Several weeks after the brutal murder of four students from the University of Idaho, police and FBI agents have arrested a 28-year-old doctoral student.
Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, a Pullman, Washington resident and a doctoral student at Washington State University, which is located a few miles from the University of Idaho, was arrested early Friday morning in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania at his parents’ home.
According to Pennsylvania State police, force was used during the arrest. Law enforcement officers broke windows and doors during the execution of the search warrant.
Moscow Police Chief, James Fry, spoke at a news conference on Friday and said Kohberger would be charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary for breaking into the students’ house to commit a felony.
Law enforcement sources said that investigators had used DNA technology to identify the 28-year-old as a suspect and tracked him to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, more than 2,000 miles away from Idaho.
State troopers and FBI agents stormed a residence, said to be his parents’ home, at around 2 am on Friday after surveillance of the home for several days.
At the beginning of December 2022, police announced that they wanted to speak to the driver of a white Hyundai Elantra that was seen near the victims’ residence around the time of the murders.
Further details about the Elantra emerged after the suspect was extradited to Idaho and his court records were unsealed when he was seen in court on Thursday, January 5.
The suspect studied at DeSales University in Pennsylvania, received his undergraduate degree in 2020, and completed his graduate studies in 2022. He is a teaching assistant and PhD student at Washington State University, registered in the university’s criminology and criminal justice department. According to the university, he finished his first semester in December.
Washington University’s police department assisted Moscow, Idaho law enforcement officers in executing search warrants at Kohberger’s office and apartment located on the campus on Friday morning. The university said in a statement that they were working closely with other law enforcement agencies in their investigations.
The murders shocked the Idaho community. Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, were murdered in an off-campus house on November 13.
Two other roommates present at the time of the crime survived the attack, but police determined that they were not suspects and said they likely slept through the incident. The two were asleep on the ground floor and the murder victims were on the second and third floors.
Police Chief Fry said at the news conference that even though no arrest could ever bring the four students back to life, he believed the criminal process would provide justice for the victims.
The University of Idaho, which had increased security on the campus after the murders, said in a statement on Friday that the arrest was news that they had been waiting for and could be a relief for the entire community.
Update on January 5: Kohberger was brought back to Idaho on Wednesday night and was seen in court on Thursday morning, at which point his court records were unsealed.
The court records revealed that the police had DNA evidence from the button on a knife sheath found on a victim’s bed. They also had been tracking the suspect’s car which was found in the vicinity of the crime on surveillance video and was detected at his parents’ home. Police revealed that they interviewed one of the roommates that wasn’t attacked, and she said that she saw a man in the house with a mask and “bushy eyebrows.” After seeing him, he left the house and she locked herself in her room scared. Other details were also released in the court records, which showed more information about the investigation.
Kohberger’s attorney said that he denies the charges and expects to be vindicated.
