A suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students was arrested in eastern Pennsylvania. Arrest paperwork filed by Pennsylvania State Police in Monroe County Court said Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was being held for extradition in a criminal homicide investigation based on an active arrest warrant for first degree murder issued by the Moscow Police Department and Latah County Prosecutor’s Office, the Associated Press reports. The students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were stabbed to death at a rental home near campus in the early morning hours of Nov. 13.
The slayings initially mystified law enforcement, with investigators unable to name a suspect or locate a murder weapon for weeks. Law enforcement asked the public for help finding a white sedan seen near the home around the time of the killings. The Moscow Police Department made the request Dec. 7, and by the next day had to direct tips to a special FBI call center because so many were coming in. The four students members of the university’s Greek system and close friends. Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating and he was visiting the house that night. The stabbing deaths shook the small town of Moscow, a farming community of about 25,000 people — including roughly 11,000 students — tucked in the rolling hills of the northern Idaho’s Palouse region.