CHESTNUTHILL TWP., Pa. (WPVI) — A 28-year-old man was arrested Friday in the Pocono Mountains area of Pennsylvania and charged with first-degree murder in the killing of four University of Idaho students last month.
Bryan Kohberger appeared before a judge earlier Friday. The judge ordered Kohberger’s extradition to Idaho, where he will face criminal charges, court documents show.
Brian Koberg
Monroe County Correctional Institution
Authorities knew who they were looking for and tracked Kohberger to his parents’ home on the 100 block of Lamsden Drive in Chestnuthill Township, Monroe County, sources said.
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Idaho police identified Kohberger at least in part as a suspect through the use of DNA technology. They tracked him to Pennsylvania via his vehicle.
The FBI had been monitoring the house for several days before a team of state troopers and federal agents entered and detained him around 2 a.m., the sources said.
Authorities are still working to investigate Kohberger’s connection to the victim.
Authorities in Idaho have been looking for a white Hyundai Elantra in connection with the murders.
A neighbor who asked not to be named told Action News that someone was dragged from the Kohberger home Friday morning.
“The tow truck came and they towed the car. We were surprised because we didn’t know what happened,” she said.
When she saw a photo of the Elantra, she said, “Yes, that’s the car.”
“We’ve seen the owner drive that car multiple times,” she said.
The neighbor said she did not know Kohberger, but she had seen him in and out of the house in recent weeks. She said his parents were a “very sweet couple”.
Moscow Police Chief James Frye confirmed Friday that an Elantra had been found. However, investigators are still searching for the murder weapon.
Latta County Attorney Bill Thompson said investigators believe Coberg broke into the student’s home “with intent to murder.”
Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen were killed outside the University of Idaho campus.
CNN obtained
The killing has rocked the small Idaho town of Moscow, a farming community of about 25,000 people, including about 11,000 students, in the rolling mountains of northern Idaho’s Palouse region.
Victims Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Morgan, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20; were each stabbed multiple times in the early hours of Nov. 13, authorities said , most likely asleep.
Some of the victims had defensive wounds, the coroner said.No signs of sexual assault, police say
The killings took place at the girls’ off-campus residence.
Two other roommates — who police said were not suspects — survived and likely fell asleep during the murder, according to officials. The survivors were on the first floor and the four victims were on the second and third floors.
Gonsalves’ family told ABC they did not know the suspect but were investigating him. The family said they were “happy, relieved and grateful”.
Kohberger is a Ph.D. student at Washington State University, a short drive from the University of Idaho.
Kohberger received a bachelor’s degree in 2020 from DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania, and completed graduate studies in June 2022. The university is about 40 miles south of where he was arrested.
“As a Catholic Salesian community, we are appalled by this senseless tragedy,” the university said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims during this difficult time.”
According to ABC News, a user on Reddit who identified himself as Bryan Kohberger and a criminology student at DeSales University posted multiple posts several months ago recruiting “research participants” for university studies.
In the post, which began in May 2022, users asked for information to aid “a research project aimed at understanding how emotional and psychological traits influence criminal decision-making.” The posts were linked to a survey that asked detailed questions about the crime.
A source told ABC News that law enforcement was aware of the Reddit post.
RELATED: A timeline of the killings of 4 University of Idaho students
Police said they had received about 20,000 tips through more than 9,025 emails, 4,575 phone calls and 6,050 digital media submissions, while conducting more than 300 interviews about the four students killed in their off-campus home.
Fear of repeat attacks has prompted nearly half of University of Idaho students to switch to online classes for the remainder of the semester, ditching their typically idyllic town dorms and apartments for the safety of their hometowns.
For safety reasons, the university hired an additional security company to escort students across campus, and the Idaho State Police sent soldiers to help patrol city streets.
Who Are the Victims of the Idaho Murders?
All four were friends and members of the University’s Greek system. Xana Kernodle, 20, is a third-year student studying marketing. Originally from Post Falls, Idaho, she joined the Pi Beta Phi fraternity on campus. She was living in a rented house with two other women who were stabbed, and she was dating Ethan Chapin, who was visiting the night of the killing.
Chapin, also 20, is a triplet from Conway, Washington. His siblings also attend UI, and both Chapin and his brother are members of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen are 21-year-old friends who grew up together in northern Idaho. Mogen works with Kernodle at a Greek restaurant in Moscow. She is also a member of Pi Beta Phi.
Goncalves, a senior general studies major, is a member of the Alpha Phi fraternity and plans to travel to Europe next year.
What happened the night and morning of the attack?
Gonsalves and Morgan went to a bar, stopped in front of a food truck, and were driven home around 2 a.m. on Nov. 2. On the evening of the 13th, according to the police schedule.
Chapin and Kernodle were within a short walk of Sigma Chi’s home and returned to Kernodle’s home around 1:45 a.m., police said.
Two other roommates who lived in the house were also out that night but returned home at 1 a.m., police said. They didn’t wake up until later that morning.
After waking up, they called friends to the house because they believed a victim found on the second floor had passed out and hadn’t woken up. At 11:58 a.m., someone inside the house called 911 from a roommate’s cell phone. Multiple people spoke to dispatchers before police arrived.
Police found two victims on the second floor and two on the third floor of the three-story building. There was also a dog in the home, which was not injured.
Autopsies showed all four were likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds and each had been stabbed multiple times. Police said there were no signs of sexual assault.
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ABC News, The Associated Press and CNN Wire contributed to this report
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