Bryan Kohberger Murder Details: How the Killer Broke Into the Victims' Home — and Who He Targeted

Bryan Kohberger murdered four University of Idaho students after breaking into their home through a sliding glass door.

That is one of the details that Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson shared in court on Wednesday after Kohberger confessed to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Thompson said that he believes Kohberger broke into his victims’ off-campus residence in the college town of Moscow on Nov. 13, 2022, through a sliding glass door on the second floor.

That would have put Kohberger in the kitchen, and from there, Thompson said, he believes Kohberger walked past the bedroom of one of the surviving roommates and then upstairs to the third floor where he murdered his first two victims, Mogen and Goncalves.

This means that Kohberger would have then gone back downstairs to the second floor where he murdered the other two victims in Kernodle’s room.

Kohberger then exited the home through the same sliding door, and on the way out walked past one of the surviving roommates, who opened her bedroom door after hearing strange noises.

Thompson said that the case relied heavily on the one piece of evidence left behind by Kohberger — a KA-BAR knife sheath.

Thompson said that he had evidence of Kohberger purchasing a knife like the one used in the brutal murders, and more importantly had been able to use genetic genealogy sites to identify the father of the man whose single-source DNA was found on the snap of the sheath.

That man was Michael Kohberger, Bryan’s father.

Thompson said that what prosecutors still did not have, however, was any evidence that Kohberger had direct contact with the victims or had been inside the home prior to the murders, though there was plenty of cell phone data which placed Kohberger in the area.

Kohberger and his attorney Anne Taylor agreed to a deal with prosecutors on Monday which required the 30-year-old former criminology doctoral student to plead guilty to four counts of murder and one of burglary to avoid being sentenced to death.

He is instead expected to be sentenced to four life terms and an additional 10 years on the burglary charge — all to run consecutively — when the judge hands down his order on July 23.