Criminology graduate student charged with 4 student murders

(CNN) — The man arrested in connection with the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death in November attended a nearby university.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on Friday on an active arrest warrant for first-degree murder which was issued by the Moscow, Idaho, Police Department and the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office, according to the criminal complaint.

The four slain students — Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20 — were each stabbed multiple times in the early morning hours of November 13 at an off-campus house in the small college town of Moscow.

Records show Kohberger was arraigned Friday morning and has another court hearing on extradition on January 3.

Kohberger is a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, according to a now-removed university graduate directory, which was seen by CNN earlier Friday. The university has not responded to CNN’s requests for comment.

One of the department’s campuses is located in Pullman, where a CNN team filmed law enforcement agents outside a WSU graduate residence that Moscow police said is connected to Kohberger.

Pullman is about a 15-minute drive from Moscow where the killings took place.

A Washington State University student confirmed to CNN Kohberger was a graduate student there studying criminal justice.

Kohberger was also previously an undergraduate and graduate student at DeSales University, according to a statement on the school’s website. DeSales is a Catholic university in Pennsylvania, according to its official Facebook page.

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2020, “and completed his graduate studies in June 2022,” according to the school’s statement.

In a post that was removed from Reddit after the arrest was made public, a student investigator associated with a DeSales University study named Bryan Kohberger sought participation in a research project “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime.”

The now-removed Reddit post said, “In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience.”

CNN reached one of the principal investigators of that study, a professor at DeSales University, but they declined to comment on the matter. The university has not responded to comment.

A spokesperson for Northampton Community College also confirmed to CNN that Kohberger was a student there and graduated with an Associate of Arts and Psychology in 2018.

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