Bryan Kohberger — who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in their on-campus house in 2022 — may have been targeting one victim when carrying out the quadruple slaying, according to a book that comes out next week.
Howard Blum, author of “When the Night Comes Calling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders,” told ABC News that Kohberger’s main target was Madison Mogen, 21. Blum said the killer passed two bedroom doors to find and kill Mogen.
“If he was just on a killing spree, it would have been natural, instinctive, to go to one of those doors,” Blum stated. “Instead he goes up this narrow staircase and he turns directly into Maddie’s room.”
Kohberger’s attorneys have claimed Kohberger was not at the crime scene and was driving around alone the night Mogen, Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, and Kaylee Goncalves were fatally stabbed at the women’s off-campus home on November 13, 2022.
Mogen was found dead in bed next to Goncalves. A knife sheath was reportedly discovered near their bodies. Downstairs, on the second floor, Kernodle was found slain next to Chapin, her boyfriend. Two surviving roommates discovered the bodies and called cops.
Police claimed Kohberger visited the area 12 times before the slayings and that he turned off his phone on the night in question.
Investigators tested DNA from a trash can outside Kohberger’s family home in Pennsylvania against DNA found on the sheath at the crime scene. Testing determined that “at least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father.”
At the time of the slayings, Kohberger was obtaining his Ph.D. in criminology from Washington State University, which is located 10 miles from the crime scene. He was arrested in Pennsylvania in December 2022, after taking a cross-country road trip with his father from Washington to Pennsylvania.
Blum went on to tell ABC that Kohberger’s father was suspicious and “on edge” about his son’s possible role in the slayings when he picked him up at college. One of Kohberger’s siblings talked to their father about Kohberger being the culprit, but the father dismissed it despite his underlying feelings.
“He can’t confront it,” the journalist said, referring to Kohberger’s father.
Prosecutors filed court documents detailing their intent to pursue the death penalty as they deemed the slayings were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.” A trial date has not been set.
“When the Night Comes Calling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders” comes out on June 25.
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[Featured image: Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Kaylee Goncalves/Instagram]
