The man charged in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students was investigated in connection to a home invasion that took place not far away from where he allegedly slaughtered the students inside their off-campus residence in 2022.
New information with a possible link to Bryan Kohberger became known after ABC News obtained bodycam footage of police responding to a suspected home invasion in Pullman, Washington, in October 2021 — more than a year before the University of Idaho students were stabbed to death, the New York Post reported Wednesday.
“I heard my door open, and I looked over, and someone was wearing a ski mask and had a knife,” a woman told police, according to the Post. “I kicked the s*** out of their stomach and screamed superloud, and they like flew back into my closet and then ran out my door and up the stairs.”
The alleged incident — which took place just 10 miles from where the gruesome slayings in Moscow, Idaho, occurred — happened at 3:30 a.m., the woman told police, adding that the masked intruder was silent the whole time.
The case was left unsolved as police were left without a suspect or evidence at the time. The incident shared similarities to the way the four students were killed in the crime for which Kohberger has been charged.
The killings occurred at about 4 a.m. and a surviving housemate told police she saw a masked man with “bushy eyebrows” fleeing the house after overhearing cries and sounds of a struggle, according to the Post. Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University in Pullman, was arrested at his parents’ Pennsylvania home on Dec. 30, 2023, and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary — charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Thirteen days later, he was named a person of interest in the Pullman case, according to ABC News, but is no longer considered a suspect.
“We have no reason or evidence to believe he was involved in this burglary at this time,” Pullman police said, citing a height difference between the alleged attackers.
Kohberger is 6 feet tall, but the alleged attacker in the Pullman incident was described as being 5 feet, 3 inches to 5 feet, 5 inches. Kohberger also was not enrolled at Washington State University at the time of the 2021 incident, according to ABC News.
The case is now closed but remains unsolved, police said.
“My family and I have been frustrated that the case was not investigated more in-depth or resolved,” the victim in the break-in told ABC News.
Kohberger, whose trial is scheduled to begin in August, is facing four first-degree murder charges and a felony burglary charge. The trial, which was moved to Idaho’s capital of Boise, will include two phases — one to determine his guilt or innocence, and the other, if he’s found guilty, to determine whether he should receive the death penalty, according to the Post.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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