crime
By Bindu Bansinath and Tariro Mzezewa
Photo: knowlesgallery/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Last November, the bodies of four University of Idaho students were found in a home near campus after another student called 911 to report “an unconscious individual” at the address. At the time, authorities described the killings as a “crime of passion,” calling the incident an “isolated, targeted attack” with an “edged weapon,” per ABC News. A county coroner later ruled all four deaths homicides by stabbing, though much about the case remained unknown.
More than six weeks after the killings, police arrested criminology graduate student Bryan Kohberger, 28, in Monroe County, Pennsylvania; he has since been indicted on murder charges. At Kohberger’s arraignment on May 22, a judge entered a default “not guilty” plea on his behalf, after he declined to enter a plea of his own. Here is everything we know about the case.
The four victims were close friends.
The New York Times reports that the killings took place at a home in an off-campus neighborhood in Moscow, Idaho, where three of the victims — 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves, and 21-year-old Madison Mogen — lived with two more roommates. The fourth victim, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, was in a relationship with Kernodle and staying the night as her guest. Kernodle’s sister told the Times that the other victims were good friends to her sister and she was “lucky” to have them in her life. “We are grieving together as a family. We are definitely in shock,” the owner of a restaurant where two of the victims had worked as servers told the Times.
The night before the attack, Chapin and Kernodle had reportedly been at a party, while Mogen and Goncalves went to a bar downtown, a video livestream showing the two women ordering from a food truck around 1:45 a.m. on November 13. The four friends later gathered at the house, a large rental that police say showed no signs of forced entry. The Times reported that officers found the door open when they first arrived at the scene several hours after the murders took place. According to police, the two other roommates were in the house during the time of the attack, though they were unharmed. Police have said that one of the survivors called 911 at approximately 11:58 a.m. to report an unconscious person, believing one of their roommates had passed out.
After the killings, it took weeks for police to identify a suspect.
Following the killings, police initially said they had not identified a suspect. Police said the murder weapon wasn’t found at the house but did not go into further detail. James Fry, Moscow police chief, said the police department was reviewing “video that has been collected” in the case and asked citizens to contact the department with tips.
The murders, which took place the same day that a gunman killed three students at the University of Virginia, left the University of Idaho community on edge. Other students living in the neighborhood said they were leaving town, citing anxiety and uncertainty over what had transpired. “Everybody kind of just went back home because they’re scared … It’s definitely uneasy on campus right now,” one student told CNN. Some students told the Times that they’d first learned about the killings through the university’s alert system but had received little information from the school and law enforcement thereafter. Fry cautioned the community — which hadn’t logged a murder since 2015 — to “be aware of your surroundings at all times.”
In December, police said they wanted to speak with the driver of a white 2011–13 Hyundai Elantra, which was seen near the crime scene on the morning of the killings. They said, “Investigators believe the occupant(s) of this vehicle may have critical information to share regarding this case.”
A suspect was arrested in Pennsylvania.
On December 30, Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Effort, Pennsylvania. According to the Times, he had been pursuing a Ph.D. at Washington State University, about ten miles from the University of Idaho, and had previously earned undergraduate degrees in psychology and cloud-based forensics. A former classmate of Kohberger’s told the Times that he had been “highly engaged” in a criminology-class discussion about forensics, DNA, and other evidence just two weeks before the killings. Authorities did not outline a motive for the killings.
At an extradition hearing, when the judge asked Kohberger if he had any mental-health issues that would impede his ability to waive his extradition, he said no. After being held in custody in Monroe County for six days, Kohberger was handed over to local authorities in Idaho.
Jason LaBar, the public defender representing Kohberger in Pennsylvania, said that Kohberger drove across the country with his father for the holidays in a planned trip and that his client had been following the case with interest but was “shocked” to be arrested.
The FBI reportedly tracked Kohberger and his father from Washington to Pennsylvania and asked Indiana cops to pull him over to secure images of his hands, a law-enforcement sourcetold Fox News. Indiana authorities pulled Kohberger over twice on December 15, per NBC. First, a deputy from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department stopped him for following another vehicle too closely while driving the Elantra. Indiana State Police said at the time that there was “no information available on a suspect for the crime in Idaho.” Nine minutes later, a state trooper stopped Kohberger but let him go with a warning after he heard that Kohberger had been stopped a few minutes earlier. “The trooper, having learned the two had been stopped minutes before by a deputy from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, who he knew was working just down the interstate from him, used his discretion and released the two men with a verbal warning,” state police said.
