Idaho Murders: Stained Pillow Among Items Found in Bryan Kohberger’s Home

May 22, 2023

Investigators revealed in a search warrant affidavit that they seized items like a black surgical glove, and both human and animal hair.

Reporter

Following last month's arrest of quadruple-murder suspect and criminology scholar Bryan Kohberger, police searched his campus apartment at Washington State University for clues.

There, investigators collected evidence that ranged from creepy to mundane: a black surgical glove; a vacuum cleaner bag; roughly a dozen strands of hair, both human and animal; receipts from Marshall's and Walmart; a sample collected from a "dark red spot" found inside; cuttings from an "uncased pillow [with a] reddish/brown stain;" and a mattress cover bearing "multiple stains."

That's according to a newly unsealed search warrant affidavit, which was made public on Wednesday and provided to The Daily Beast by the Whitman County, Washington Superior Court clerk. Along with those items, cops seized an Amazon Fire TV stick and a computer tower, which the affidavit says detectives planned to search for "[a]ny images, whether digital or on paper or any other format," showing victims Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kemodle, 20; or Madison Mogen, 21; along with surviving roommates Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, both 19.

All six were students at the University of Idaho in Moscow, a small town roughly 10 miles across the state line from the WSU campus in Pullman, where Kohberger was pursuing a PhD.

The Steptoe Village apartments at Washington State University, where Bryan Kohberger lived.

Inside the residence where the four were stabbed to death, police found "a significant amount of blood from the victims including spatter and castoff (blood stain pattern resulting from blood drops released from an object due to its motion)," which the affidavit says "makes it likely that this evidence was transferred to Kohberger's person, clothing, or shoes."

Cops were also interested in whether or not Kohberger had pictures of the house where the gruesome killings occurred, "and/or the surrounding neighborhood."

The affidavit, which describes the Idaho case as a "now notorious and much publicized murder/burglary," says the warrants were served "because a suspect in the crimes resided and worked here during the time of the murders," referring to Kohberger. A second warrant sought permission to search office number 12 in WSU's Wilson-Short Hall, which Kohberger shared with two fellow students.

"No items seized," the warrant return for Kohberger's office states.

The Moscow, Idaho residence where four young college students were killed.

Among the things police were searching for among Kohberger's belongings in apartment G201 were blood, human tissue, "knives, sheaths, or other sharp tools, including any dagger, dirk, or sword," along with any associated receipts, trace evidence such as DNA, dark clothing and masks, fingerprints, hair "whether human or animal/dog," and "shoes with 16 diamond pattern sole."

There was a dog, which was not harmed during the fatal attack, living in the Moscow house. Investigators also found a shoeprint at the crime scene which was "similar to the pattern of a Vans type shoe sole," according to an earlier probable cause statement from detectives in Idaho, which is a capital punishment state.

Prof. Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD detective sergeant who now teaches at New York City's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Daily Beast that he sees the hair strands found in Kohberger's apartment to potentially be among the most damning pieces of evidence collected.

"Remember, this is from his apartment and not from the school office," Giacalone said Wednesday. "If those hairs come back to any of the victims, and/or the dog, I don't think there is any way his lawyer can explain that away."

Cops seized hair and other evidence from apartment 201, where Kohberger lived.

It remains unclear if any of the victims were in any way familiar with Kohberger, who was arrested Dec. 30 at his parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, some 2,500 miles from Moscow. Kohberger's father flew out to drive back to the East Coast with his son, making the trip in the same white Hyundai Elantra seen in security video released by authorities after the grisly slayings—but with a set of new license plates, which Kohberger received five days after the murders.

The murders took place Nov. 13 sometime between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m., Idaho detectives said in a probable cause affidavit filed earlier this month. Police say they found a knife sheath at the crime scene, and matched a DNA sample from the sheath's snap to Kohberger's own DNA, which investigators recovered from the trash outside his parents’ house. Kohberger's phone pinged off cell towers near the victims’ residence "on at least twelve occasions prior" to their deaths, the affidavit states. The murder weapon has not yet been located; cops say they believe a fixed-blade knife was used.

A list of what cops say they seized from Kohberger's Pullman, Washington apartment.

Kohberger, who one former teacher recently described as "brilliant," earlier this year graduated from a master's program in criminal justice at DeSales University, a Catholic school in Center Valley, Pennsylvania. At DeSales, he studied under famed forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland, who wrote such books as How to Catch a Killer, The Psychology of Death Investigations, and The Mind of a Murderer.

Reporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.