(Trends Wide) — The suspect in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students last year has been indicted by a grand jury on charges of murder and burglary, a court official told Trends Wide.
Bryan Kohberger was charged with all five original counts: four counts of murder and one count of trespassing, Latah County Deputy Clerk Tamzen Reeves said Wednesday. If he is found guilty, he could be sentenced to death.
The hearing is set for Monday.
Kohberger was arrested in December as the alleged perpetrator of the murders, on November 13, of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, in a house just outside the main University of Idaho campus in Moscow, not far from the Washington state line.
Trends Wide has reached out to Kohberger’s attorney for comment.
The murders sparked a weeks-long search for the suspect, leaving the campus and surrounding community in uncertainty and fear until Kohberger’s arrest on December 30 at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where an attorney for the suspect said he had gone to spend the holidays.
Investigators found Kohberger, a graduate student in the Washington State University (WSU) Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, in nearby Pullman, after noticing a white Hyundai Elantra that appeared in surveillance footage near the scene of the crime, according to a probable cause affidavit released in January.
Area law enforcement was called to search for the vehicle on Nov. 25, according to the affidavit, and WSU police identified a white Elantra within days and found it registered to Kohberger.
The information on Kohberger’s driver’s license matched a description of a man the victims’ housemate had provided to police, according to the affidavit, which listed his height, weight and bushy eyebrows. The woman told investigators that she saw a man dressed in black the morning of the attack.
Investigators linked Kohberger to the crime scene after DNA from a leather knife sheath found next to one of the victims was linked to DNA from trash recovered from Kohberger’s family home, according to the police. sworn declaration.
Following his arrest, Kohberger waived his extradition hearing and was returned to Idaho. He was booked into the Latah County Jail on the same charges he was charged with.