ID - 4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered - Bryan Kohberger Arrested - Moscow # 67

[Curious Me]

Search warrant reveals what police found in the Idaho murder suspect's apartment

Items taken from Bryan Kohberger's apartment include a stained pillow, a disposable glove and receipts.

www.nbcnews.com

View attachment 396219

A pillow with a "reddish/brown stain." A "collection of dark red spotting." A disposable glove. At least a dozen strands of hair.
[...]
The warrant was served Dec. 30, the day Kohberger was arrested at his family home in Pennsylvania.

Included in the items taken from Kohberger's apartment in Pullman, Washington, according to the warrant, were a stained mattress cover, a computer tower, various receipts, the dust container from a "Bissell Power Force" vacuum cleaner, a "Fire TV" stick with a cord and plug and what's described as one "possible animal hair strand."

The other hair samples aren't specifically identified as human in the warrant, signed by...​

^^^RE: Various Receipts

Court TV mentioned the various receipts as coming from Marshall's and Walmart. They seem to think he may have bought black clothing. Some member here early on said that there's always a Walmart video of the suspect. Hope so.​

 

[joyelle]

Gotta wonder what info his car's onboard computer gathers. Until the Suzanne Morphew case, I had been unaware of the trove of data that is collected in modern cars. Timestamped car/driver interactions (door open/closed, headlights on/off, gear put in drive/park/reverse, etc, etc, etc) should prove damning IF a 2016 Elantra stores that information.

If that Elantra also stores its onboard gps history, BK is effed.

I'm not sure if there is some sort of background GPS handling with the ECU, but the center stack in BK's Elantra does not appear to have GPS capabilities (as much as I wish it did).

 

[Nova]

I'm still having a hard time trying to figure out why not the other 2 then? If it was planned, then surely he knew 2 others occupied the house too. Why were they left untouched? In the beginning we (most of us, anyway) thought it could have been because their bedroom doors were locked. Now we know that wasn't the case. It appears BK made absolutely zero effort to go after either and both of them. MOO

Let's assume the target was one lady who had ignored BK's DMs. Let's say MM. With KG gone for her internship, BK may have noticed that MM lived alone on the top floor, and thought he could slip up the back stairs and kill her quickly before being intercepted by the lone woman (XK) on the middle floor or either of the girls on the first floor. (BK didn't know EC would be there or that DM had moved up a floor.)

But MM's friend KG is also on the top floor, so the murder suddenly becomes twice as complicated. (KG's wounds are greater because she had more time to wake up and fight back. Or she WAS in her old room, woke up to MM screaming and ran to her in time to face BK; she only ended up in bed with MM as they died.)

Then BK encounters EC and/or XK as BK is coming down the stairs to the middle floor and has to dispatch them as well. BK may not be a genius, but he has now killed four times as many people and spent four times the minutes at it compared to his plan. Some of the victims and the dog made noise.

Maybe by the time DM sees him, BK doesn't see her or is too exhausted to continue. Maybe this is all taking way too much time! So he depends on his mask to hide him and walks away.

Much of the above is speculation, obviously, and the rest is IMHO only. But it is a relatively simple scenario where killing one young woman turned into a much more complicated (and bewildering) blood bath!

 

[Nila Aella]

But would they need nuclear testing if they had one of Murphys hairs to compare it to?

IMO Nuclear dna would be most precise - think human dna match - and mitochondrial dna would be less than nuclear dna. I think just a morphology match using structure and color would be very helpful as another piece of evidence. It would show that the hair is consistent with the mixbreed of Murphy in structure and color. JMO

Lab Uses Pet DNA to Track Down Killers, Solve Cold Cases

A team at an advanced lab in the Bay Area is tracking down killers and solving cold cases with a little help from everyday pets.

www.nbcbayarea.com

 

[Twistinginthewind]

My impression was that these cuttings were made from the pillowcase that was on his pillow. Could be mistaken, though. Zodiac cut bloody pieces of one victim's shirt and later mailed them to the newspaper.

The search warrant says one of the items seized was "cuttings from an uncased pillow", which means it didn't have a pillowcase/cover on it. JMO

"The items seized included possible hair strands, a nitrite-type black glove, a computer tower and cuttings from an uncased pillow of a "reddish/brown stain," according to the warrant".

