What’s the latest information on the University of Idaho killings? Here’s everything we know

Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in custody for the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students, appeared in Idaho court for the second time Thursday (Jan. 12). During the status hearing, the date for Kohberger’s preliminary hearing was set for June 26.

Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30. He faces four counts of felony first-degree murder and a felony burglary charge in the Nov. 13 stabbings that took the lives of University of Idaho seniors Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; junior Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington.

With the release of the probable cause affidavit on Jan. 5, a slew of new information was revealed about the investigation, including information on how police agencies tracked Kohberger. Several major networks are running programming on the killings, including NBC’s “Dateline” and and ABC’s “20/20.”

Here’s what we know and what has happened since the weekend of Nov. 12-13.

What are the latest developments?

Kohberger has made two appearances in court since being extradited from Pennsylvania to Idaho on Jan. 4. In the first, a judge read the five charges against him. In the second, his preliminary hearing date was set.

Since Kohberger’s arrest and the opening of the affidavit, little additional information has been provided to the public. The affidavit did provide some details of the investigation, such as what actually occurred on the night of the stabbings and in the hours following. Some facts in it differed from police had previously said.

What we know, and still don’t know, about the homicide investigation in Moscow

The Statesman prepared a timeline of events from the hours before the stabbings to Kohberger’s return to Idaho. You can read that timeline here.

Who is Bryan Kohberger?

He is a 28-year-old Ph.D. student studying criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University. He finished his first semester in December. Police said in a news conference that Kohberger lived near the university in Pullman, about a 9-mile drive from Moscow and the University of Idaho.

Washington State University’s fall course catalog listed Kohberger as an assistant instructor for three undergraduate criminal justice courses. All three courses finished Dec. 9, according to the catalog, almost a month after the killings.

Court records show Kohberger is originally from Albrightsville, a small hamlet in the Pocono Mountains near Chestnuthill Township in northeastern Pennsylvania. He graduated from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania with an associate degree in psychology in 2018.

Who is Bryan Kohberger? What we know about suspect in the University of Idaho homicides

Kohberger next attended DeSales University in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 2020 and a master’s degree in criminal justice in May 2022. At DeSales, he conducted a survey as part of a research project seeking information from people who had committed crimes.

Among the questions in the survey were, “Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your home?” and, “How did you leave the scene?”

A review of court records in Washington, Idaho and Pennsylvania showed no criminal history for Kohberger, aside from an August 2022 infraction for failing to wear a seat belt in Latah County, Idaho, where the University of Idaho is based.

Kohberger’s father flew to Washington state and accompanied his son on a drive back to Pennsylvania for the holidays, something that had been planned all along, according to Jason LaBar, the attorney who represented Kohberger in Pennsylvania. While on the cross-country road trip, the pair were twice pulled over by police in Indiana, each time for following too closely. They were issued warnings in both traffic stops, according to Indiana State Police and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.

Police released the body-camera footage from both stops, each showing Bryan Kohberger driving a white Hyundai Elantra with Washington plates.

What happened the weekend of the killings?

Shortly before noon Pacific time on Sunday, Nov. 13, Moscow police officers responded to a 911 call about an unconscious person at a house near campus. They walked in to find the four victims’ bodies. Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt reported that the students had been stabbed to death in the early morning hours with a large, fixed-blade knife.

The three female victims — Kernodle, Mogen and Goncalves — lived at the King Road home with at least two other roommates, both of whom went unharmed. Letters from those two roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were read at a memorial in Post Falls on Dec. 2.

Chapin was staying the night with Kernodle, whom he was dating, according to family.

The probable cause affidavit, written by Moscow Police Cpl. Brett Payne, indicates that the stabbings most likely happened between 4 and 4:25 a.m. Moscow police came to this conclusion following interviews with the two surviving roommates.

Autopsies confirmed that all four students died from multiple stab wounds. The autopsy also suggested that the victims were likely asleep when the attacks started; according to Payne’s account, he found the bodies of Kernodle and Chapin on the second floor. The affidavit is not clear on the location (it also mentions a nearby bathroom) but seems to indicate they were both in the bedroom, with Kernodle on the floor.

Mogen and Goncalves were found in the same bed in Mogen’s third-floor bedroom.

Some victims showed defensive wounds, indicating that they struggled against the attacker. None of the victims showed signs of sexual assault, according to the coroner.

What did the suspect do before and after the stabbings?

Moscow police used cell phone service data and security cameras throughout Moscow and Pullman to follow Kohberger’s activities before and after the stabbings. According to cell phone pings at nearby cellular towers, Kohberger had visited the King Road area 12 times before the weekend the killings occurred, police say.

At 2:42 a.m. Nov. 13, cellphone data shows Kohberger left his residence in Pullman. At 3:28 a.m., a white Hyundai Elantra with no front license plate was seen driving through Moscow. Between 3:29 a.m. and 4:04 a.m., security footage showed the same vehicle driving past 1122 King Road several times.

