A criminology graduate has been arrested for the slayings of four University of Idaho students, according to arrest records.
Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested by FBI agents and officers of the Pennsylvania State Police near the Pocono Mountains early Friday morning, northeastern Pennsylvania, according to documents obtained by The Independent.
The Washington State University student is being held for extradition on a first degree murder complaint issued by the Moscow Police Department and Latah County Prosecutor’s Office.
The arrest is first significant breakthrough in the murders of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves,both 21, and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, in an off-campus student home in Moscow, Idaho, on 13 November.
During a press conference on Friday (30 December), Moscow police appeared to rule out a second suspect.
“We have an individual in custody who committed these horrible crimes and I do believe our community is safe, but we still need to be vigilant,” Moscow police chief James Fry said.
The brutal nature of the murders, and apparent lack of progress from police, had left the city of 25,000 living in fear.
Who is the suspect?
The suspect’s name is Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 25, according to arrest paperwork filed by Pennsylvania State Police in Monroe County Court.
Mr Kohberger was arrested by a SWAT team at 3am in the Pocono Mountains, Monroe County, Pennsylvania, according to the arrest records.
He is facing extradition to Idaho over the charges.
Law enforcement removed a white Hyundai Elantra from the property where Mr Kohberger was arrested, according to NBC News.
After being taken into custody, the suspect “asked if anyone else was arrested,”NewsNation correspondent Brian Entin said in a Twitter post.
He reportedly had a “quiet, blank stare”.
According to the Washington State University website, Mr Kohberger is a PhD graduate student in the criminal justice and criminology department in Pullman, Washington.
Pullman is around nine miles (15kms) west of Moscow, Idaho, where the students lived.
Mr Kohberger graduated from Pennsylvania’s DeSales University with a master of arts in criminal justice in May 2022.
According to online school records, Mr Kohberger received an associate arts degree in 2018 from Northampton Community College in Albrightsville and received a masters degree in criminal justice this year from DeSales University.
He was working part-time as a security guard until August 2021 at Pleasant Valley School District, where his mother was listed as a paraprofessional.
His sister, Amanda, also graduated from Pleasant Valley High School, according to her Facebook page.
She now works as a behaviour technician and therapist in Bethlehem while his other sister, Melissa, is a therapist in New Jersey.
Suspect’s family ‘shaken’ by Uvalde school shooting
Mr Kohberger’s mother, MaryAnn, wrote a letter earlier this year to the Pocono Record, lamenting the violence in Uvalde and elsewhere.
“As I sat this morning, reeling from yet another school shooting, I found myself wrestling with which actions need to be taken to stop all the madness. What is the answer? Gun control measures? Mental health intervention?” she wrote in a letter published on 2 June.
“Then I received a message from my daughter who works as a mental health therapist in New Jersey,” she continued.
“She shared a poem she had written, while in the greatest depths of despair.
“It shook me to my core, and I felt the need to share it:
May 24th, 2022 Uvalde, Texas, written by Melissa Kohberger
Bereft of their laughter
There is now not a sound
As we lower our children into the ground
Small hands and feet
Buried six feet deep into the earth of the world that failed them.
“As I read the poem, I thought, whatever the solution, I pray we consider the children before the gun,” Ms Kohberger wrote.
While working security at Pleasant Valley, Bryan Kohberger was hailed by the same newspaper for his actions in helping a colleague suffering a medical emergency.
The Independent has contacted DeSales University and the Pleasant Valley school district for comment.
Messages left with the Kohberger family were not immediately returned.
Police raid suspect’s home
Hours after law enforcement arrested Mr Kohberger in Pennsylvania, officers executed a search warrant on an apartment in Pullman the Washington-Idaho border where the suspect had been living, according to Fox News.
Investigators in several unnarked vehicles arrived at the address at 7.30am, neighbours told Fox News.
The scene was cordoned off with police tape as officers entered the property. Prosecutor Bill Thompson, from Latah County, Idaho, was among the investigators who searched the property.
Police in Moscow are not yet commenting on the arrest or the raids.
A case that gripped a nation and puzzled police
The murders baffled law enforcement, with investigators unable to identify a suspect or locate a murder weapon for a month and a half.
The first significant breakthrough came when police sought the public’s help in locating a white sedan spotted near the scene of the salyings.
The Moscow Police Department has said it received more than 13,000 phone tips related to the case, in addition to thousands of submissions through its website.
