According to CNN, authorities meticulously watched the guy charged in the killings of four Idaho college students as he traveled across the country before Christmas and continued to surveil him for several days before detaining him on Friday.
According to Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested in his home state of Pennsylvania and charged with four charges of first-degree murder as well as criminal burglary in connection with the November stabbing murders of four University of Idaho students.
Companies such as Amazon could provide you with a second source of income. Investigators have yet to publicly confirm the suspect’s motive or whether or not he knew the victims. The murder weapon has also not been found, according to Moscow Police Chief James Fry on Friday.
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In the nearly seven weeks since the students’ bodies were discovered stabbed to death in an off-campus home, authorities have conducted over 300 interviews and sifted through roughly 20,000 tips in their hunt for the suspect. The killings, as well as the long period without a suspect or substantial advances, have jolted the University of Idaho community and the nearby town of Moscow, which had not had a murder in seven years.
According to two law enforcement sources briefed on the inquiry, investigators narrowed in on Kohberger as the suspect using DNA evidence and establishing his possession of a white Hyundai Elantra seen near the crime site.
Kohberger, who investigators claim lived mere minutes from the crime scene, is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, the school confirmed. According to sources, authorities followed the perpetrator in the Idaho student killings as he drove across the nation to Pennsylvania.
The residence where four University of Idaho students were murdered in the early hours of November 13.
According to a law enforcement source, he traveled cross-country in a white Hyundai Elantra and landed at his parent’s residence in Pennsylvania around Christmas. Authorities were following him as he drove and were monitoring his parents’ home, according to the source.
According to the two law enforcement sources, an FBI surveillance team tracked him for four days before his arrest while law enforcement worked with prosecutors to create enough probable cause to secure a warrant. According to another person familiar with the case, genetic genealogy procedures were utilized to link Kohberger to unidentifiable DNA evidence.
According to the source, the DNA was put through a public database to locate probable family member matches, and additional law enforcement work led to his being identified as the suspect. Kohberger was arraigned in Pennsylvania on Friday morning and is being held without bond until his extradition hearing on January 3, according to court documents.
The suspect has the option to refuse extradition and return to Idaho on his own terms. However, if he refuses, Moscow police will have to launch extradition proceedings through the governor’s office, which might take some time, according to Fry.
Prosecutors noted that even with a suspect accused, law enforcement’s task is far from done. Bryan Kohberger is a correctional officer at Monroe County. “This investigation is far from over. “This is, in reality, a new beginning,” Thompson remarked Friday night.
Thompson encouraged people to keep providing tips, urging anyone with knowledge about the suspect to “come forward, call the tip line, and disclose everything you know about him to help the investigators.” Since the deaths of the four students – Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 – some community residents have grown irritated because investigators have yet to provide a detailed account of what happened that night.
Authorities have revealed minimal information, including the victims’ actions prior to the attacks and persons who have been ruled out as suspects. Fry told reporters Friday that state law limits the amount of information authorities can share before Kohberger appears in Idaho court for the first time.
The probable cause affidavit, which contains the factual basis for Kohberger’s allegations, is sealed until the defendant arrives in Latah County, Idaho, and is served with the Idaho arrest warrant, according to Thompson. What we already know about the suspect.
Kohberger lives in Pullman, Washington, roughly nine miles from the scene of the killings, according to officials. Law officers raided his apartment and office on Washington State University’s Pullman campus Friday morning, according to a university statement.
According to a statement on the school’s website, he completed graduate studies at DeSales University, where he was also an undergraduate, in June 2022. In 2018, he also received an associate degree from Northampton Community College, the college verified to CNN.
A student investigator named Bryan Kohberger, who was associated with a DeSales University study, sought participation in a research project “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime” in a Reddit post that was removed after Kohberger’s arrest was announced.
“This study tries to uncover the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” according to the ad. CNN reached out to one of the study’s key investigators, a professor at DeSales University, but they declined to comment. Requests for comment have not been returned by the university.