Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger stalked home: affidavit

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The Idaho college murders suspect returned to the crime scene area where he allegedly stabbed four students to death — and may have stalked their home a dozen times before the attack, according to an affidavit released Thursday.

Bryan Kohberger’s cell phone pinged its location in the area of the student house at 1122 King Street in Moscow at around 9 a.m. on Nov. 13, just five hours after after he allegedly broke into the property and killed the four students in cold blood, according to to the probable cause affidavit.

Kohberger, 28, left his apartment in Pullman, Washington at around 9 a.m. and arrived in the vicinity of the home between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m. that day, according to cellphone data collected by the Moscow Police Department.

Authorities allege the creepy criminology student had turned his phone off on the night of the murders in an effort to cover his tracks, according to investigators.

“The lack of [the phone] reporting to AT&T between 2:47 am and 4:48 am is consistent with Kohberger attempting to conceal his location during the quadruple homicide,” the document states.

Bryan Kohberger was arrested Friday after a seven-week manhunt. AP
Kohberger was a criminology student at DeSales University. Ted S. Warren/AP

Cellphone data obtained by investigators also showed his phone was able to be tracked to an area near the three-story off-campus party house where the students lived at least 12 times in the months before the massacre.

“On at least twelve occasions prior to November 13, 2022. All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days,” the affidavit states.

Kohberger stands accused of knifing Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, as they slept on two different floors of the house in a bloody home invasion on Nov. 13. He was arrested Dec. 30 after a seven-week manhunt.

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During the investigation, a Moscow Police Department investigator entered the home and found Goncalves and Mogen dead in Mogen’s bed, according to the affidavit.

A tan leather “Ka-Bar” knife sheath with a United States Marines logo lay on the bed next to them.

In Goncalves’ bedroom, an investigator found  a dog she shared with her ex-boyfriend, Jack Ducoeur, according to the affidavit.  

Kohberger returned to the cell phone coverage area of the students’ home where he allegedly killed them. AP

Their roommate, Dylan Mortensen, also told investigators she was awoken at 4 a.m. by what she thought was the sound of Goncalves playing with her dog.

Mortensen later heard the sound of crying coming from Goncalves’ room — and heard a male voice say something like, “It’s OK, I’m going to help you.”

She then spotted a 5-foot-10 inch man with bushy eyebrows dressed in black with a mask over his nose and mouth walking towards her, and stood in a state of “frozen shock.”

Terrified,  Mortensen locked herself in her room as the intruder headed towards a sliding  glass door in the rear of the three-story home, where he apparently fled.

Kohberger allegedly murdered Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21. Instagram

Investigators also found a shoe print with a diamond shaped pattern often outside the roommate’s bedroom.

The Moscow Police then joined with the Idaho State Police and the FBI to investigate the murders and followed Kohberger on a drive from Idaho to Pennsylvania. Once there, they retrieved a DNA sample from his family’s trash which matched the DNA of his father to that found on a knife sheath recovered from the crime scene.

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