Six weeks before a masked intruder slip inside a rental house on the university of Idaho campus, fatally stabbed four students and lowered into darkness, Bryan Kohberger was under pressure.
During the semester of the fall of 2022, Kohberger was a 27 -year -old student in criminology at Washington State University, an 8 -kilometer trip west from Idaho University. His role as a teaching assistant, leader classes and classification documents was not doing well, students and sources who talked to “Dateline” said. Some students complained that he was overly demanding and was not comfortable. One dean called him to discuss his professional behavior after he also shocked his colleagues.
But at that time, Instagram may have served as a distraction.
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Kohberger’s mobile phone navigation history, obtained by “Dateline” and in possession of law application, shows dozens of photos of female students in the state of Washington and the University of Idaho, many in swimwear. A review of these reports found that some of them were close friends or followers of three of the murdered students: Xana Kernodle, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; and Madison Mogen, 21.
While Idaho prosecutors claim that Kohberger murdered the three colleagues at home, as well as Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, in the early hours of November 13, 2022, a previous connection, if any, between the suspect and the victims remained unknown.
Now, before the long -awaited trial to begin in August, the materials and digital documents obtained by the “Dateline” offer new information about the case in the weeks preceding the murders until Kohberger’s arrest in late December 2022.
A judge filed an unlocked appeal on behalf of Kohberger in May 2023 for four first -degree murder charges and a charges of theft.
Defense lawyers said he maintains his innocence and, during a BOISE audience last month, caused the possibility of an “alternative suspect.”
Visiting Moscow
In the summer before the murders, Kohberger had moved from the Poconos region of Pennsylvania, where his family lives for Pullman, Washington, home from Washington State University.
He was invited to an afternoon party at Neighbor Moscow, Idaho, on July 9, according to three witnesses who found him there.
Kohberger’s telephone data, analyzed by a FBI cell phones and obtained by “Dateline”, suggests that he was in Moscow again that day after dusk. During the following month, the expert said, his telephone data indicates a dozen trips to Moscow. In doing so, your phone also connected to a mobile tower that provides coverage 100 meters from 1122 King Road, the address of the housemates murdered, according to the data.
At the end of September, records of the Criminology Student and Possession of the Law Phone included an Internet survey for “sociopathic traits in a university student” and the following month, there was a search for pornography containing “drugs” and “sleep” words.
Then, on October 14, Kohberger was stopped at his 2015 Hyundai Elantra for an alleged traffic violation, his second stop at seven weeks. He had a friendly interaction with the Washington State University police officer, BodyCam Video shows.
Five days later, another on -line research: “Psychopaths can behave pro -social” according to Kohberger’s phone data.
The following month, six days before King Road’s murders, Kohberger’s phone connected to the same cell phone tower near home, indicates FBI data. The data show 23 visits over a period of four months, all after dusk.
Kohberger’s lawyers said in records that he would make units alone late at night, often walking or observation of stars, and would claim that cell phone data showed that he was not close to the crime scene when the murders occurred.
A timeline
On November 12, 2022, King Road’s homemates were celebrating Senior Day while the University of Idaho football team played a home game that afternoon.
At about 9 pm, Goncalves posted a carousel of photos on Instagram showing her and her colleagues from home that day. The caption: “A lucky girl to be surrounded by these people every day.”
At 2 in the morning the next day, his homemates had returned after a party night: Goncalves and Mogen were together, while Kernodle was with Chapin, and two other home colleagues, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were also awake.
At 3:30 in the morning, a car that the investigators believed was a white elantra was captured in the safety video of a neighboring house. The filming, obtained by “Dateline”, shows the car towards King Road’s house and passing through the block several times during the next half hour. At 4:07 in the morning, the white car drove again, then did not go back to 4:20 in the morning, when the video shows the vehicle accelerating.
It is in this 13 -minute period that prosecutors said in a lawsuit that they believe Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin were murdered, suffering several injuries to a large knife.
Mortensen and Funke were not physically harmed, but Mortensen later told investigators that she had seen a figure passing her in black clothes and a ski mask coming out of the house.
Sources close to the investigation told the “Dateline” that they believe Mogen may have been the intended target of the killer because the intruder climbed directly to the room, where Goncalves was with her.
The brown leather sheath for a large Ka-Bar knife was found in the bed next to Mogen’s body, the researchers would later say.
The sources of investigation also said that Kernodle, who was still awake after asking for Doordesh food, was then attacked. Then the sources said, the attacker turned to his boyfriend, who believed he was sleeping in bed, and Chapin’s legs “carved” with a blade.
Online calls and habits
Kohberger’s phone data indicate that he was turned off before three in the morning of the murders. He connected to a cell phone tower south of Moscow at 4:48 am, show the records.
About 90 minutes later, the phone records indicate that a call was made in the Pullman area to another phone – to a number registered in an account belonging to Kohberger’s father. It seems that several family phones, including the mother, are for that reason. At least three calls were made to the same number that morning.
The data show that the phone returned to Moscow shortly after 9 am before the prosecutors say Kohberger returned to his apartment in Pullman, where he took a selfie at 10:31 with a pose of thumbs in the bathroom mirror.
In the days following the murders, there were navigation activities on the Kohberger phone that the law enforcement would later collect forensic. A Google search was for “Idaho University murders.” Other research was a program about the serial Killer Ted Bundy and a Youtube video about King Road victims.
In mid -December, Kohberger would return to his family’s house in Pennsylvania, with police in Moscow not yet publicly confirming if they had a suspect. The only “critical” track for which they requested the public’s help was the information in a car, which they believed to be a white elantra, seen in the area at the time of the murders.
But investigators had other evidence that they pointed them to Kohberger, including DNA in the knife sheath found in Mogen’s room.
Authorities used genetic genealogy to obtain DNA. Two days after Christmas in 2022, investigators secretly pulled the trash from outside the Kohbergers’ house for testing. According to prosecutors, DNA turned out to be a statistical match.
Meanwhile, Kohberger’s telephone survey showed more videos from Ted Bundy, Britney Spears’s song “Criminal” and additional selfies, including Kohberger wearing a black hood like Bundy was dressed in a program seen on YouTube.
Then, on December 30, shortly after 1 am, the police officers came down at the family home with a Kohberger arrest warrant.
If considered guilty, he could face the death penalty, which his lawyers argued unsuccessfully should be discarded because he has autism.
Kohberger did not speak publicly in the case.
But in a recent judicial process, his lawyers offered a glimpse of his behavior when he was arrested: “He asked the policeman about his education and suggested that they had coffee later. He did not realize the deeply serious nature of the moment and showed no perception of what was happening.”
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