corporal Brett Payne, an investigator with the Moscow, Idaho Police. The DNA was determined to be that of the father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, leading investigators to Kohberger.

The victims all attended the University of Idaho together. Mogen and Kernodle were majoring in marketing, Goncalves was majoring in general studies, and Chapin was majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management.

Mogen and Goncalves were both seniors but had been best friends since sixth grade when they met, according to Steve Goncalves, Kaylee Goncalves’ father. At a vigil held for the victims he said “They went to high school together, then they started looking at colleges, they came here together. They eventually got into the same apartment together. And in the end, they died together, in the same room, in the same bed.”

“You were all gifts to this world in your own special way, and it just won’t be the same without you,” one of the surviving roommates said in her letter about the victims, read aloud by their pastor.