Body-camera footage of the stops shows Kohberger’s father mentioning a fatal police standoff that happened earlier that day near Washington State University. He said he and his son had been discussing the “horrifying” incident.
At a press conference in Idaho, Fry said other arrests were not likely. He added that the white Hyundai Elantra had been at the home in Pennsylvania but they had not yet found a murder weapon. The Times reported that Kohberger received a new license plate for the car five days after the murders.
LaBar released a statement from Kohberger’s parents and two sisters saying that they “love and support our son and brother” and had cooperated with the police in an effort to “promote his presumption of innocence.”
In a released affidavit, one of the surviving roommates recalled seeing a “figure clad in black clothing and a mask.”
According to unsealed court documents and a probable-cause affidavit, one of the surviving roommates — identified by law enforcement as D.M. — heard crying in the house the morning of the murders and saw a man dressed in black and wearing a mask. D.M. told law enforcement that all four victims were home by 2 a.m. and that she was woken up around 4 a.m. by what sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog. Shortly afterward, D.M. said she heard Goncalves say, “There’s someone here,” prompting D.M. to look out her window, where she saw no one. Later, D.M. told authorities she heard crying coming from Kernodle’s room and a male voice saying, “It’s okay, I’m going to help you,” at which point D.M. said she again opened her door and saw “a figure clad in black clothing” and a mask walking toward her. She described the man as athletically built with bushy eyebrows and recalled him walking past her and toward a sliding door while she stood “frozen in place,” ultimately locking herself in her bedroom. Kohberger’s DNA was eventually found on a knife sheath left at the crime scene, and authorities found a match by rooting through his family’s trash in Pennsylvania.
The unsealed court documents revealed unsettling details from Kohberger’s phone records, which indicate that his phone stopped responding to the networkat 2:47 on the morning of the murders and was turned back on at 4:48 a.m. Further phone records reveal that Kohberger had been near the victims’ home at least 12 times since June 2022. The documents also revealed that Kohberger had applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in the fall of 2022 and wrote an essay expressing interest in helping rural law enforcement collect and analyze technological data.
The court documents showed that, as authorities were being criticized by the general public and families of the victims for not having a suspect or investigating quickly enough in November and December, a team of local and state law-enforcement officials, along with the F.B.I, had been working on the investigation through the holiday season.
A grand jury indicted Kohberger, eliminating the need for a preliminary hearing.
Kohberger made his first Idaho court appearance in early January. CNN reported that he smiled at his public defender and avoided making eye contact with anyone else — including the victims’ family members, many of whom were crying in the front row. At the time, the judge upheld the prosecutor’s request for a no-contact order for the victims’ family members and the two surviving roommates for two years and denied bail for Kohberger. The suspect returned to court one week later, where he waived his right to a speedy trial. Public defender Anne Taylor reportedly told the judge that she wanted more time to review evidence, and prosecutor Bill Thompson had no objections.
A judge scheduled a preliminary probable-cause hearing for June 26, but it was canceled after a grand jury indicted Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary last week. The indictment says Kohberger did “unlawfully enter” the victims’ home and “willfully, unlawfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice aforethought, kill and murder” them. According to NBC, a district judge ruled in favor of the state’s request to seal the names of witnesses who testified before the grand jury.
Police found a knife and a gun while searching Kohberger’s car and his family home in Pennsylvania.
Search warrants unsealed in March revealed that police discovered a knife and a gun while investigating Kohberger’s car and his family home in Pennsylvania, the Washington Post reports. While it’s unclear whether the knife is the one used in the murders, it is among 63 items investigators took from the property and the car, along with multiple laptops — two of which were damaged — computers, hard drives, a “shop vac” vacuum, dark clothing, medical gloves, criminology books and materials, and Kohberger’s personal notes. Investigators also recovered empty gun magazines, a sales record for a .40 Glock, and a “green leafy substance” inside a plastic bag, as well as medical and court documents. The unsealed warrants don’t reveal the content of the recovered items, but, per the Post, investigators were searching for corroborating evidence, DNA, or anything that might speak to Kohberger’s mental state. The Post also reports that lawyers involved in the case have been prohibited from speaking about it by a gag order, which multiple news organizations and a lawyer for one of the victim’s families have asked to strike down.
A lawyer for Goncavles’s family says the victims “didn’t know” Kohberger.
