LATAH COUNTY, Idaho — Update 2:28 p.m. EST Jan. 12: A preliminary hearing has been set for 9 a.m. June 26.
Original story: The man accused of killing four University of Idaho students last year is scheduled to appear in court Thursday for a preliminary status hearing.
Bryan Kohberger, 28, has been held in jail without bond on charges of murder and burglary in the killings of Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21. The four university students were stabbed to death in an off-campus home on Nov. 13, investigators said.
No evidence or witnesses will be presented at Thursday’s hearing, KTVB reported. At the hearing, attorneys will talk through how they want to move forward with the case, according to KIVI-TV.
Authorities arrested Kohberger at his parent’s house in eastern Pennsylvania on Dec. 30, nearly seven weeks after the killings in Moscow, The Associated Press reported. He was booked into Idaho’s Latah County Jail last week after waiving extradition.
Police said Kohberger was a Ph.D. student studying criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, about 10 miles from Moscow. In an affidavit released last week, police said cellphone records showed that he had visited the area where the killings took place at least a dozen times between June 2022 and November 2022.
He was arrested after testing linked him to DNA on a leather knife sheath found near one of the victims, authorities said.
Kernodle, Mogen and Goncalves lived in the house where the killings took place. Chapin was dating Kernodle and visiting on the night of the stabbings. Two other people living in the house were home at the time, but were not injured.
One of the surviving roommates told authorities that she heard what sounded like crying from Kernodle’s room early on Nov. 13 and a man who said something like, “It’s OK, I’m going to help you,” court records show. She said she opened her door at one point and froze after seeing a mask-wearing man wearing all-black walking toward her. He walked past her to a sliding glass door at the back of the house and she said she locked herself into her room.
She did not recognize the man.
A motive for the stabbings remained unclear Thursday. Authorities continue to investigate.
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