Authorities have arrested a suspect in the November murders of four University of Idaho students in their home.
28-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger was taken into custody by local police and the FBI at 3 a.m. in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the law enforcement source said Friday.
Kohberger is being held for extradition in Monroe County Court for first-degree murder issued by the Moscow Police Department and the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office in connection to the murders of 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves, and 21-year-old Madison Mogen.
The suspect is a graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, according to the college’s website. Pullman is a 15-minute drive from the rental home where the four students were stabbed to death.
A press conference is scheduled in Moscow, Idaho, at 1 p.m. PT to announce the major break in the case.
A white Hyundai Elantra was towed from the home where the suspect was arrested, law enforcement officials told NBC News.
The mysterious killings initially baffled investigators and left the small college town of 25,000 deeply shaken.
The four students were each stabbed multiple times in the torso and were likely ambushed in their sleep with a large fix-bladed knife between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., according to the coroner and police.
Two surviving female roommates, who lived on the basement level, appeared to have slept through the gruesome attack.
Shortly before noon, the roommates summoned friends to the house because they believed one of the victims on the second-floor had passed out, authorities said.
Police responded to a 911 call reporting an unconscious person at 11:58 a.m. that originated from one of the surviving roommates’ phones. The responding officers found the four butchered victims on the second and third floors.
The Moscow Police Department released a detailed timeline of the victims’ movements in the hours before and after the massacre.
Goncalves and Mogen went to a bar downtown, the Corner Club, before ordering food from the Grub Truck at around 1:40 a.m.
The women used a “third-party” driver and were home by 1:56 a.m., according to police.
Kernodle and her boyfriend, Chapin, went to a party at the Sigma Chi house on campus and returned to the King Road home at 1:45 a.m.
The Moscow Police Department, which is working with the FBI and the Idaho State Police, said that the attacks were “targeted.”
Investigators focused on tracking down the occupant(s) of a 2011 to 2013 white Hyundai Elantra that was spotted near the home at the time of the murders.
Chapin was a freshman from Mount Vernon, Washington, and a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He was studying recreation, sport and tourism management, according to the school.
Chapin’s girlfriend, Kernodle, who was from Avondale, Arizona, was a junior majoring in marketing and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority.
Mogen was a senior from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, studying marketing and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority, according to the university.
Goncalves, who was from Rathdrum, Idaho, was a senior majoring in general studies and a member of the Alpha Phi sorority.
She had been set to graduate early in December and planned to move to Austin, Texas, where she had a marketing job lined up. She was also looking forward to an upcoming trip to Europe.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to call 208-883-7180 or [email protected].
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