In the ongoing case against suspected serial killer Bryan Kohberger, the Latah County Prosecuting Attorney has recently submitted a request to the court, seeking a protective order regarding information related to Kohberger’s family, Your Content has learned.
The victims, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kemodle, and Ethan Chapin, were discovered with fatal knife wounds. A Ka-Bar knife sheath found near the bodies proved crucial in the investigation. The Idaho State Police Lab analyzed the sheath and isolated single-source male DNA. Initially, law enforcement attempted to match this DNA with profiles in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) but were unsuccessful, the filing reveals.
Usually, when the police have a suspect’s DNA, they try to find a match in a big database that contains the DNA of people who have been arrested or convicted before. But in this case, they didn’t find a match.
The FBI constructed a family tree with hundreds of relatives using data from the genealogy service, subscription-based databases, social media, and vital records. This family tree led investigators to Bryan C. Kohberger.
They looked for people who might be relatives of the person whose DNA was found on the knife cover. By creating a sort of family tree, the police identified Bryan Kohberger as a potential suspect.
Prosecutors have asked the court to keep certain details about this process a secret. They want to protect the privacy of the relatives identified during the investigation and the names of the websites that were used to find them. They argue that these details aren’t necessary for the case and that revealing them could invade people’s privacy.
Once Kohberger was identified as a potential suspect, law enforcement gathered additional DNA samples from his parents’ home. The comparison between these samples and the DNA found on the knife sheath indicated a statistical match. Kohberger was taken into custody following these findings.
As Your Content readers know, on December 30, at his parents’ residence in Pennsylvania, 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger was apprehended for the sickening murders that occurred on November 13. The gruesome incident involved the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.