The man who confessed to fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students nearly three years ago was investigated in connection with an earlier break-in that involved a knife-wielding intruder wearing a ski mask, records show.
The 2021 break-in was at a home in Pullman, Washington, just across the state line from Moscow, Idaho, where Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found stabbed to death at an off-campus home on Nov. 13, 2022, according to records obtained from the Pullman Police Department.
No one was injured in the break-in, and a witness told authorities that the person fled after she kicked them in the stomach, the records show.
Bryan Kohberger, who pleaded guilty to the University of Idaho murders last month and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, has not been accused in the break-in, and it is unclear whether there have been any arrests.
The records show that authorities investigated a neighbor but did not have probable cause to take him into custody. Pullman’s police chief did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Authorities in Pullman began investigating Kohberger, 30, after his arrest in the quadruple homicide in December 2022, the records show.
He moved to Pullman as a doctoral student in Washington State University’s criminology program in June 2022, less than a year after the Oct. 10, 2021, break-in.
Even though Kohberger did not yet live in Pullman, the records show that the police chief — then a commander — tasked a sergeant with looking into whether Kohberger could have been in the area at the time for an on-campus event for prospective graduate students.
The sergeant noted in a supplemental report that in the University of Idaho case, the killer used a knife and was said to have worn a ski mask inside the off-campus home.
According to an affidavit in support of a search warrant in the Pullman case, authorities arrived at the home just before 3:30 a.m. A woman told police that she awoke to a person wearing a burgundy ski mask opening her bedroom door. The person was holding a knife and approached her bed.
She kicked the intruder in the stomach, according to the affidavit, and the person fell backward, then fled.
The affidavit does not identify the intruder’s gender, and the woman described the person’s height as between 5 feet, 3 inches and 5 feet, 5 inches. In the University of Idaho case, a surviving roommate who saw the masked intruder later identified as Kohberger said the man she saw appeared to be 5 feet, 10 inches tall, according to an affidavit in support of an arrest warrant in that case.
In Pullman, the sergeant deemed the case “inactive” after a coordinator for the school’s criminology department told him there were no recruitment events at the time of the break-in and that the school was unaware of any visits from Kohberger.
