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A suspect arrested in connection with the slayings of four University of Idaho students plans to waive an extradition hearing so he can be quickly brought to Idaho to face murder charges, his defense attorney said Saturday.
Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, was taken into custody early Friday morning by the Pennsylvania State Police at his parents’ home in Chestnuthill Township, authorities said.
“We believe we’ve got our man,” Moscow Police Department Captain Anthony Dahlinger told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Investigators obtained samples of Kohberger’s DNA directly from the suspect after he was arrested, Dahlinger said.
“He’s the one that we believe is responsible for all four of the murders,” he said.
Bill Thompson, a prosecutor in Latah County, Idaho, said during a press conference Friday that investigators believe Kohberger broke into the University of Idaho students’ home near campus “with the intent to commit murder.” The bodies of the students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were found on Nov. 13, several hours after investigators believe they died.
The arrest in the disturbing case brought a sense of relief to the small northern Idaho college town after weeks passed with little information released by police. But it has also raised questions about whether the suspect knew the victims, what he has been doing in the weeks since the killings and how authorities tracked him down in Pennsylvania.
Many of those details will be released after Kohberger makes his first appearance in an Idaho courtroom, Dahlinger said. State law prohibits police from releasing most investigation records while the investigation is underway, and investigators kept many details about the investigation secret to avoid damaging the case, he said.
“I just really hope that everybody out there can understand the ‘why’ behind us holding a lot of information close to our vest,” Dahlinger said. “This is the positive outcome that we were searching for the entire time.”
Kohberger’s attorney, chief public defender Jason LaBar, said Kohberger is eager to be exonerated and plans to tell a judge in Monroe County, Pennsylvania on Tuesday that he will waive his extradition hearing so he can be quickly brought to Idaho.
