ID - 4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered - Bryan Kohberger Arrested - Moscow # 65

[MrB327]

Can't wait to see BK's online history from the morning after the murders, was the "genius" searching for "murders in Moscow, ID" at 8 am, before heading over to check out the scene. ...would not surprise me, lol

 

[Nila Aella]

Topics I'll be thinking about until we hear more:

1. THE CARS
1.1 He had to know Ethan was over - his very distinctive red jeep was parked up front and he had been watching the house. Why did this not stop him?
1.2. If he was not recording them (not ruling that out) nor stalking them that very weekend (not ruling that out either) it is very likely he did not know Kaylees new car. Why did an unknown car parked up front not stop him? It could have been like someones family visiting?
1.3 Kaylees car was returned. AFAIK, the others were not? It hints that there was no evidence in her new car, while there was evidence in the other car(s) or they did not want to risk giving them back and risking the defence claiming something about the cars that would be hard to disprove otherwise.

2. THE HVAC
The HVAC team was on the scene at the house on Dec the 5th. Now that might be totally irrelevant, as there are tons of reasons for them to be there, but as BK is supposed to have a background in HVAC, this gives me a pause. Was that not his first time in the house?

3. THE BATHROOM
Why does the affidavit (p2) mention the upstairs bathroom and the wall it shares with MMs bedroom? I mean it's not exactly smooth, the way it comes up:
"I later learned there was a dog in the room when Moscow PD officers initially responded. The dog belonged to KG and her ex-boyfriend JD. Ofc Smith the pointed out a small bathroom on the east side of the third floor. The bathroom shared a wall with MM bedroom which was situated on the south-east corner on the third floor. As I entered the bedroom, I could see two females in the single bed in the room."

4. WHEN BK MOVED TO PULLMAN
Per the affidavit (p16), he was already near the house on August 21. When talking of BKs phone being near the house: "All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days. One of these occasions, on August 21,2022 BKs phone utilized cellular resources providing coverage to the King Road Residence from approximately 10:34 p.m. to 11:35 p.m"
AFAIK, this was before classes even started and he was already either stalking them or at least meeting them.
4.1 This begs to ask, when and where did he became aware of his target? (From all we know, he could be the online ex-bf from 6 years ago of any of them, so the question is, how did the stalking start.).
4.2 And on what date did he actually move there?

5. DEPARTURE
5.1 How did BK know at ~2.40 (or before) that it's time to depart towards Moscow and his victim(s) is waiting at home, not at a party, at a sleepover, having a movie night with roomies, in their rooms with a hookup, on a video call etc? Like did he just take the drive with all the weapon and costume "just in case" it works out? I mean did he even have a burner phone to continue monitoring at least their online activity while his original phone was turned off?
5.2 What triggered him to attack that night? It was not ideal conditions to commit a perfect crime, that's for sure. There were 2 cars up front that could have not been there, for one.

6. THE DRIVE
6.1. What was BK doing with the weird drive to King Road? He did not even take the shortest route (Maps suggest to take the northern road by the airport - maybe avoided it due to cameras? But he was still caught on plenty...).Was he choosing this odd route to fetch something, to see something, to meet someone or to avoid to be seen by the cameras? Or something else entirely? Heck, maybe taking drugs before the "action"?
6.2 And why the circling before onset? Why not sit still and look at the house, makes way more sense somehow. Afraid of car being seen standing somewhere? But now it was seen on more cameras. I mean it's a generic car and with engine off at the night... Did he still have several options of houses to enter and was circling between them? (I personally don't think it's likely, but he could have been stalking more than one household)

BOTTOM LINE
All in all, I am still leaning towards there being a specific motive. IMO, as soon as people heard "a phd student in criminology" they jumped into "serial killer", "well planned", "psychopath", "just wanted to kill". If we could just for a moment ignore what he did in academia and think afresh. Like what would you think with the same evidence had it been told that the prep was a 28 year old male who had previously worked at a pizza place, possibly had a history of drug abuse and other mental illness and had just moved cross-country from his family. He drives to crime scene with his own car, enters the home of 5 young females while a visitor is obviously over, looses the cover of his murder weapon next to a victim, leaves DNA, video and phone evidence and even an eye witness.
Would your first thought still be "serial killer mastermind human hunter very well planned, only killed because he wanted to kill and to commit a perfect crime"? Because mine sure is not.

