Lauren Dube

Media Writing CM-105-01

Feature Story
1 March 2023

Idaho College Murders

News Feature: Idaho college murders suspect arrested more than 6 weeks later.

Did you know that 13% of women report being stalked during their time in college? There are
even more women who haven’t reported stalkers. Unsurprisingly, the country was utterly shaken
by the events that occurred on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho.

Moscow is home to the campus of Idaho State University. In an off-campus house, four U of I
students were brutally murdered in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, and the suspect
wasn’t arrested until more than six weeks after the murders.

The four suspects, Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kaylee
Goncalves, 21, had gone out the night before. All four roommates returned back to the house
around 1:45 a.m., which they shared with two other roommates, who were not injured in the
murders.

Kernodle received a DoorDash order around 4 a.m., and one surviving roommate woke up at
around the same time to what she thought sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog.

A short time later, the surviving roommate opened her door when she thought she heard
Goncalves say something similar to “there’s someone here”, but she didn’t see anything.

She opened her door a second time when she heard what she said sounded like crying coming
from Kernodle’s room. The surviving roommate then heard a male voice say something to the
effect of “it’s ok, I’m going to help you” then saw a male wearing all black and a mask walking
past her towards the sliding glass door. The surviving roommate said she stood “frozen” and in
“shock”.
The roommate said she didn’t recognize the man but said he was 5-foot-10 or taller and “not
very muscular but athletically built with bushy eyebrows”.

The 911 call was made around 11:58 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13, 2022, requesting help for an
unconscious person. This is because the surviving roommates had found one of the victims on
the second floor and thought they had passed out and were unconscious.
When asked if she still felt safe on campus after learning about this story, Worcester State
University student Rachel Sinclair explained, “at first I was really on edge but not as much
anymore. My roommate and I had a lot of talks about how it was terrifying that the victims were
our age or even younger”.

When police responded to the off-campus home in Moscow Idaho on Nov.13, 2023, they found
all four victims. They immediately started reviewing surveillance footage and spotted what they
believed to be the suspect driving a white Hyundai Elantra circling the victim’s house three times
before finally entering the area a fourth time around 4:04 a.m.

They tracked this car back to Pullman, Washington. There, Washington State University did a
database check for any students who owned a white Hyundai Elantra. This is how the name
Brian Kohberger came up.

Police were able to obtain Kohberger’s phone records, which show his phone had been turned off
between 2:47 a.m. and 4:48 a.m.

His phone records also show he returned to the home around 9 a.m., five hours after the murders
were speculated to have taken place.

Police also found his phone was near the victims’ house at least 12 times since June 2022. All of
those times except for one were late at night or early in the morning. This led police to believe he
had been stalking the victims and this was a targeted attack.

Incoming Clark University freshman, Megan Dube, had some input about living on a college
campus next year. “A targeted attack makes me less nervous than a mass attack like the MSU
shooting, but overall, I am a little worried about campus safety”.

Police also released in the affidavit that they found a knife sheath on the side of one of the
victims with DNA on it. On Dec. 27, 2022, police recovered trash from Kohberger’s parents’
house in Pennsylvania. A Lab determined that the DNA recovered from the trash was from the
father of the person who left the DNA on the knife sheath.

This was enough to send out an arrest warrant for Kohberger and charge him. He was arrested at
his parent’s house and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony
burglary.

Worcester State University student, Sinclair, is starting to feel safer since the arrest. “Now that
the suspected killer has been caught, I feel like I have gone back to whatever you would consider
normal, but have all the safety precautions I may need in the back of my head”.
Kohberger was a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University, which
is located less than 10 miles from the University of Idaho campus.

Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial and is awaiting his first court appearance in June
2023, but this case has made college students all around the United States rethink their safety on
campus.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/idaho-college-murders-timeline-events/story?id=93575278

https://www.bostonherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/idaho-murders-court-document-
unsealed.pdf