CNN
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The man suspected of killing four University of Idaho students is due in court for a status conference on Thursday – his second appearance in an Idaho court since being extradited from Pennsylvania following his arrest at the end of last month.
Bryan Kohberger, 28, is being held without bond in the Latah County Jail in Idaho, where he faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the fatal stabbing of Kaylee Goncalves, 21 years old; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.
After a night out, the four undergraduates were found dead Nov. 13 at an off-campus house police said were at their wits’ end in the college town of Moscow, Idaho, along the border with State of Washington.
Follow live updates: Bryan Kohberger will appear in court
Authorities arrested Kohberger nearly seven weeks later, taking him into custody at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where an attorney said he had traveled for the holidays. And while it took authorities almost two months to publicly name a suspect, police – who have come under increasing criticism as the investigation appeared to have stalled – had begun to focus on Kohberger in as a suspect weeks earlier.
Meanwhile, a neighbor of Kohberger in Pullman, Wash., told CBS News that the suspect asked him about the murders days after they took place, saying, “Yeah, we looks like they have no leads. Looks like it was a crime of passion. The neighbor asked not to be identified, CBS reported.
Among the most notable pieces of evidence was the testimony of one of the victims’ surviving roommates, who told police he saw a man dressed in black inside the house on the morning of the murders, according to a case affidavit. likely released last week. The witness described the man as about 5ft 10in or taller and not very muscular but athletic with bushy eyebrows, he said.
Investigators were also drawn to a white sedan seen in local surveillance footage in the area around the home. On November 25, they had told local law enforcement to search for the car, which was then identified as a Hyundai Elantra.
A few days later, officers from Washington State University, where Kohberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice, found such a vehicle and discovered that it was registered in Kohberger’s name, the affidavit states.
When investigators searched for information on his driver’s license, they found it consistent with the description of the man dressed in black provided by the roommate, the affidavit says, specifically noting his height, weight and bushy eyebrows.
Kohberger obtained a new license plate for his car five days after the murders, the affidavit states. When he was arrested in Pennsylvania last week, a white Elantra was found at his home, according to Monroe County Chief Public Defender Jason LaBar, who represented the suspect at his extradition.
Other evidence listed in the affidavit included phone records showing Kohberger’s phone had been near the victims’ home at least a dozen times since June. The recordings also show the phone near the site of the murders a few hours later, between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., the document says.
Additionally, trash authorities found in Kohberger’s family home revealed a DNA profile linked to DNA on a tan leather knife sheath found lying on the bed of one of the victims, according to the affidavit. The DNA recovered from the trash would be that of the biological father of the person whose DNA was found on the sheath, he said.
Kohberger was also monitored for four days prior to his arrest, a law enforcement source told CNN. During that time, he was seen putting trash bags in neighbors’ bins and “cleaned his car, inside and out, without missing an inch,” according to the source.
A court order bars the prosecution and defense from commenting beyond reference to the public records of the case.