Read Bryan Kohberger search warrant: New details about Idaho murder case

 

[flowershop]

Hi - I don't post really, but had a thought that I'd like to throw out and see what comments you guys might have. KB did kill these kids - didn't spare the two but was disciplined, times up, time to leave, sort of. The whole thing thoroughly planned, thought out, etc., but not planned to avoid being caught but planned not to see a conviction.
It's intriguing that no-one thinks he didn't do it, everyone wants to fry him, but maybe that's not of interest to him - maybe he's trying to prove that it doesn't mean anything to be charged with a crime if you don't get convicted. And maybe he's put this together with just enough confusion and doubt that he will not be convicted. Perhaps it's his statement/ perspective of the criminal justice system on a different level which would reconcile his doctoral intelligence with this inexplicable crime.
I don't know that I'm even making much sense LOL - but it crossed my mind...

I'm going back and forth. Today's 'unsealed' warrant info is relatively damning, though consistent with the entire episode, inconclusive, perhaps? The coupling of cell and video, and the various routes, and times etc., seem more than coincidental, but maybe not. If the details of the probable cause and warrant docs are accurate I'm beginning to feel that he did. What I'm having the most trouble understanding is why? I haven't read yet much that I'm inclined to accept. Also, I'm not sure why, but I'm sort of hoping he didn't - although obviously someone did it...

The general sense that I have reading these threads (I have been following them since December or so) is that:
1) BK is a sociopath and wanted to kill
2) BK was rejected by one (or more)of the girls at 1122 King Rd

Whether it is 1 or 2 or some combination I do not know.

The DNA puts him at the scene of the crime. He has visited the home repeatedly in the late/night early morning hours before the murders. His cell phone is turned off after he leaves his residence in the early morning hours of the 13th. He is on a route that would take him to Moscow. Then the cell phone is turned back on after the murders are believed to have been committed. He fits the physical description reported by one of the survivors who saw him the night of the murders. I don't think there's room for reasonable doubt on this one. MOO

 

[steeltowngirl]

I'm not sure if there is some sort of background GPS handling with the ECU, but the center stack in BK's Elantra does not appear to have GPS capabilities (as much as I wish it did).

Do we have the VIN number for his Elantra? We should be able to check for installed features like GPS with the VIN.

 

[Zella]

I have a hard time thinking of a possible reason why they wouldn't have taken his work computer or any other computerized equipment he would have worked on. I mean, there should have been something, right?

IMO, grad student offices usually don't provide computers and colleges themselves rarely provide computers or other equipment to grad students. As such, there would have been no work computer to seize. You get a desk and that's it, especially since this is a shared office, and you would be expected to bring a laptop and whatever else you might need when you plan to utilize the space.

My experience matches what @r3d-ros3 is saying. I was a TA who taught classes rather than grading for a professor, and despite the fact that's a substantially larger task to do, we still had no work computer. Any work I did on a computer was on a personal laptop or in a computer lab. MOO I would be surprised if he had a work computer to seize.

 

[layer]

The search warrant says one of the items seized was "cuttings from an uncased pillow", which means it didn't have a pillowcase/cover on it.

So the cloth cover of the pillow he was using.

 

[Vegasgrl]

@Moriarty

It said the dust container from a "Bissell Power Force" vacuum. Similar to this, assuming it's the bagfree type:

View attachment 396243

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I'm wondering why they didn't take the entire vacuum? I just assume there's evidence throughout. Did the warrant not cover the entire device?

 

[joyelle]

Do we have the VIN number for his Elantra? We should be able to check for installed features like GPS with the VIN.

I paused one of the traffic stop videos and got a good view of the center stack. I found the specs for the same head unit and it is not a GPS-capable one. The other option available for that year does have GPS but it has a giant screen ("infotainment" type) and it not even similar to what he has in the video.

Just to add a source of verification:
I don't have a screencap handy of the traffic stop video but this is the head unit model I saw in his car: 2011 - 2015 Hyundai Elantra OEM Single CD AM FM SAT MP3 Radio Receiver
and this is the GPS-capable one:
2014-2016 Hyundai ELANTRA OEM GPS Navigation System Bluetooth XM CD Radio

 

[esayer]

There does seem to be something about famous trials that makes jurors go a little wonky. Particularly if the defendant was a celebrity before the crime (which won't be an issue with BK).

