CHESTNUTHILL TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — A 28-year-old man was arrested Friday in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains region on first-degree murder charges in the slayings of four University of Idaho students last month.
Bryan Kohberger appeared before a judge earlier Friday. Court documents show the judge ordered Kohberger extradited to Idaho, where he will face criminal charges.
Bryan Kohberger
Monroe County Correctional Facility
Sources say authorities knew who they were looking for and had tracked Kohberger to his parents’ home in the 100 block of Lamsden Drive in Chestnuthill Township, Monroe County.
Law enforcement sources told ABC News police in Idaho identified Kohberger as a suspect at least in part through the use of DNA technology. They followed him to Pennsylvania through his vehicle.
The FBI had been watching the house for several days before a special team of state police and federal agents moved in and arrested him around 2 a.m., sources said.
Authorities are still working to investigate how Kohberger connected with the victims.
Moscow Police Chief James Fry said they are still “putting all the pieces together” to determine a motive.
The affidavit on four counts of first-degree murder in Idaho will remain sealed until it is returned. He is also charged with felony theft in Idaho, Thompson said. An extradition hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.
Authorities in Idaho have been looking for a white Hyundai Elantra in connection with the killings.
A neighbor, who did not want to be identified, told Action News one was towed from Kohberger’s home Friday morning.
“The tow truck came, they towed the car. We were surprised because we didn’t know what was going on,” he said.
When shown a photo of an Elantra, he said, “Yes, that’s the car.”
“We’ve seen the owner drive this car so many times,” he said.
The neighbor said she did not know Kohberger, but had seen him in and out of the home in recent weeks. She said her parents are a “very sweet couple.”
Fry confirmed Friday that an Elantra had been found. However, investigators are still looking for the murder weapon.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said investigators believe Kohberger broke into the students’ home “with the intent to commit murder.”
Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen were killed off the University of Idaho campus on Sunday.
Obtained by CNN
The stabbing deaths rocked the small town of Moscow, Idaho, a farming community of about 25,000 people, including about 11,000 students, tucked away in the hills of northern Idaho’s Palouse region.
The victims, Kaylee Goncalves, 21 years old; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20; They were likely asleep when they were stabbed multiple times in the early hours of Nov. 13, authorities said.
Some of the victims had defensive wounds, a coroner said. There was no indication of sexual assault, police said
The murders happened at the girls’ house off campus.
Two other roommates, who police said are not suspects, survived and likely slept during the killings, officials said. The survivors were on the ground floor while the four victims were on the second and third floors.
The family of Goncalves tells the ABC that they do not know the suspect, but that they are investigating him. The family says they are “happy, relieved and grateful.”
Kohberger is a Ph.D. student at Washington State University, which is just a short drive across the state line from the University of Idaho.
He graduated from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania with an associate of arts in psychology in 2018, college spokeswoman Mia Rossi-Marino said.
Kohberger graduated in 2020 from DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania, and completed his graduate studies in June 2022. The university is about 25 miles south of where he was arrested.
“As a Catholic and Salesian community, we are devastated by this senseless tragedy,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims during this difficult time.”
According to ABC News, a Reddit user identifying himself as Bryan Kohberger and a criminology student at DeSales University posted several times a few months ago recruiting “research participants” for a university study.
In the posts, which were made from May 2022, the user asked for information to help a “research project that seeks to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime”. The posts linked to a survey that asked detailed questions about committing crimes.
A source told ABC News that law enforcement is aware of the Reddit posts.
RELATED: A Timeline of the Murders of 4 University of Idaho Students
Police said they have received about 20,000 tips through more than 9,025 emails, 4,575 phone calls and 6,050 digital media submissions, while conducting more than 300 interviews in the case of the four students killed in an off-campus home .
Fears of a repeat attack prompted nearly half of University of Idaho students to switch to online classes for the rest of the semester, abandoning dormitories and apartments in the normally bucolic city for the perceived safety of their hometowns
Security concerns also prompted the university to hire an additional security company to escort students across campus and the Idaho State Police to send troopers to help patrol city streets.
WHO WERE THE VICTIMS OF THE IDAHO MURDER?
All four were friends and members of the university’s Greek system. Xana Kernodle, 20, was a marketing student. He was from Post Falls, Idaho, and joined the Pi Beta Phi fraternity on campus. She lived in the rented house with the two other women who were stabbed and was dating Ethan Chapin, who was visiting on the night of the murders.
Chapin, also 20, was from Conway, Wash., and was a triplet. His brother and sister also attend UI, and both Chapin and his brother were members of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen were 21 years old and friends who grew up together in northern Idaho. Mogen worked with Kernodle in a Greek restaurant in Moscow. He was also a member of Pi Beta Phi.
Goncalves was a general studies major, a member of Alpha Phi fraternity and was planning a trip to Europe next year.
WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT AND MORNING OF THE ATTACK?
Goncalves and Mogen went to a bar, stopped at a food truck and then caught a ride home around 2 a.m. on Nov. 13, according to a police timeline from the night.
Chapin and Kernodle were at the Sigma Chi house a short walk away and returned to Kernodle’s house about 1:45 a.m., police said.
Two other roommates who live in the house were also out that night, but returned home at 1 a.m., police said. They didn’t wake up until later that morning.
After waking up, they called friends to come to the house because they believed one of the victims found on the second floor had passed out and wasn’t waking up. At 11:58 a.m., someone inside the home called 911, using a roommate’s cell phone. Several people spoke to the dispatcher before police arrived.
Police found two of the victims on the second floor of the three-story home and two on the third floor. There was also a dog in the house, unharmed.
Autopsies showed that all four were likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times. There was no indication of sexual assault, police said.
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ABC News, Associated Press and CNN Wire contributed to this report
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