A black glove, a stained pillow and receipts from Walmart and Marshalls were among items seized from the apartment of a criminology major accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students, according to court documents released Tuesday.
Among the items investigators took from the Pullman, Washington, apartment of Bryan Kohberger were possible hair strands, a pillow with a "reddish/brown stain," a computer tower, a "nitrite type" black glove, receipts, mattress covers and an Amazon Fire TV stick, a search warrant unsealed by the Whitman County Superior Court says.
The documents come a week after Kohberger, 28, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20. The students were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home where most of them lived in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13.
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Kohberger, who was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, about 10 miles away from Moscow, is being held without bail. He is due back in court on June 26.
"These murders appear to have been planned, rather than a crime that happened in a moment of conflict," the affidavit reads.
If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty, which is legal in Idaho. Investigators have not yet revealed a potential motive behind the killings, though Steve Goncalves, the father of one of the victims, has said he believes Kohberger stalked his daughter and the others killed.
According to the documents, investigators were searching Kohberger's apartment on the Washington State campus for evidence related to the killings. Among the items listed on the search warrant were knives or weapons, any photographs or information of the victims and their house that may indicate any possible interest or planning of the brutal crimes and shoes with a diamond pattern on the sole.
"Data compilations (whether digital/electronic or on paper or other format) showing an interest in, or planning of, murder, violent assault, stabbing and/or cutting of people," the search warrant listed.
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An affidavit in the case released on Jan. 5 detailed how investigators found a knife sheath near the body of one of the victims, and a forensic team located a shoe print with a diamond pattern, similar to a Vans shoe.
The search of Kohberger's apartment in Washington state was conducted shortly after he was taken into custody on Dec. 29 in his parents' home in northeastern Pennsylvania, about 2,500 miles from where the stabbings occurred.
One of the victims' surviving roommates told authorities that she saw a tall, thin masked man with bushy eyebrows inside the house after hearing noises from another bedroom.
Authorities say they zeroed in on Kohberger as a suspect through a combination of DNA evidence left on the knife sheath, trash collected from his parents' Pennsylvania home, surveillance video, cellphone records and license-plate readers that tracked his car on a cross-country drive, according to the Jan. 5 affidavit.
The whereabouts of the knife itself remain unknown as police have said they were still looking for the murder weapon. Authorities say Kohberger's phone had been tracked near the students' rental house at least 12 times in the six months prior to the fatal stabbings, and "all of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours."
Kohberger applied for an internship with the Pullman Police Department in Washington in the fall of 2022 and wrote an essay claiming he had an interest in assisting rural law enforcement agencies with "how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations," according to the affidavit.
He previously received an associate's degree in psychology from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania and graduated with a master of arts in criminal justice from DeSales University in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Seven months ago, a Reddit user by the same name, identifying himself as a student investigator, made a post in the "Prison" and "ExCons" sub Reddits inviting users to participate in a research project to understand "how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime."
Investigators executing the Washington search warrant also sought evidence of any internet searches about murders and violent assaults or "how to avoid detection after the commission of such crimes."
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