According to the Times, a lawyer for the Goncalves family says they have been searching for a potential connection between Kohberger and the victims, but so far none have surfaced: “They didn’t know him,” the lawyer said. An investigator with knowledge of the case told People that, two weeks before the killings, Kohberger reportedly sent one of the victims a message on Instagram. The source claimed that when she did not respond, he sent several more. “He slid into one of the girls’ DMs several times but she didn’t respond,” the source said. “Basically, it was just him saying, ‘Hey, how are you?’ But he did it again and again.”
Meanwhile, old posts Kohberger made as a teenager on the online forum Tapatalk — formerly Yuku — indicate that he’d experienced suicidal thoughts, a lack of remorse, and an inability to feel emotions.“I feel like an organic sack of meat with no self worth,” a 16-year-old Kohberger wrote in 2011, according to the Times. “As I hug my family, I look into their faces, I see nothing, it is like I am looking at a video game, but less.” Per the Times, Kohberger made posts about invisible snow, a neurological condition in which small flickering dots disturb a person’s visual field, which, per the posts, he started experiencing in 2009 — the same time he stopped feeling emotions. “Nothing I do is enjoyable,” Kohberger reportedly wrote in an old post. “I am blank, I have no opinion, I have no emotion, I have nothing. Can you relate?”
Kohberger reportedly displayed unsettling behavior at school in the weeks around the killings.
Per the Times, Kohberger exhibited such unsettling behavior on campus in the weeks around the killings that Washington State University investigated his conduct with women and eventually fired him from his teaching-assistant job over concerns regarding his professional conduct.
According to interviews and university records, several female students had reported feeling uncomfortable around Kohberger, and one student accused him of following her to her car. A subsequent university investigation didn’t find Kohberger guilty of wrongdoing, but the Times reports that the criminal-justice department had fired Kohberger because of his poor performance as a teaching assistant and his inability to meet the “norms of professional behavior,” which included two alleged altercations with the professor he’d been assisting in the fall. Eleven days before the murders, Kohberger is said to have met with faculty to go over an improvement plan and was notified of his termination prior to his arrest in December. The department claimed he “had not made progress regarding professionalism.”
The house where the murders took place will be torn down.
While Kohberger awaits trial, the house where the murders occurred has been donated to the University of Idaho, which plans to demolish it. In an email sent to students and faculty in February, the university’s president, Scott Green, called the demolition a “healing step.” He added that tearing the house down “removes the physical structure where the crime that shook our community was committed,” adding that it “also removes efforts to further sensationalize the crime scene.” He referenced plans to build something new on that land, writing that “students may be involved in the future development of the property.”
Kohberger declined to enter a plea to the murder charges.
After Kohberger elected to “stand silent” at his arraignment on murder charges on May 22, a judge entered a default “not guilty” plea on his behalf. The Times reports that a group of the victims’ relatives stared at Kohberger “in silence” when he looked toward them in the courtroom, and that he answered “yes” when asked if he understood the counts against him and that he could face life in prison or the death penalty if convicted. A trial date has been set for October.
This post has been updated.
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FAQs
What we know about the Idaho College murders? ›
At the time, authorities described the killings as a “crime of passion,” calling the incident an “isolated, targeted attack” with an “edged weapon,” per ABC News. A county coroner later ruled all four deaths homicides by stabbing, though much about the case remained unknown.
What happened at the University of Idaho murders? ›More than six weeks after four University of Idaho students were mysteriously stabbed to death in a house near the Moscow, Idaho, campus, a suspect was identified and taken into custody. The four slain students were Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
Who were the roommates killed at University of Idaho? ›Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder. If found guilty, he could face the death penalty. Kohberger, 28, is charged in the fatal stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.
What was the motive for the Idaho College murders? ›THE brutal murders of four students in Idaho may have been motivated by rage and resentment because the victims symbolized what their killer "doesn't have and can't get," a forensic psychologist believes.
How were the college kids in Idaho killed? ›Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were each stabbed multiple times in the early morning hours of November 13 at the off-campus house in the small college town of Moscow.
Who killed Tonya in Moscow Idaho? ›The case involves the point-blank shooting of Tonya Hart, 21, on Dec. 11, 2001. Meister was convicted of the killing in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison, but the Idaho Supreme Court in 2010 ordered a new trial. The second trial's jury convicted Meister of first-degree murder and conspiracy.
Did they find out who killed Idaho students? ›On Dec. 30, 2022, Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with four counts of murder in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students who were found dead on Nov. 13 at a home in Moscow, Idaho.
