Bryan Kohberger murdered four University of Idaho students after breaking into their home via a sliding glass door.
That was one of the details shared in court by Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson on Wednesday, after Kohberger confessed to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin.
Thompson believes Kohberger broke into his victims’ off-campus residence in the college town of Moscow on November 13, 2022, via a sliding glass door on the second floor.
That would have put Kohberger in the kitchen, and Thompson believes he then walked past one of the surviving roommates’ bedrooms and up to the third floor, where he murdered his first two victims, Mogen and Goncalves.
This means Kohberger would have returned downstairs to the second floor and murdered the remaining two victims in Kernodle’s room.
Kohberger then left the house through the same sliding door, passing one of the surviving roommates, who had opened her bedroom door after hearing strange noises.
Thompson stated that the case was heavily based on the single piece of evidence left behind by Kohberger: a KA-BAR knife sheath.
Thompson claimed to have evidence that Kohberger purchased a knife similar to the one used in the brutal murders, as well as the ability to use genetic genealogy sites to identify the father of the man whose single-source DNA was discovered on the snap of the sheath.
That man was Bryan’s father, Michael Kohberger.
Thompson stated that prosecutors still lacked evidence that Kohberger had direct contact with the victims or was inside the home prior to the murders, despite the fact that there was ample cell phone data indicating Kohberger’s presence in the area.
Kohberger and his attorney, Anne Taylor, reached an agreement with prosecutors on Monday that required the 30-year-old former criminology doctoral student to plead guilty to four counts of murder and one count of burglary in order to avoid the death penalty.
When the judge issues his order on July 23, he is expected to receive four life sentences and an additional ten years on the burglary charge, all to run consecutively.
