PULLMAN, Wash. (Court TV) — Bryan Kohberger, who is charged with brutally murdering four college students in their off-campus home in Idaho, was investigated as potentially being involved with another home invasion one year before his arrest in Washington, according to reports.
FILE – Bryan Kohberger, right, is escorted into a courtroom for a hearing in Latah County District Court, Sept. 13, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, Pool, File)
Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30, 2022, more than one month after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death while they slept at their home near the University of Idaho in Moscow. Their bodies were found on Nov. 13, 2022.
At the time of his arrest, Kohberger had been a PhD student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. Though a different state, Pullman sits just over the border from Moscow, Idaho.
Shortly after his arrest, police in Pullman looked at Kohberger as a person of interest in a home invasion in Pullman one year before the murders, ABC News reported.
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Court TV reviewed bodyworn camera footage from officers who responded to the 2021 home invasion, where two women reported a masked man breaking into their home. One woman told police she was sleeping when “I heard my door open and I looked over and someone was wearing a ski mask and had a knife.” The woman told officers she kicked the unknown person in the stomach and took off running.
However, according to the incident report reviewed by ABC News, the victim described the assailant as 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-5, while Bryan Kohberger is six feet tall. At the time of the attack, Kohberger was not yet registered at the University of Washington, nor were there records of him visiting the area. Pullman police told ABC News that Kohberger is no longer considered a person of interest in the case, though there have been no arrests.
Kohberger has pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder and burglary and faces a potential death sentence if he is convicted. His trial is scheduled to begin in August 2025 in Ada County, Idaho.