I think he had a specific motive, was fuelled by rage, acted irrationally that night due to a specific trigger and maybe had been stalking at least one of them via some sort of audio/video recording devices on their car(s) and/or in the HVAC system. I also think the crime scene was more graphic than just stabbing and probably only towards one victim with also possibly a trophy of some sort collected.

All MOO unless linked data.

Wow! excellent!
I'm just gonna pick one item that I was thinking on this morning. The HVAC. Maybe it was off and they needed to determine if it was turned off or broken? I was wondering again if it was turned off to interfere with time of death determination. In one of the early threads, someone with more knowledge than I responded that they have an adjustment for that. Just wondering how much it might interfere with the precise determination of time of death. I have noticed that the time of death has shifted a bit from the beginning, since more evidence was discovered. But even if it doesn't effect it too much, the killer might have thought it did and turned off the heat? Your idea about a device inside! Wow. They could definitely link that back to someone I think. And last, trace evidence on the filters, but I don't think they would need to call a company out just to bag the filters? JMOs

 

[Honeybirdette]

The lack of a sexual assault / motivated sexual attack is much more terrifying i think.
It means his goal was to sneak in, stab people and get out again. There doesn’t seem to be enough time for him to stay and torture the victims beforehand, admire what he’d done afterwards. He’s just gone straight in, murdered, and left

Truly terrifying

I do wonder if his original plan was to murder them and sexually attack afterwards, but they’d have been covered in blood at that point. I don’t know if this changed his mind? I’m really baffled by his motive.

 

[ACG2x]

The Goncalves family did a lengthy interview which can be found here. Around the 26:30 mark, SG says that the purpose of Kaylee & Maddie's late night calls to JD just before they were murdered were because Kaylee was "trying to get back together with JD" and Maddie telling A "everything" was her acknowledging that to him. This is not MOO - this is exactly what SG said on video.

I have no reason to doubt SG here so that makes this beyond heartbreaking. Especially for JD because so many online thought the calls were because he was angry at them which then 'connects' him to the murders or even more out there ones that he killed them, then made the calls himself to throw off LE suspicion.

Poor kid - I really hope he recovers from this and can live a good rest of his life.

 

[Bliss_Perth]

Wow! excellent!
I'm just gonna pick one item that I was thinking on this morning. The HVAC. Maybe it was off and they needed to determine if it was turned off or broken? I was wondering again if it was turned off to interfere with time of death determination. In one of the early threads, someone with more knowledge than I responded that they have an adjustment for that. Just wondering how much it might interfere with the precise determination of time of death. I have noticed that the time of death has shifted a bit from the beginning, since more evidence was discovered. But even if it doesn't effect it too much, the killer might have thought it did and turned off the heat? Your idea about a device inside! Wow. They could definitely link that back to someone I think. And last, trace evidence on the filters, but I don't think they would need to call a company out just to bag the filters? JMO

I noticed the heating was on in one of the very early videos. It was spoken about in here way back about the door front door being left open and how the survivors wouldn't notice the cold air. link for screen grab -

 

[Sjöberg]

HVAC- first place to hide a camera, microphone or leave a weapon, also LE would collect materials from any filters for analysis

Actually, that's why the date there kinda intrigues me. Only at Dec the 5th.
Not 1-5 days after the murders, like just regular checking, but three weeks later. I assume they had at least some of the the Elantra videos by then.

On Nov 21th a newspaper reports:
"Investigators are currently seeking surveillance footage from “two areas of interest” around the city of Moscow as they hunt for the knife-wielding assailant who stabbed four University of Idaho students to death inside their off-campus home. Businesses and homes within the geographical areas are being asked to share all outside surveillance video taken between 3am and 6am"

On Nov 26th the PD states:
"Aaron Snell from the Idaho State Police tells TMZ, his department is combing through videos which he suggests could provide clues, but then goes on to say, "What we need people to recognize is that often times what's not in the video might help us just as much as what is."