I agree with you about jurors tending to side with LE, but I don't think it's out of self-interest more than decency. I think it scares us all to think LE is incompetent; it's much more comforting to assume those who protect us are good at it. That said, I've been on a jury where the defendant was acquitted because the eyewitness was impaired on the stand--we never knew why--and there was little circumstantial evidence.

But I've had good experiences on juries. I've also heard horror stories from others.

I would hate it. Don't they have to be quarantined the entire time with no TV/Computers etc?

 

[XtremeScorpio]

Because it’s a more precise form of identification than just saying: “Well, this hair looks like that hair.” Or did I misunderstand?

I'm not saying you misunderstood, or why you think it's possible that you might have. I was just asking cuz I'd think that comparing one dog hair with a different known hair could be done under a forensic microscope.
I do agree that finding any unknown hair, without having any idea as to what it belongs to, would need more hi tech ways to achieve that. I just thought that they'd compare with a known first. ;-)

 

[vls12345]

I'm wondering why they didn't take the entire vacuum? I just assume there's evidence throughout. Did the warrant not cover the entire device?

Interesting catch.

I wonder if the rest of the vacuum cleaner was missing and just the dust container was in his apartment? (That doesn't make much sense, imo. For instance, why would he get rid of the vacuum but not the dust container? This is speculation only.)

MOO.

 

[wary]

I would hate it. Don't they have to be quarantined the entire time with no TV/Computers etc?

Most cases, I think they’re on the honor system.

 

[steeltowngirl]

I paused one of the traffic stop videos and got a good view of the center stack. I found the specs for the same head unit and it is not a GPS-capable one. The other option available for that year does have GPS but it has a giant screen ("infotainment" type) and it not even similar to what he has in the video.

Good work!

 

[XtremeScorpio]

Let's assume the target was one lady who had ignored BK's DMs. Let's say MM. With KG gone for her internship, BK may noticed that MM lived alone on the top floor, and thought he could slip up the back stairs and kill her quickly before being intercepted by the lone woman (XK) on the middle floor or either of the girls on the first floor. (BK didn't know EC would be there or that DM had moved up a floor.)

But MM's friend KG is also on the top floor, so the murder suddenly becomes twice as complicated. (KG's wounds are greater because she had more time to wake up and fight back. Or she WAS in her old room, woke up to MM screaming and ran to her in time to face BK; she only ended up in bed with MM as they died.)

Then BK encounters EC or XK as BK is coming down the stairs to the middle floor and has to dispatch them as well. BK may not be a genius, but he has now killed four times as many people and spent four times the minutes at it compared to his plan. Some of the victims and the dog made noise.

Maybe by the time DM sees him, BK doesn't see her or is too exhausted to continue. Maybe this is all taking way too much time! So he depends on his mask to hide him and walks away.

Much of the above is speculation, obviously, and the rest is IMHO only. But it is a relatively simple scenario where killing one young woman turned into a much more complicated (and bewildering) blood bath!

Oh, I understand all the possible scenarios. I was responding to a comment that agreed with LE in that all 4 were the target.

 

[XtremeScorpio]

My experience matches what @r3d-ros3 is saying. I was a TA who taught classes rather than grading for a professor, and despite the fact that's a substantially larger task to do, we still had no work computer. Any work I did on a computer was on a personal laptop or in a computer lab. MOO I would be surprised if he had a work computer to seize.

Gotcha. Didn't know that. Thanks.

 

[layer]

Not sure if this has been posted already. These threads move so fast...

The search warrant application said that the rental house near campus where the four victims were found in November had a significant amount of blood from the victims, “including spatter and castoff” blood, which results when blood flies from a moving object.

I guess I knew that must be the case all along, but seeing it there in black & white hurts.

Source

 

[Nova]

I have a hard time thinking of a possible reason why they wouldn't have taken his work computer or any other computerized equipment he would have worked on. I mean, there should have been something, right?

I was a doctoral TA at another university for several years. There were no "work computers", just a few old desks in an office shared with all the other TAs. If you needed a computer, you had to bring your own. My guess is they already got BK's computer when they arrested him in PA.