Police arrested a 28-year-old criminology Ph.D. student in eastern Pennsylvania on Friday as a suspect in the deaths of four University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death in November, The Associated Press reports.
DNA reportedly played a major role in the eventual identification of Christopher Kohberger, the suspect, who attends Washington State University, a short nine-mile drive from Moscow, Idaho, where the quadruple homicide took place. The victims — Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 — were good friends, and staying together in a rental home when they were murdered, likely while they were sleeping.
The case had initially baffled authorities and shaken the small community of Moscow, which hadn’t had a murder in the five years prior, NPR writes. Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary, but “this is not the end of this investigation,” Bill Thompson, the prosecutor for Idaho’s Latah County, said.
