STROUDSBURG, Pa. — A criminology graduate student charged in the November slayings of four University of Idaho students agreed Tuesday to be extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week, to face charges in Idaho.
Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old doctoral student and teaching assistant at Washington State University, was arrested early Friday by state police at his parents’ home in eastern Pennsylvania, authorities said.
Wearing a red jumpsuit with his hands shackled in front of him, Kohberger showed little emotion during Tuesday’s brief hearing in a Pennsylvania courtroom in which he acknowledged facing four counts of first-degree murder and a burglary charge.
It was not immediately clear how soon authorities would arrange for Kohberger’s transport back to Idaho — a process that is generally kept secret because of security concerns.
The chief public defender in Monroe County, Pennsylvania said his client is eager to be exonerated and plans to tell a judge in Pennsylvania that he will waive his extradition hearing so he can be quickly taken to Idaho.
Kohberger should be presumed innocent and “not tried in the court of public opinion,” said the public defender, Jason LaBar.
After Tuesday’s hearing, Labar described Kohberger as “an ordinary guy.”
Capt. Anthony Dahlinger, of the Moscow Police Department in Idaho, told The Associated Press on Saturday that authorities believe Kohberger was responsible for all four slayings. The students were stabbed to death at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, sometime in the early morning hours of Nov. 13.
“We believe we’ve got our man,” said Dahlinger, adding that investigators obtained samples of Kohberger’s DNA directly from him after he was arrested.
DNA evidence played a key role in identifying Kohberger as a suspect, and officials were able to match his DNA to genetic material recovered during the investigation, a law enforcement official said last week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation.
Investigators have said they are still looking for a murder weapon and a motive for the killings.
Federal and state investigators are combing through Kohberger’s background, financial records and electronic communications as they work to build the case against him, the official who spoke anonymously said. The investigators are also interviewing people who knew Kohberger, including those at Washington State University, the official said.
Authorities have not yet released any information about how or when Kohberger will be transported back to Idaho.
“There’s a lot of layers to figuring out how to make that happen and a lot of players involved in that, and so I just I can’t speculate to how quickly that could occur,” Dahlinger said last week.
Kohberger’s relatives in Pennsylvania have expressed sympathy for the families of the victims but vowed to support him and promote “his presumption of innocence.”
His parents, Michael and Maryann, and his two older sisters, Amanda and Melissa, said in a statement released Sunday by his attorney that they “care deeply for the four families who have lost their precious children. There are no words that can adequately express the sadness we feel, and we pray each day for them.”
The family said that relatives will continue to let the legal process unfold, and that “as a family we will love and support our son and brother.” They say they have fully cooperated with law enforcement to try to “seek the truth and promote his presumption of innocence rather than judge unknown facts and make erroneous assumptions.”
Latah County prosecutors in Idaho have said they believe Kohberger broke into the students’ home near the university campus intending to commit murder. Their bodies were found Nov. 13, several hours after investigators believe they died.
The students were: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington. They were close friends and members of the university’s Greek system.
Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating, and he had been visiting the house that night.
Latah County prosecutors have said the affidavit for four charges of first-degree murder will remain sealed until he is returned. He is also charged with felony burglary.
Investigators have asked for information about Kohberger from anyone who knows him, and Dahlinger said investigators got 400 calls to a tip line within the first hour of that request. He said they were “trying to build this picture now of him: Who he is, his history, how we got to this event, why this event occurred.”
Story by Michael Rubikam.
