Bryan Christopher Kohberger

04:00 - 04:25 Kaylee Goncalves (21), Madison Mogen (21), Xana Kernodle (20), and Ethan Chapin (20) were stabbed to death in their sleep at a rental home in Moscow. A leather sheath for the murder weapon (a KA-BAR knife) was recovered from the crime scene.

Campus police identified a white Hyundai Elantra, seen circling the crime scene on security footage, as belonging to criminology PhD student Bryan Kohberger.

Single-source male touch DNA recovered from the knife sheath matched, at a 99% probability, a familial profile obtained from trash secretly collected from Kohberger's family home in Pennsylvania.

Kohberger was arrested in a dawn raid by state police and the FBI at his parents' house in Pennsylvania and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

Waiving his extradition rights in Pennsylvania, Kohberger was flown to Idaho and held without bail at the Latah County Jail. 2023

A Latah County Grand Jury bypassed the preliminary hearing and formally indicted Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

Arraigned in court, Kohberger elected to "stand silent" when asked for his plea, prompting the judge to automatically enter a "not guilty" plea on his behalf.

Citing extensive media saturation and local bias in Latah County, the District Judge granted a change of venue, transferring the case to Ada County (Boise).

Judge Steven Hippler denied all defense motions challenging the constitutionality of Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG), upholding the admissibility of the knife sheath DNA evidence.

Accepting a prosecution deal to avoid capital punishment, Kohberger formally pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in Ada County District Court.

Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 10 years for the burglary count.

In a jailhouse statement to The New York Times and a handwritten petition submitted to the court, Kohberger asserted his innocence and sought a trial, claiming his previous attorneys coerced him into entering a false plea.

Kohberger's new attorney, Gregory Rauch, filed a 22-page motion requesting the disqualification of Judge Steven Hippler for loss of impartiality—citing his characterization of the defendant as a "faceless coward"—and demanding the post-conviction proceedings be moved back to Latah County.