Boise, Idaho (AP) – a leading prosecutor charged with finding justice for four students from the University of Idaho, killed in a sinisterly four -year -old stabbing more than two years ago, set out their key evidence on Wednesday, this week for Bryan Kochberger, who agreed to be acknowledged to be acknowledged.
The proven summary-recitated by the leading prosecutor Bill Thompson before Kohberger entered his requests, a dramatic tale that included a DNA Q-advisor, pulled out of the garbage at night, and the car was so clean by evidence that “essentially placed one of the part of the feet in the hood.
These details suggested a new idea of how the crime was developing on November 13, 2022 and how, in the end, investigators decided the case using monitoring footage, mobile phone tracking and DNA match. But the synopsis leaves hanging key questions that could be answered to the test – including a motive for piercing and why Kohberger chose this house and these victims, all the obvious strangers about it.
The small agricultural community of Moscow, in the northern Idaho Panhandell, had not had a murder of about five years when Kaley Gonkalvs, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodel and Madison Mogen were found in a rental home near the campus.
Kochberger, who is already 30 years old, has begun a PhD in Criminal Justice at a nearby State University in Washington – beyond the state line from Moscow, Idaho – months before the crimes.
“The defendant studied crime,” Thompson said, while members of the victims family rushed to their tears. “In fact, he made a detailed book about the crime scene processing when he worked on his doctor, and had that set of knowledge skills.”
What did we learn from the hearing
Kohberger’s mobile phone began to connect to cell towers in the crime area more than four months before the stabs, Tompson said and ping on these towers 23 times between the hours from 10:00 and 4 am during this period of time.
A compilation of surveillance videos from neighbors and companies also put the vehicle on Kohberger – known to investigators for routine stopping police in August – in the area.
On the night of the killings, Kohberger parks behind the house and entered through a sliding door to the kitchen at the back of the house shortly after 4 o’clock in the morning, Thompson said. He moved to the third floor, where Madison Mogen and Kylie Gonkalvs sleep.
After killing both with a knife, Kohberger left the knife a wrap to Mogen’s body. Later, the blood of the two victims was found on the shell, along with DNA by a man who eventually helped investigators identify Kohberger as the sole suspect.
On the floor below another student was still awake. Xana Kernodle had ordered Door Dash not long before, and while Kohberger was leaving, he crossed the paths with her and killed her with a big knife, said Thompson. He then killed her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, who sleeps in Kernol’s bedroom.
Kochberger left two more in the house alive, including a roommate expected to testify in a test that sometime before 4:19 she saw an intruder there with “raging eyebrows”, dressed in black clothing and a ski mask.
About five minutes later, the car can be seen on the next neighbor’s monitoring camera. Accelerating so quickly, “the car almost loses control as it does the angle,” Thompson said.
What did Kohberger do after that?
After Kochberger escaped from the stage, Tompson said, his concealment was complicated.
Prosecutors believe that he headed back to his apartment in Pulman, Washington to avoid observation cameras on the big roads and did not turn on his mobile phone again until 4:48 to 5:26, he was back in Pullman, Thompson said.
Later, Kohberger has changed the registration of Pennsylvania cars in Washington – significant for investigators who have been signed through footage from the monitoring camera, since the Pennsylvania Law does not require a front license plate, which makes it difficult to identify the vehicle.
And by the time the investigators caught up with him weeks later, his apartment and office in the nearby Pulman were cleaned clean.
“Spartan would be a kind feature. There was nothing, nothing of the evidence was found,” Thompson told Kohberger’s apartment.
The car also “was essentially disassembled inside,” he added. “It was flawless. The defendant’s car was thoroughly cleaned inside.”
Q-Tip that violates the case
Investigators had headed to Kohberger, but they had to prove that he was their suspect.
With the DNA of a mysterious man on the knife sheath, they worked with the FBI and the local sanitary department to secretly extract garbage from the home of Pennsylvania from Kochberger’s parents, looking for a DNA match of their suspect.
“They conducted what is called garbage during the night,” said Thompson, and “took the garbage that was expelled on the street to collect” and sent him to the Aidaho Criminalistics Laboratory.
The garbage bowl gave investigative gold: Q-Tip, which contained DNA identified “as it comes from the father of the man whose DNA was found on the knife wrap that was found by Madison Mogen’s body on the bed,” he said.
With this, Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he went to the holidays and was eventually extradited to Idaho for prosecutors.
The mysteries that remain
Even while prosecutors described in detail this night, there remains a key question: Why did Kohberger go to this house and these victims? Did you know them? And what was his motive?
“We have no evidence that the defendant had direct contact with 1122 or residents in 1122, but we could put his phone in the area in those days,” said Thompson, citing the house where the killings occurred.
Some of this evidence may have been released into the trial and may still be contained in the case documents that were sealed by the court until the hearing on July 23. There is an order for all lawyers in the case is still in force.
These documents include lists of witnesses, a list of exhibits, an analysis of evidence, requests for additional detection, submission of factors for mitigating factors and various unsuccessful defense suggestions that seek to introduce alternative suspects, among other things.
The victims’ families are divided by the legal basis transaction
With the resolution of the case, families remain separated due to its resolution.
The deal provides that Kohberger will be spared for execution in exchange for four consecutive life sentences. He also gave up his right to appeal and to challenge the sentence.
Chapin and Mogen’s families support the deal.
“We are now going on a new path. We are going on the path of hope and healing,” Mogen’s family says in a statement.
Kylie Gonkalvs’ family publicly condemned the legal basis agreement before hearing on Wednesday and her father refused to attend the proceedings.
Gonkalvs’ 18-year-old sister was breaking Gonkalvs saying in a Facebook publication that “Brian Kohberger, facing a life in prison, means that he will still talk, form a relationship and deal with the world.”
“In the meantime, our loved ones were muted forever,” she wrote.