What happened to Maddie and Kaylee? ›Kaylee and Maddie, both 21, were murdered in the early hours of 13 November at an off-campus house near the University of Idaho along with fellow students Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20.
Who is the suspect in the Idaho murders? ›Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of stabbing four Idaho college students to death, sat wordlessly in court during his arraignment on Monday as a judge read aloud the murder and burglary charges against him and asked whether the suspect was prepared to announce his plea.
How did the roommates not hear Idaho murders? ›According to police, the victims who were fatally stabbed were located on the second and third floors of the residence. O'Toole also added that outside mud or dirt surrounding the basement area of the home may have also "partially insulated what they would have or would not have heard."
Who are the 4 other roommates in Idaho? ›
Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were all stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13. A masked intruder entered the home and killed the four students with a fixed-blade knife, police say.
Who were the 4 students in Idaho murders? ›Bryan Kohbgerger is accused of murdering four University of Idaho students last November in an off-campus home. Ethan Chapin was one of them. MOSCOW, Idaho -- The family of Ethan Chapin, one of the four students killed in an off-campus house at the University of Idaho last November, is speaking out for the first time.
Were Goncalves and Mogen in a relationship? ›They would have eventually been married, and they would have eventually had children.” The pair had been reportedly dating for years before taking a break in their relationship recently, and Mogen was very close to the Goncalves family, the parents said.
Who were the survivors of the Idaho killings? ›Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen — the sole survivors of the bloodbath — found their friends' bodies hours after the brutal attack in their off-campus home.
Who is the mother of Xana in Idaho murders? ›The mother of University of Idaho mass murder victim Xana Kernodle is locked up in jail on drugs charges, having spiraled into a relapse following her daughter's killing in November. Cara Northington is now struggling to stay sober, with no contact from her two surviving children, DailyMail.com can reveal.
What happened to the dog in the Idaho murders? ›More On: university of idaho murders
“The dog was unharmed and turned over to Animal Services,” the department said. The traumatized animal was later handed off to a “responsible party,” authorities said.
According to investigators, the murders happened on the second and third floors of the home. There are two sliding glass doors on the home: one on the second floor that can be accessed from the ground level outside, and one on the third floor that connects to a deck only accessible from inside the home.
Who are the victims of the Idaho stabbing? ›In the early hours of November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students—housemates Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle's boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin—were fatally stabbed in an off-campus residence in Moscow, Idaho.
How was Kaylee killed in Idaho? ›On Nov. 13, Kaylee, Mogen and two others were stabbed to death inside a home in the largely rural college community of Moscow. Also killed in the attack were Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, and Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona.
Who are the parents of the Idaho killers? ›More On: university of idaho murders
Born in 1994, Kohberger is the youngest child and only son of Michael Kohberger Jr., 67, and Maryann Kohberger, 62.
Have the Idaho students been buried yet? ›
The first of the four murdered University of Idaho students was laid to rest, with the grief-stricken family saying their son lived life to the fullest.
Were mogen and goncalves in the same bed? ›Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, inseparable best friends since the sixth grade, "died together in the same room, in the same bed," Steve Goncalves said at the vigil.
What floor was Kaylee and Maddie? ›Less than 30 minutes later, more officers arrived, entered the house and found the victims' bodies. Xana and Ethan were found on the second floor of the house, and Kaylee and Maddie were found on the third floor.
Were Kaylee and Madison in the same bed? ›The two had been best friends since sixth grade. "Then they started looking at colleges and came here together … and in the end they died together, in the same room and in the same bed," he said.
Who is Tim in the Idaho case? ›Idaho. In 2006, Timothy Dunlap was sentenced to death by a Caribou County, Idaho jury for the death of a Soda Springs bank teller killed in 1991. In 2008, Dunlap filed a petition for post-conviction relief, alleging that numerous errors had occurred at his 2006 sentencing hearing.
Who was the Notorious Idaho serial killer? ›Dennis Rader — the "Bind, Torture, Kill" murderer — spent months in custody awaiting court proceedings, just as the Idaho murders suspect is doing now. "Since I spent from February 2005 to April 2005 in a cell by myself I know how he feels," he told Fox News Digital.
Who was Rhodes serial killer in Idaho? ›Robert Benjamin Rhoades (born November 22, 1945), also known as The Truck Stop Killer, is an American serial killer and rapist. In 1994, Rhoades was convicted of first degree murder and was slated to be tried for two more before charges were dropped due to the wishes of victims' families.
