Bryan Kohberger admits to fatally stabbing 4 Idaho students; one of the victims was awake
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After breaking into the home, he climbed to the third floor where he first killed Mogen and Goncalves together, Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson said Wednesday.
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He then ran into Kernodle, who was still awake after getting a Door Dash order, and stabbed her and her boyfriend, Chapin, who was still asleep, Thompson said. There were no signs of sexual assault, he said.
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Police have said they used genetic genealogy to identify Kohberger as a possible suspect and accessed cellphone data to pinpoint his movements the night of the killings.
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At the time, Kohberger had just completed his first semester at Washington State and was a teaching assistant in the criminology program.
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Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived, weeks later. Thompson said investigators recovered a Q-tip from the garbage at his parents' house to match Kohberger's DNA to genetic material from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.
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Online shopping records showed that Kohberger had purchased a military-style knife months earlier — as well as a sheath like the one found at the scene.
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The county prosecutor said the murder weapon has not been found and revealed new details about how Kohberger tried to cover up the killings.
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He bought another knife sheath to replace the one left at the home and scrubbed his apartment and office, Thompson said. His car had been 'pretty much disassembled' and he changed its registration, Thompson said.
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'The defendant has studied crime,' Thompson said. 'In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing when he was working on his Ph.D., and he had that knowledge skill set.'
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There was no indication he had a relationship with any of the victims, who all were friends and members of the university's Greek system.
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Authorities have said cellphone data and surveillance video show that Kohberger visited the victims' neighborhood at least a dozen times before the killings, and that he traveled in the same area that night.
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Kohberger's lawyers had said he was simply on a long drive by himself around the time the four were killed.
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Although the Goncalves family opposed the agreement and sought to stop it, they also argued that any deal should have required Kohberger to make a full confession, detail the facts of what happened and provide the location of the murder weapon.
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The family of Chapin — one of three triplets who attended the university together — supports the deal, their spokesperson, Christina Teves, said this week.
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Attorney Leander James read a statement from Mogen's mother and stepfather after the guilty pleas that said they supported the agreement.
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'While we know there are some who do not support it, we ask that they respect our belief that this is the best outcome for the victims, their families and the state of Idaho,' the family said.
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