On Dec 4th an article points out:
"The investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students is entering a critical stage in its third week, as police are starting to receive forensic testing results from the crime scene, law enforcement experts tell CNN."
and
""Police having no suspects is factually incorrect," Miller said. "Police have had a number of suspects they've looked at, but they have no suspect they're willing to name. You don't name them unless you have a purpose for that. That's not unusual.""

I wonder, was BK already very high on their list by Dec the 5th.

 

[cottonweaver]

You had asked about toxicology reports in the last thread (sorry don't know how to bring a post forward yet, still learning)
Found this article this morning. It was in the discovery request.

Bryan Kohberger Files Request Seeking Results of All Drug Tests Conducted During Idaho Murder Investigation

Bryan Kohberger wants all drug tests as well as "types of testing performed in this case, testing procedures, reagents and/or solvents used in testing, comparative analyses performed, and number of experiments performed in each test."

www.insideedition.com

https://coi.isc.idaho.gov/docs/case/CR29-22-2805/011023%20Request%20for%20Discovery.pdf

Do you guess that will include hair plus blood taken?

How long is his hair? Anybody know?

 

[Nila Aella]

I noticed the heating was on in one of the very early videos. It was spoken about in here way back about the door front door being left open and how the survivors wouldn't notice the cold air. link for screen grab -

Wouldn't cold air (warmer than the outside air) also cause that? JMO

 

[housewife]

6. THE DRIVE

6.2 And why the circling before onset? ... Did he still have several options of houses to enter and was circling between them? (I personally don't think it's likely, but he could have been stalking more than one household)

RSBM RBBM

I don't usually get chills... But stalking multiple houses at the same time...

 

[gizmobtj]

Topics I'll be thinking about until we hear more:

1. THE CARS
1.1 He had to know Ethan was over - his very distinctive red jeep was parked up front and he had been watching the house. Why did this not stop him?
1.2. If he was not recording them (not ruling that out) nor stalking them that very weekend (not ruling that out either) it is very likely he did not know Kaylees new car. Why did an unknown car parked up front not stop him? It could have been like someones family visiting?
1.3 Kaylees car was returned. AFAIK, the others were not? It hints that there was no evidence in her new car, while there was evidence in the other car(s) or they did not want to risk giving them back and risking the defence claiming something about the cars that would be hard to disprove otherwise.

2. THE HVAC
The HVAC team was on the scene at the house on Dec the 5th. Now that might be totally irrelevant, as there are tons of reasons for them to be there, but as BK is supposed to have a background in HVAC, this gives me a pause. Was that not his first time in the house?

3. THE BATHROOM
Why does the affidavit (p2) mention the upstairs bathroom and the wall it shares with MMs bedroom? I mean it's not exactly smooth, the way it comes up:
"I later learned there was a dog in the room when Moscow PD officers initially responded. The dog belonged to KG and her ex-boyfriend JD. Ofc Smith the pointed out a small bathroom on the east side of the third floor. The bathroom shared a wall with MM bedroom which was situated on the south-east corner on the third floor. As I entered the bedroom, I could see two females in the single bed in the room."

4. WHEN BK MOVED TO PULLMAN
Per the affidavit (p16), he was already near the house on August 21. When talking of BKs phone being near the house: "All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days. One of these occasions, on August 21,2022 BKs phone utilized cellular resources providing coverage to the King Road Residence from approximately 10:34 p.m. to 11:35 p.m"
AFAIK, this was before classes even started and he was already either stalking them or at least meeting them.
4.1 This begs to ask, when and where did he became aware of his target? (From all we know, he could be the online ex-bf from 6 years ago of any of them, so the question is, how did the stalking start.).
4.2 And on what date did he actually move there?

5. DEPARTURE
5.1 How did BK know at ~2.40 (or before) that it's time to depart towards Moscow and his victim(s) is waiting at home, not at a party, at a sleepover, having a movie night with roomies, in their rooms with a hookup, on a video call etc? Like did he just take the drive with all the weapon and costume "just in case" it works out? I mean did he even have a burner phone to continue monitoring at least their online activity while his original phone was turned off?
5.2 What triggered him to attack that night? It was not ideal conditions to commit a perfect crime, that's for sure. There were 2 cars up front that could have not been there, for one.