Who was the boyfriend in the Idaho College Murders? ›In the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kaylee; her lifelong best friend and roommate Madison Mogen; a third roommate, Xana Kernodle; and Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, were stabbed to death inside the girls' off-campus house. Two other roommates survived the shocking crime that garnered national intrigue.
Who were the 4 roommates killed? ›Authorities believe the four students were killed sometime between 4 and 4:25 a.m. Kohberger, 28, was arrested in December at his parent's home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, and charged in the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
Who is Dylan's boyfriend in the Idaho murders? ›The Idaho University murder case is covered in this article. People are talking about Dylan, a survivor, and Quinn Kelley, his boyfriend. Internet users are suggesting that the couple may be related to the murderer. Click here to learn more about Dylan and the reasons why they are blamed.
Why didn t roommates call police in Idaho? ›
MOSCOW, Idaho - The Idaho murder victims' surviving female roommate likely didn't call for help after coming face-to-face with accused killer Bryan Kohberger because she may have been paralyzed by fear and confusion, experts told Fox News Digital.
How did the two Idaho roommates survive? ›Former FBI Agent Shares Theory Why Roommates Were Spared in Idaho Murders. In the November killings of four college students in Moscow, Idaho, the surviving roommates may have been spared because the assailant ran out of "energy," according to a former federal agent.
Who actually lived in the Idaho house? ›More On: university of idaho murders
Three of the victims — Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; and Xana Kernodle, 20 — lived at this house where the Nov. 13 attack occurred.
Over the past week and a half, Jake Eilander, 37, has been on trial for the killing of 44-year-old Ulises Rangel behind Planet Fitness in Idaho Falls in March 2022. While investigating the shooting death of Rangel, police obtained video footage that showed an argument between Rangel and Eilander.
Did Kaylee Goncalves move out? ›Idaho murders victim Kaylee Goncalves had already moved out of the home where she and three other students were brutally murdered – but tragically returned to Moscow to visit her best friend that fateful weekend.
What happened to Madison Mogen? ›Remembering Idaho murder victims: Who was Madison Mogen? Mogen, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, was a marketing major, a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority, and worked at Mad Greek restaurant. Madison Mogen was a 21-year-old senior when she was killed in Moscow, Idaho on Nov. 13, 2022.
When was the last time Idaho executed someone? ›The last person executed in Idaho was Richard Albert Leavitt, who was executed by lethal injection in 2012.
Did the roommate see the Idaho killer? ›Funke and roommate Dylan Mortenson, both 21, survived the Nov. 13 attack. Mortenson reportedly came face-to-face with the killer, who she described as "a figure clad in black clothing and a mask" and witnessed walking through the house.
Who is Bryan Kohberger? ›Kohberger has been accused of killing four University of Idaho students last November and has recently pleaded not guilty to the charges. Kohberger was arrested in Monroe County after a search warrant was executed at his home in Albrightsville (Chestnuthill Township) in December 2022.
Who is Xana Kernodle's boyfriend? ›MORE: Idaho murders: Roommate saw killer in mask leaving the house, docs say. On Nov. 12, 2022, Ethan Chapin spent his last night alive taking his sister to her sorority formal. He then hung out at his Sigma Chi fraternity house before retiring for the night with his girlfriend, Xana Kernodle, at her off-campus home.
Who is the sister of Kaylee in the Idaho killings? ›
Autumn Goncalves took to Instagram to mourn the loss of her 21-year-old sister, who was slaughtered along with her best friend Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, at an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, in November.
Who is Ethan Chapin mother? ›We still have to follow our dreams,” Ethan's mother, Stacy Chapin, said on “Banfield.” Ethan's father, Jim Chapin, added: “You have to live it.
Who is the suspect in the Idaho College Murders? ›MOSCOW, Idaho — Bryan Kohberger, the suspect accused of fatally stabbing four Idaho college students, stood silent in court on Monday as a judge entered not guilty pleas on all murder charges. His trial was tentatively set to begin on Oct. 2 by Latah County District Judge John Judge.
Who was Lyda Idaho serial killer? ›Lyda Southard (October 16, 1892 – February 5, 1958), also known as Lyda Anna Mae Trueblood, was an American female suspected serial killer. It was suspected that she had killed her four husbands, a brother-in-law, and her daughter by using arsenic poisoning derived from flypaper in order to obtain life insurance money.