A suspect has been arrested in connection with the November slayings of four University of Idaho students.
The Associated Press reports that Bryan Kohberger, 28, a Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, was taken into custody Friday by the Pennsylvania State Police at his parents’ home in Chestnuthill Township, Pa.
Bill Thompson, a prosecutor in Latah County, Idaho, says investigators believe Kohberger broke into the University of Idaho students’ home near campus “with the intent to commit murder.” The bodies of the students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were found on Nov. 13 in a Moscow, Idaho, apartment.
Federal and state investigators are combing through Kohberger’s background, financial records and electronic communications as they work to identify a motive and build the case, a law enforcement official said.
Kohberger is being held without bond in Pennsylvania and will be held without bond in Idaho once he is transported there.
Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Chapin, 20, of Conway, Wash., were members of the university’s Greek system and close friends. Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating and he was visiting the house that night.
Autopsies showed all four were likely asleep when they were attacked.
