The man suspected of carrying out a quadruple homicide near the University of Idaho campus allegedly left DNA evidence on a knife sheath that was found at the scene, police said in an affidavit released Thursday.
Moscow, Idaho, police Officer Brett Payne described in the document seeing the leather sheath beside the body of Madison Mogen, one of the four students killed in an off-campus house in November.
The object had the words “Ka-Bar” ― a knife manufacturer ― and “USMC” imprinted on it, along with the United States Marine Corps eagle insignia, Payne said.
A man’s DNA was found under the sheath’s snap closure.
Police arrested 28-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for the crime late last month, charging him with four counts of premeditated murder and one count of felony burglary.
Kohberger waived his extradition rights after a short hearing in Pennsylvania earlier this week, and was sent to Idaho to face the charges.
He was booked into the Latah County jail on Wednesday night, records show.
Authorities say students Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were killed by knife wounds on Nov. 13. Two other people who lived in the house survived the attack.
Most of the students had been living together in an off-campus house, where the slayings took place after each victim had returned home from a night of socializing.
The case attracted nationwide attention for the scale of the violence and the weeks that went by with scant developments.
Kohberger’s family is “shocked” by the accusations, according to an NBC News report that cites the suspect’s lawyer.
“They don’t believe it to be Bryan. They can’t believe this,” Jason LaBar, the public defender representing Kohberger, told the outlet.
“This is certainly completely out of character, the allegations, and really they’re just trying to be supportive with the understanding these four families have suffered loss, so they’re sympathetic towards that, and that’s why it should remain really private, and they don’t want to try this case in the court of public opinion,” LaBar said, per NBC News.
Kohberger had been in a Ph.D. program at Washington State University studying criminology, and lived in an apartment a short drive from the site of the killings.
He drove a white Hyundai Elantra, the same type of car authorities sought public help in locating out of suspicion that it was involved with the crime. According to The New York Times, Kohberger received a new license plate for the Elantra just five days after the students were slain.
In mid-December, he drove the vehicle from Washington back to his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was ultimately arrested. Along the way he was stopped by Indiana police twice for following too closely. Police have released some of the body camera footage from those interactions.
