US authorities have revealed the evidence allowed them to zero in on a man suspected of killing four students at the University of Idaho last year.
The suspect, a 28-year-old American doctoral student in criminology at Washington State University named Bryan Kohberger, was arrested in Pennsylvania last week and subsequently extradited to Idaho where he appeared in court on Thursday. He is being charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.
The killings took place during the early hours of November 13 when the suspect allegedly stabbed his victims - three housemates and one man who was staying over – at a rental house in the city of Moscow, Idaho.
Cops set their sights on Kohberger after identifying a white sedan that surveillance cameras recorded cruising near the scene of the crime several times around the time of the murders, as a 2015 Hyundai Elantra registered to him.
“This is a residential neighborhood with a very limited number of vehicles that travel in the area during the early morning hours,” Moscow Police Cpl. Brett Payne wrote in an affidavit. “Upon review of the video there are only a few cars that enter and exit this area during this time frame.”
DNA evidence from trash retrieved by local cops from the Kohberger family home in Pennsylvania also matched the DNA recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene, the affidavit states.
Kohberger is to due face a status hearing on January 12.