At about 4:20 a.m., the same vehicle was spotted leaving the King Road area at a high speed. Camera footage and cell phone pings show Kohberger traveling south to Genesee before heading west toward Uniontown, Washington, and then north back to Pullman.

Cell phone data shows that Kohberger returned to the King Street area at about 9:12 a.m. Later that day, he also visited Clarkston, Washington, just across the Snake River from Lewiston, which is south of Moscow; and to Johnson, Idaho, a remote place more than 70 miles east of Lewiston.

What were the victims doing before the attack?

Kernodle and Chapin were at a party at the Sigma Chi fraternity house — less than a 600-foot walk from the house on King Road — and returned home at about 1:45 a.m. that Sunday, police said.

Goncalves and Mogen spent the evening at the Corner Club bar before stopping at a food truck parked downtown on the way home. They used a “private party” for a ride home from the food truck, police said. Both women were home at around 1:56 a.m., police said.

The ride-share driver who took Goncalves and Mogen home the morning of the killings also spoke to two media outlets. NewsNation and The Daily Mail each reported that the man, referred to by police as a “private party” in shuttling the two young women home, agreed to speak with them on the condition of anonymity.

He said that he was familiar with Goncalves and Mogen, as well as Kernodle, from prior ride-share trips, and that he noticed “nothing out of the ordinary about that night,” according to The Daily Mail.

Multiple calls were made from Goncalves’ and Mogen’s cellphones between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. to a male who did not answer. Goncalves’ sister, Alivea Goncalves, said the calls were made to her sister’s ex-boyfriend. Her sister was known for frequently making late-night phone calls, she told The New York Times.

According to statements made from the surviving roommates, all five roommates plus Chapin were home by 2 a.m. and in their rooms by 4 a.m., aside from Kernodle, who received a DoorDash order around 4 a.m.

According to surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen’s police interview, she was awoken at around 4 a.m. in her second-floor bedroom by what sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog in a room on the third floor. Mortensen also said that she thought she heard someone say, “There’s someone here.” Phone records show that Kernodle was likely awake and using TikTok at 4:12 a.m.

Soon after, Mortensen said that she heard crying. Upon opening her door, she saw a figure clad in black walk past her and toward the sliding doors on the second floor. Mortensen described the figure as “5-foot-10 or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows.” The man wore a mask over his mouth and nose, she told police.

The search for a white Hyundai Elantra

Police first asked for the public’s help in locating a white 2011-13 Hyundai Elantra on Dec. 7, stating that they believed the driver or any passengers had knowledge that could help the investigation. Before asking for the public’s help, they also alerted local law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for white Elantras on Nov. 25.

On Nov. 29, Washington State University police searched for white Elantras registered at the university, which led to them discovering Kohberger’s name. The license information and photograph on the university’s database matched Mortensen’s description. The car registered to Kohberger was a white 2015 Elantra.

The probable cause affidavit says at an unspecified date an expert told police the car they were looking for could be from 2011 to 2016.

On Dec. 15, body-cam and dash-cam footage released by the Indiana State Police showed Kohberger and his father pulled over twice within a 10-minute span along a stretch of eastbound Interstate 70. Kohberger was behind the wheel of his white 2015 Elantra and identified himself to police on both occasions.

Upon Kohberger’s arrest in Pennsylvania, police seized the vehicle, which was parked at his parents’ house.

Whom did police clear during the investigation?

Before Kohberger’s arrest, detectives said they did not believe that the two surviving roommates, the sixth roommate on the lease, or any individuals summoned to the household on the morning of the deaths were involved.

The police also cleared a male singled out in surveillance footage of the Grub Truck food truck, the ride-share driver who took Goncalves and Mogen home early that morning, and the male called by Goncalves and Mogen several times.

The Latah County Sheriff’s Office and Moscow police then addressed numerous rumors and questions surrounding the homicides. This included a reported incident involving a dog attacked with a knife elsewhere in Moscow that the sheriff’s office said was unrelated.

Moscow police also said that the Moscow stabbings were not tied to a 1999 double stabbing in Pullman, Washington, or a 2021 double stabbing in Salem, Oregon.

On Nov. 23, Moscow Police Capt. Roger Lanier acknowledged that police had been unable to validate reports that Goncalves had a stalker. Police later elaborated on what could have led to the reports.

“In mid-October, two males were seen inside a local business; they parted ways, and one male appeared to follow Kaylee inside the business and as she exited to walk toward her car,” they said in a news release. “The male turned away, and it did not appear he made any contact with her.”

What other evidence do police have?

Police found a knife sheath left at the scene of the crime. According to the probable cause affidavit, DNA was taken from the knife sheath and sent to the Idaho State Laboratory along with trash obtained from Kohberger’s parents’ house in Pennsylvania, where Kohberger was arrested.

When comparing the DNA found on the sheath to the DNA from the trash, test results “identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father” of the suspect. Specifically, “at least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father,” investigators wrote in the affidavit.

DNA evidence likely key part of U of I murder case. How does testing, use in court work?