Update on idaho murders – ennsylvania search warrant documents unsealed this week revealed that authorities seized weapons and other items in a December raid of Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger’s parents’ home. Kohberger is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November.
Kohberger was apprehended by Pennsylvania State Police and the FBI in the early morning hours of December 30 at his family home in the Pocono Mountains, nearly seven weeks after four students were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in the sleepy college town of Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13. The newly unsealed court records show that law enforcement discovered and confiscated knives, a gun, and black clothing, medical-style gloves, and masks, among other items, in December.
The victims’ roommate, who was in the Moscow home at the time of the murders, described the suspect as “clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose,” according to court documents.
Investigators also seized, searched, and later dismantled Kohberger’s 2015 white Hyundai Elantra. Authorities said the car matched one seen in surveillance footage near the home where the murders occurred, and they used the footage to link Kohberger to the crimes.
According to court documents, authorities also retrieved DNA swabs from Kohberger on the day of the search. According to an earlier released affidavit, law enforcement discovered a leather knife sheath at the crime scene with Kohberger’s DNA on it.
Kohberger, 28, was a criminal justice PhD student at Washington State University, about eight miles from Moscow. He faces four counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Ethan Chapin, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Madison Mogen, 21.
The violent deaths in Moscow shocked the community and sent waves of panic as the search for the suspect ensued for almost a month and a half after the murders. It was announced this week that the home where the students were killed will be demolished.
The owner of the Moscow house offered to donate it to the University of Idaho, which accepted.
In a memo, University President Scott Green said, “This is a healing step that removes the physical structure where the crime that shook our community was committed.”
The crimes’ motivation has not been revealed. Kohberger has not yet entered a plea and is being held without bail in Idaho’s Latah County Jail. On June 26, a preliminary probable cause hearing is scheduled to begin.