BOISE, Idaho — Police seized weapons including knives and a handgun, in addition to a litany of Bryan Kohberger’s personal effects, during a search of his parents’ Pennsylvania home, according to an expanded list of items from an unsealed warrant released Thursday and obtained by the Idaho Statesman.
Among the more than 70 items that Pennsylvania State Police and the FBI sought and took from the Monroe County home during Kohberger’s Dec. 30 arrest were his white 2015 Hyundai Elantra, several computers and two external hard drives, a cellphone, dark clothes and black face masks. Law enforcement also obtained four DNA swabs from inside Kohberger’s mouth, the records showed.
Kohberger, 28, was arrested and charged in the deaths of four University of Idaho students at an off-campus rental home in Moscow. The victims, who investigators have said were stabbed to death with a large knife, were U of I seniors Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, each 21, junior Xana Kernodle, 20, and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20.
The weapons police seized in Pennsylvania included a Glock 22 handgun with three empty magazines and its record of sale. Also seized were a Smith & Wesson pocket knife, a Taylor cutlery knife with leather sheath, and an unlabeled knife listed as the first of 69 items taken in the search.
“He had knives when I knew him, but pretty much every kid had knives — we’re talking pocket knives,” Thomas Arntz, a former friend of Kohberger’s in high school, told the Statesman in a prior interview. “It was the type of thing that you carry around for utility. But if we were outdoors doing something, and something called for a knife, you’d take it out and use it — just maintenance things.”
Police discovered a Ka-Bar brand leather knife sheath on the bed next to Mogen’s body, according to the probable cause affidavit for Kohberger’s arrest and the search warrants. From a button snap on the knife sheath, investigators reported finding a single source of male DNA that they later linked to Kohberger.
The latest documents, which detail Kohberger’s car and its contents separately, are the second set of unsealed Pennsylvania search warrants released this week. The prior records showed police took from the suspect a separate DNA swab of his mouth, dark clothing and size 13 shoes as they took him into custody.
Law enforcement raided the single-family home of Kohberger’s parents at about 1:25 a.m. Dec. 30. Kohberger was a graduate student in Washington State University’s criminal justice and criminology department, and at the time he was visiting his family in the Poconos during winter break.
Unsealed records name no owner of items
In Kohberger’s white sedan, Pennsylvania police found a shovel, goggles and gloves, a reflective vest, a Band-Aid, maps, receipts, a pair of hiking boots and $7.03 in change.
The records appear to indicate that police took pieces of the vehicle, including floor mats, a seat belt and buckle, the overhead visor, a door panel, the seats and cushions, headrests and the gas and brake pedals.
Also from within his parents’ home, law enforcement reported taking medical, court and other unidentified documents, two notebooks, and books, including one about criminal psychology and another “with underlining on page 118.” Three notes, including one from Kohberger from Montana and another to his father, were included on the list, as was a drawing labeled “A Man’s World.”
In addition, an unidentified prescription and a “green leafy substance” in both a container and a plastic bag were seized. Kohberger smoked marijuana during high school and in the years after, and he developed a heroin addiction that led him to check into drug rehab, several past friends previously told the Statesman.
While serving their search warrant, Pennsylvania police also took a Craftsman brand shop vac, the records showed.
With the exception of Kohberger’s car, the search warrant records do not say who owned the items seized from his parents’ eastern Pennsylvania home, nor from inside the white sedan.
A Monroe County District Court judge who signed off on the three Pennsylvania search warrants sealed the records for 60 days, with the first of those documents released by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts on Tuesday. The additional records unsealed Thursday represent Pennsylvania’s last records set for release, a spokesperson for the state’s administrative courts office told the Statesman.
Separate police searches took place the same day of Kohberger’s WSU student apartment in Pullman, Washington, and his on-campus office. Police there were likewise seeking any dark clothing; shoes with a diamond-pattern sole; blood or items that contained blood or bodily fluids; and all weapons to include knives and knife sheaths — or receipts for such purchases. In addition, police sought any possible property of the four victims, and two surviving housemates.
From Kohberger’s Pullman apartment, police seized a black rubber glove, red-stained bedding and a vacuum dust container, the records showed. They also took a desktop computer tower, an Amazon Fire TV Stick cord/plug, a Walmart sales receipt, two Marshalls department store receipts, and 13 possible hair strands — including one possibly from an animal.
No items were seized in the search of Kohberger’s shared on-campus WSU office, the records showed. A Washington judge unsealed that search warrant in mid-January at the request of the prosecutor in Whitman County.
A gag order issued by an Idaho District Court judge in Latah County remains in effect in the case. It bars law enforcement, attorneys for the prosecution and Kohberger’s defense, as well as attorneys representing witnesses and the victims’ families, from sharing information with the public outside of court filings. More than two dozen media outlets, including the Idaho Statesman, are contesting the order in the Idaho Supreme Court.
Kohberger’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 26.