6. THE DRIVE
6.1. What was BK doing with the weird drive to King Road? He did not even take the shortest route (Maps suggest to take the northern road by the airport - maybe avoided it due to cameras? But he was still caught on plenty...).Was he choosing this odd route to fetch something, to see something, to meet someone or to avoid to be seen by the cameras? Or something else entirely? Heck, maybe taking drugs before the "action"?
6.2 And why the circling before onset? Why not sit still and look at the house, makes way more sense somehow. Afraid of car being seen standing somewhere? But now it was seen on more cameras. I mean it's a generic car and with engine off at the night... Did he still have several options of houses to enter and was circling between them? (I personally don't think it's likely, but he could have been stalking more than one household)

BOTTOM LINE
All in all, I am still leaning towards there being a specific motive. IMO, as soon as people heard "a phd student in criminology" they jumped into "serial killer", "well planned", "psychopath", "just wanted to kill". If we could just for a moment ignore what he did in academia and think afresh. Like what would you think with the same evidence had it been told that the prep was a 28 year old male who had previously worked at a pizza place, possibly had a history of drug abuse and other mental illness and had just moved cross-country from his family. He drives to crime scene with his own car, enters the home of 5 young females while a visitor is obviously over, looses the cover of his murder weapon next to a victim, leaves DNA, video and phone evidence and even an eye witness.
Would your first thought still be "serial killer mastermind human hunter very well planned, only killed because he wanted to kill and to commit a perfect crime"? Because mine sure is not.

I think he had a specific motive, was fuelled by rage, acted irrationally that night due to a specific trigger and maybe had been stalking at least one of them via some sort of audio/video recording devices on their car(s) and/or in the HVAC system. I also think the crime scene was more graphic than just stabbing and probably only towards one victim with also possibly a trophy of some sort collected.

All MOO unless linked data.

A couple of thoughts on a few of your points:

On #3, there is a similar "bathroom door" reference to XK's room. Both references make me think something was pointed out to Brett Payne that they decided not to include.

On #4, I suspect we are going to find out he was in the area, at WSU, as early ad June. Let's call it a hunch.

On #6.2, Walenta Drive completes a circle around the Kings Road house that includes Taylor Avenue and Lauder Avenue. I think the simplest explanation would be to check for law enforcement activity but, as you mentioned, there sure are some other, intriguing prospects (a cached weopon, another target house, etc.)

I think it's just as likely this is a killer that just decided to kill someone as it was a specific motive, but I would not be surprised if that specific motive was that one of the victims looked at him or stepped on a crack on the sidewalk and he decided it was their time. People kill people for the dumbest reasons

 

[cottonweaver]

I noticed the heating was on in one of the very early videos. It was spoken about in here way back about the door front door being left open and how the survivors wouldn't notice the cold air. link for screen grab -

Well spotted!

@Sjöberg Maybe HVAC guy is just there to maintain heating level for purposes of preserving biological forensic evidence at the scene, for further investigation?

 

[Bliss_Perth]

Wouldn't cold air (warmer than the outside air) also cause that? JMO

I have no idea how that heating works but in the video it looks like it pumping out...it's electric as well <modsnip - no link for image>

 

[Nila Aella]

Well spotted!

@Sjöberg Maybe HVAC guy is just there to maintain heating level for purposes of preserving biological forensic evidence at the scene, for further investigation?

I also just saw an interview which mentioned humidity levels might be important with certain forensic tests they run. JMO

Why was HVAC contractor at the crime scene?

Veteran investigator Mike King tells NewsNation’s “Banfield” that people should wait until more information is released before speculating.

www.newsnationnow.com

 

[SunnyBooBoo]

Elly Mae made a good point- was he aware how many people were in that house when he went in there?-
I am guessing he did not know Ethan was there---I think he knew Madison and Kaylee were there, thinking one or both of them were the targets. May not have known Zana was there either. I keep thinking how these young people with their whole lives ahead of them went to sleep that night thinking of what a great day was ahead-- I still have a difficult time wrapping my head around that they are gone-- and so brutally.

He drove by a number of times as listed by the affadavitt. I believe he was smart enough to take note of how many cars where there and most of their social media was open so he could deduce who's car belonged to who (the FB detectives did it ). He drove by the residence multiple times that night, even stopping by in front of it, so he would see how many cars were there. I think he k ew who was there that night before he went in.

