Idaho Murder Case: Suspect Bryan Kohberger Indicted By Grand Jury

Bryan Kohberger has been indicted for the November 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

By Corinne Heller May 17, 2023 10:12 PMTags
Watch: Bryan Kohberger's DNA Found at Idaho Murder Scene

Bryan Kohberger has been indicted for the quadruple homicide of four University of Idaho students.

According to court documents obtained by E! News, an Idaho grand jury determined the 28-year-old "did unlawfully enter a residence" in the town of Moscow last November and "wilfully, unlawfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice aforethought, kill and murder" Maddie Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Kohberger was indicted on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

The suspect, a criminology graduate student at Washington State University at the time of the killings, has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

"It is a little out of character, he said. This is not him," his public defender, Jason LaBar, told Today in January. "He believes he's going to be exonerated. That's what he believes, those were his words."

Back in November, police found roommates Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle and the latter's boyfriend Chapin stabbed to death inside the Moscow home. Two additional women were home at the time of the killings and were uninjured. 

Kohberger was arrested at his parent's home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania in late December and charged with murder.

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In a probable cause affidavit released at the time of the arrest, Moscow investigators noted that a white Hyundai Elantra was seen on surveillance footage near the home before and after the killings and, that a couple of weeks later, Washington State University police discovered the model was registered to Kohberger.

Authorities also determined that the physical description of him on his driver's license matched the info one of the surviving roommates provided investigators.

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Surveillance footage also showed the Elantra at his family's hometown, the affidavit stated. Authorities found the vehicle at the house at the time of Kohberger's arrest, his public defender told CNN in January, adding that this client had gone home for the holidays.

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Though a murder weapon has not be located, police did find a knife sheath bearing male DNA at the scene of the crime, per the affidavit. Lab tests were later gathered from that as well as a garbage from outside of the suspect's family home.

"DNA profile obtained from the trash and the DNA profile obtained from the sheath," the affidavit noted, "identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father" of Kohberger.

He is due to be arraigned May 22, court documents show. According to NBC News, his four charges of first-degree murder carry sentences that could include life in prison to the death penalty.

(E!, Today and NBC News are part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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