(Reuters) -A woman who lived at the house where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in November told investigators she was awakened on the night of the murders by the sound of someone crying in one of the victim’s bedrooms – and then watched as a masked man walked past her and out of the house.
The harrowing detail was included in a newly unsealed affidavit on Thursday, just before Bryan Kohberger, the 28-year-old doctoral student charged with the slayings, was scheduled to make his first court appearance in Moscow, Idaho.
The woman, one of two roommates who were left unharmed, told authorities she stood in “frozen shock” shortly after 4 a.m. on Nov. 13 as the man, clad in black, passed by her, before she locked herself in her room.
Kohberger, who has been working towards a criminal justice PhD degree at Washington State University, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, faces four counts of first-degree murder and burglary.
He was arrested in Pennsylvania last week, where he was visiting his family, and flown to Idaho on Wednesday.
Investigators were able to match DNA recovered from a knife sheath left at the scene with DNA taken from trash at the Kohberger family residence, according to the unsealed court document.
In addition, video footage captured a white Elantra, similar to a car registered to Kohberger, passing the house three times on the night of the murders before the driver attempted to park, the affidavit said. About 15 minutes later, the car was seen leaving at a “high rate of speed.”
The crime stunned the small college town in northwestern Idaho. The victims – Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho – all suffered multiple stab wounds, according to authorities. Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend.
Authorities have not publicly disclosed a motive.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio and Howard Goller)
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