Cash, gloves and screenshots: Top investigators detail Bryan Kohberger's unusual behavior after Idaho student murders

CNN

3 days ago

In the days after murdering four University of Idaho students in an off-campus home, Bryan Kohberger's behavior shifted dramatically and investigators would later find that he had fixated on news coverage of the killings and began paying for items in cash – often wearing gloves – as he avoided the area of the murders.
The details emerged Friday in CNN's wide-ranging, sit-down interview with Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson and Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger. The key investigators shared new insight into Kohberger's unusual behavior and the violent struggles that took place inside the home in November 2022.
'Everything lined up' for investigators once they started looking into Kohberger as a suspect, Gilbertson told CNN. By the time the FBI linked Kohberger to DNA found on a knife sheath left at the scene, the investigation had dragged on for several weeks, with thousands of tips pouring in, he said. Kohberger's name seemed to click everything into place, he added.
The former criminology graduate student, who was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday as part of a controversial plea deal, showed 'very strong changes in behavior' after the killings, Gilbertson said. Though Kohberger returned to the area a few hours after the murders, investigators said they believe he never set foot in Moscow again after that, he said.
Here are some of the key revelations from investigators:
Though it would take investigators nearly two months to identify and arrest Kohberger at his parents' Pennsylvania home, the killer had spent those weeks taking strange precautions.
'He stops using his debit card, his credit cards. He starts only using cash,' Gilbertson said. '(In) video and surveillance that we would collect and pick up after that, he's often wearing gloves.'
Before law enforcement seized his electronic devices, Kohberger had been wiping data from them. Even so, he had kept several screenshots and pictures of news coverage of the killings, according to Gilbertson.
However, investigators found no evidence on the devices that Kohberger had known the victims, Gilbertson said, debunking reports that the killer had photos and the social media accounts of some of the victims on his phone.
'To this date, we have never found a single connection – anything – between any of the four victims or the other two surviving roommates with him. No pictures, no texts,' Gilbertson said.
Kohberger pleaded guilty earlier this month to the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen after spending years insisting he was innocent. The deal with prosecutors, which has received polarized reactions from the victims' families, allowed him to skirt a trial and took the death penalty off the table.
Though the sentence has allowed police to release a trove of investigative documents that provide desperately-sought insight into the crime, Gilbertson and Dahlinger agreed there is one question that may never be answered: Why did he do it?
What is clear to investigators, according to Gilbertson, is that Kohberger was 'very consumed' with criminology and the psychology around murder.
Though investigators are confident a knife was used to kill all four victims, Goncalves was struck in the face by an unknown object and the extent of her struggle with Kohberger is still unknown, Gilbertson said.
'It certainly appears something else struck her to cause the marks that we saw that is not consistent with a fist,' Gilbertson said. There is also no evidence she was bound or gagged, he added.
A recently released preliminary autopsy report found each of the victims had suffered 'sharp force injuries' – though Goncalves also had 'asphyxial injures' and 'blunt force injuries.' She had been stabbed more than 20 times, the document says, though her father said after the killer's sentencing Wednesday she had been stabbed more than 30 times.
The knife, which investigators believe was a Ka-Bar knife, has also not been found. A tan, leather sheath for one such weapon containing Kohberger's DNA was found at the scene of the killings.
Goncalves's sister addressed Kohberger during Wednesday's sentencing, telling him, 'If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.'
As Kohberger was fatally stabbing Goncalves and Mogen on the third floor of the home, prosecutors have said they believe Kernodle was still awake on the floor below. Gilbertson said she was likely eating food she'd had delivered after a late night out.
'We believe that she heard something going on upstairs and at least started in that direction. But we don't know how far she got, or whether she went up the stairs or all the way up the stairs,' Gilbertson said.
Kernodle was stabbed more than 50 times, and many of her wounds were defensive, the autopsy said, indicating she tried to fight off her attacker. Chapin, her boyfriend, was asleep in her bedroom and Kohberger killed him as well, prosecutors have said.
'She fought. She fought back and she fought hard,' Dahlinger said. As she resisted Kohberger, 'The fight just continued,' Gilbertson added.
Jeff Kernodle, Xana's father, said on Wednesday that he almost went to his daughter's home on the night she was killed. But he had been drinking, and she told him not to drink and drive. Now, he said on Wednesday, he wishes that he had.
'You would have had to deal with me,' he told Kohberger in court.
Before her death, Goncalves had expressed fears that she was being followed, and investigators have said her death elicited hundreds of tips and pieces of information about her having a stalker. Gilbertson confirmed her fears were correct.
'Somebody had followed her, and I know Kaylee absolutely felt that it was real. We investigated that heavily, we tracked down every bit of it,' Gilberson said. 'Fortunately, it was not what we would term or think of as stalking.'
Someone had followed Goncalves but never contacted her, he said.
'It ended up being an instance where somebody saw a very pretty girl and was hoping to maybe be able to talk to her, or maybe be able to get a date or something,' Gilbertson said.
In December 2022, police said investigators had identified an incident in October in which two men were seen at a business and one man appeared to follow Goncalves inside and as she exited to her car. The man did not make contact with her.
Investigators contacted both men and learned they were trying to meet women at the business. Detectives said they believe this was an isolated incident and not a pattern of stalking. There was no evidence to suggest the men were involved in the killings, they said.
CNN's Eric Levenson, Dakin Andone, Maureen Chowdhury and Antoinette Radford contributed to this report.