A Suspect in the Idaho College Student Murders Has Been Arrested
We Don’t Know Much Yet, But His Name is Bryan Christopher Hohberger
The twenty-eight year old suspect is a Ph.D. graduate student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. Pullman is about a 15-minute drive from the rental home where four college students were stabbed to death in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022.
The murdered students were Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21. Their deaths left the small town community of Moscow, Idaho in shock and fear and four families devastated. There has been an avalanche of speculation and rumors about who committed these murders, which has resulted in other unfortunate — and unnecessary — victims.
Kohberger was taken into custody today (December 30, 2022) around 3:00 a.m. in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is originally from Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, a tiny town with a 2020 Census count of 138, and graduated from Pleasant Valley High School. (According to the Pleasant Valley School District documents, Bryan Kohberger also worked for the school in 2021 as a part-time security officer). In 2018, after high school, he allegedly attended Northampton Community College where he joined a fraternity that focused on psychology. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2020 and completed a Master of Arts in Criminal Justice in June 2022 from DeSales University, a private Catholic school located in Centerville, Pennsylvania.
Searching for More Evidence
According to CNN, authorities honed in on Kohberger after tracing his ownership of a white Hyundai Elantra seen in the area of the killings. Kohberger’s DNA has also allegedly been matched to DNA recovered at the off-campus house where the students were stabbed to death.
By 7:30 a.m. this morning, police were searching his Pullman apartment. Police have said they will hold a press conference at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. Nothing so far has been released as far as motive of Hohberger’s connection — if any — to the victims.
Interestingly, according to a Fox San Diego news article, a DeSales student with the same name was part of a research project surveying people about “the emotions and personality traits influencing decision-making when committing a crime.” A Reddit post (since deleted) from this spring by someone who identified themselves as Kohberger and listed a university email with the initials “BK” sought participants for the anonymous survey. It has not been confirmed that Kohberger indeed made the post.