 

[Sjöberg]

@Sjöberg Maybe HVAC guy is just there to maintain heating level for purposes of preserving biological forensic evidence at the scene, for further investigation?

Possible. They could have also been there for any totally random reason, like maybe police had moved the filters for evidence and they were scheduled to go there to put in place new filters.
The timing - 3 weeks after the murders, not a few days - kinda makes me think it is more likely to at least be something else than helping with inital checking of the ducts and removal of the filters. I also think it is possible they were zoning in on BK by then, as they had been asking for specific video footage for a long while already, and had probably narrowed the suspect pool at least notably.

 

[Elley Mae]

Actually, that's why the date there kinda intrigues me. Only at Dec the 5th.
Not 1-5 days after the murders, like just regular checking, but three weeks later. I assume they had at least some of the the Elantra videos by then.

On Nov 21th a newspaper reports:
"Investigators are currently seeking surveillance footage from “two areas of interest” around the city of Moscow as they hunt for the knife-wielding assailant who stabbed four University of Idaho students to death inside their off-campus home. Businesses and homes within the geographical areas are being asked to share all outside surveillance video taken between 3am and 6am"

On Nov 26th the PD states:
"Aaron Snell from the Idaho State Police tells TMZ, his department is combing through videos which he suggests could provide clues, but then goes on to say, "What we need people to recognize is that often times what's not in the video might help us just as much as what is."

On Dec 4th an article points out:
"The investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students is entering a critical stage in its third week, as police are starting to receive forensic testing results from the crime scene, law enforcement experts tell CNN."
and
""Police having no suspects is factually incorrect," Miller said. "Police have had a number of suspects they've looked at, but they have no suspect they're willing to name. You don't name them unless you have a purpose for that. That's not unusual.""

I wonder, was BK already very high on their list by Dec the 5th.

I think so.

…

On Nov. 29, Washington State University police searched for white Elantras registered at the university, which led to them discovering Kohberger’s name. The license information and photograph on the university’s database matched Mortensen’s description. The car registered to Kohberger was a white 2015 Elantra.

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article271161272.html

 

[Nila Aella]

Do you guess that will include hair plus blood taken?

How long is his hair? Anybody know?

Great question! I have no idea what samples they normally take during an autopsy. I would guess both. JMO

Link shows a photo of him: hair on top looks like 2 inches maybe a little more cause its curly, shorter on the sides.

What is visual-snow syndrome? Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger may have discussed the rare disorder on an old chat forum.

Most people experiencing visual-snow syndrome continuously see tiny, snowlike flecks in their vision — even when their eyes are closed.

news.yahoo.com

 

[Sundog]

4. WHEN BK MOVED TO PULLMAN
Per the affidavit (p16), he was already near the house on August 21. When talking of BKs phone being near the house: "All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days. One of these occasions, on August 21,2022 BKs phone utilized cellular resources providing coverage to the King Road Residence from approximately 10:34 p.m. to 11:35 p.m"
AFAIK, this was before classes even started and he was already either stalking them or at least meeting them.
4.1 This begs to ask, when and where did he became aware of his target? (From all we know, he could be the online ex-bf from 6 years ago of any of them, so the question is, how did the stalking start.).
4.2 And on what date did he actually move there?

<snipped for focus>

It's been posted that the Dateline special on Friday aired an interview with a hairdresser who cut BK's hair in July, so we can place BK in the area as early as sometime in July.

ETA that hairdresser was in Pullman/Moscow area.

 

[CityKid]

RSBM RBBM

I don't usually get chills... But stalking multiple houses at the same time...

I believe that's exactly what he did. He wanted to commit this crime and he scouted the location, finding this house as his top option, with lots of windows/sliding glass doors to look inside, back and front entrances and a wooded area nearby. I believe his circling that night was him seeing a bunch of cars out front and seeing if another nearby house would make a better option, then going back to his main target house.

 

[TeaTime]

I watched an interview with a NYPD detective/CSI expert. He stated that evidence can be collected from the HVAC intake filters - hair. dog hair, sin cells, respiration molecules etc. all get sucked up into the filter and system.

Maybe the HVAC if full of his shed DNA?