BRYAN Kohberger was considered a person of interest in relation to an unsolved home invasion that occurred a year before he allegedly butchered four University of Idaho students.
Koberger, who was arrested six weeks after the November 13, 2022, murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, was also being probed for an eerie similar case in Pullman, Washington.
On October 10, 2021, police responded to a home invasion call near Pullman, about 10 miles from where the four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.
Bodycam footage showed Pullman police arriving at the home in the early hours of October 10, 2021, where a female victim explained that a ski mask-clad intruder entered her home with a knife.
“I heard my door open, and I looked over, and someone was wearing a ski mask and had a knife,” the frightened woman told police, according to a video obtained by ABC News.
“So, I like kicked the s**t out of their stomach and screamed super load, and they like flew back into my closet then ran out my door and up the stairs.”
The woman told cops the suspect entered her home at around 3:30 am and was silent the whole time, a police report said.
However, Pullman police did not find any evidence or a potential suspect.
EERIE SIMILAR CASE
Then, a potential breakthrough in the case came on December 30, 2022, when police in Moscow police announced the arrest of Kohberger, 29, in connection with the four college students’ murders.
Investigators said Kohberger snuck into the students’ off-campus home on King Road at around 4 am before he made his way to each of their bedrooms and viciously stabbed Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle, and Chapin to death.
A surviving housemate of the victims told detectives she saw a masked man with “bushy eyebrows” after overhearing cries, loud thuds, and sounds of a struggle.
The details of both the Pullman home invasion and the Moscow murders were eerily similar, that Kohberger was named a person of interest in the unsolved 2021 case 13 days after he was arrested.
The suspects in both the home invasions had a knife, wore a mask, entered the homes in the early morning house, and were silent while leaving.
However, the discrepancies between the cases emerged when the female victim of the Pullman break-in described the suspect as 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5 – Kohberger is six feet tall.
Kohberger, a Pennsylvania resident, was also not yet enrolled at Washington State University at the time of the Pullman incident, ABC News reported.
KOHBERGER RULED OUT
At the time of his arrest in 2022, Kohberger was a Ph.D student at Washington State University studying criminology.
Kohberger enrolled at Washington State University in August 2022.
Pullman police officially ruled out Kohberger as a person of interest in the 2021 home invasion.
“We have no reason or evidence to believe he was involved in this burglary at the time,” Pullman police told ABC News.
The victim in the Pullman case told the outlet, “My family and I have been frustrated that the case was not investigated more in-depth or resolved.”
The Pullman case is closed and remains unsolved.
Kohberger is expected to go on trial for the quadruple murder on trial on August 11, 2025.
A judge granted his defense team’s request for a change of venue from Latah County, the county where the murders took place, to Bosie in Ada County.
Judge John Judge noted in his September ruling that the Latah County courthouse is not big enough to accommodate the trial and that the county sheriff’s office does not have enough deputies to handle security.
“Considering the undisputed evidence presented by the defense, the extreme nature of the news coverage in this case, and the smaller population in Latah County, the defense has met the rather low standard of demonstrating ‘a reasonable likelihood’ that prejudicial news coverage will compromise a fair trial in Latah County,” Judge Judge wrote.
“Thus, the Court will grant Kohberger’s motion to change venue for presumed prejudice.”
A not-guilty plea was entered on Kohberger’s behalf in May 2023.
Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted.
University of Idaho murders timeline
On November 13, 2022, a brutal home invasion claimed the lives of four University of Idaho students.
Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in their Moscow, Idaho, off-campus home.
A six-week manhunt ensued as cops searched for a suspect.
On December 28, 2022, Bryan Kohberger, 29, was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania – 2,500 miles away from the crime scene.
He was taken into custody and has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University, has been linked to the crime scene through phone records, his car’s location, and DNA evidence found at the home where the murders took place.
The house was demolished in December 2023 despite backlash from the victims’ families.
Kohberger is being held at Latah County Jail while he awaits trial.
On September 9, 2024, an Idaho judge ruled to move the upcoming murder trial out of Moscow after Kohberger’s lawyer argued that the town was prejudiced against him.
The state Supreme Court will decide the new venue and judge for the trial, which is expected to start in June 2025.
