The man who confessed fatally stabbed four students from the University of Idaho almost three years ago was investigated in relation to a previous robbery that involved an intruder who carried a knife with a ski mask, according to records.
The 2021 robbery was in a house in Pullman, Washington, right to the other side of the state line from Moscow, Idaho, where Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found stabbed with death in a house outside the campus on November 13, 2022, according to the records obtained from the Pullman Police Department.
No one was injured in the robbery, and a witness told the authorities that the person fled after he kicked them in the stomach, according to the records.
Bryan Kohberger, who declared himself guilty of the murders of the Idaho University last month and is fulfilling life imprisonment without probation, has not been accused in the robbery, and it is not clear if there has been any arrest.
The records show that the authorities investigated a neighbor but did not have a probable cause to stop him. The Pullman police chief did not respond to a comment request on Tuesday.
The authorities in Pullman began investigating Kohberger, 30, after his arrest in the quadruple homicide in December 2022, as shown in the records.
Pullman moved as a doctoral student in the Criminology Program at Washington State University in June 2022, less than a year after the launch of October 10, 2021.
Although Kohberger did not live in Pullman, the records show that the police chief, then a commander, commissioned a sergeant by investigating whether Kohberger could have been in the area at that time for an event on the campus for possible graduated students.
The sergeant pointed out in a supplementary report that in the case of the University of Idaho, the murderer used a knife and said that he had used a ski mask inside the house outside the campus.
According to an affidavit in support of a search warrant in the case of Pullman, the authorities arrived at the house just before 3:30 am, a woman told the police that he woke up with a person who used a Burgundy ski mask that opened the door of his room. The person held a knife and approached his bed.
She kicked the intruder in the stomach, according to the affidavit, and the person fell back and then fled.
The Affidavit does not identify the gender of the intruder, and the woman described the height of the person as between 5 feet, 3 inches and 5 feet, 5 inches. In the case of the Idaho University, a surviving roommate who saw the masked intruder later identified as Kohberger said that the man who saw seemed to have 5 feet and 10 inches high, according to a sworn statement in support of an arrest warrant in that case.
In Pullman, the sergeant considered the “inactive” case after a coordinator of the School Criminology Department told him that there were no recruitment events at the time of theft and that the school was not aware of any visit by Kohberger.
