CNN
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The man suspected of killing four University of Idaho students appeared in court on Thursday for a status conference, where a judge scheduled a preliminary probable cause hearing beginning June 26.
Brian Coberger (fatal stabbing of 21-year-old Cary Gonsalves), facing four counts of first-degree murder. Madison Morgen, 21 years old. Xana Carnodle, 20 years old. Twenty-year-old Ethan Chapin appeared in court wearing an orange prison uniform and shackled. The 28-year-old waived his right to an expedited hearing on probable grounds within 14 days, and he only spoke briefly while answering the judge’s questions.
A public defender representing the suspects has asked the judge to give him four to five days to try the probable cause this summer, and the judge has indicated that he will block the issue for the week of June 26. I was. The judge also ordered Kohberger to remain in state custody without bail.
Kohberger has been held without bail in Idaho’s Lata County Jail since last week after being extradited from Pennsylvania where he was arrested late last month. Coberger, who is also facing robbery charges, has yet to file a petition, and a court order barred the prosecution and defense from commenting beyond reference to the public record of the case.
Four college students were found dead after a night out at their off-campus home on Nov. 13, according to nervous police in the college town of Moscow, Idaho, on the Washington state border. was done.
Follow Live Update: Brian Koberger Appears in Court
Authorities arrested Coberger almost seven weeks later and detained him at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania. It took nearly two months for authorities to publicly name a suspect, but police, who faced mounting criticism while the investigation appeared to be stalled, announced that the suspect had been named a few weeks ago. I was starting to focus on Kohberger.
Meanwhile, Coberger’s neighbor in nearby Pullman, Wash. told CBS News The suspect allegedly asked him days after the murder occurred and said: It appears to have been a crime of passion.” CBS reported that the neighbor requested anonymity.
According to a probable cause affidavit released last week, the most notable evidence came from a witness to the victim’s surviving roommate, who told police she saw a man dressed in black inside the house on the morning of the murder. Witnesses described the man as about 5 foot 10 or taller, not muscular, but well built with bushy eyebrows.
Investigators were also attracted to a white sedan seen on local surveillance footage around the house. Identified as a Hyundai Elantra.
A few days later, officials at Washington State University, where Koberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice, discovered such a vehicle and found it registered with Koberger, the affidavit states. increase.
When investigators searched the information on his driver’s license, they found it matched the description provided by his roommate of a man dressed in black.
According to an affidavit, Coberger got a new license plate for his car five days after the murder. When he was arrested in Pennsylvania last week, a white elantra was found in his home, according to Monroe County chief public defender Jason Laver, who represented the suspect in his extradition.
Other evidence listed in the affidavit included phone records showing Coberger’s phone calls were near the victim’s home at least a dozen times since June. A few hours later, between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., the phone is also shown to have been near the murder scene.
Additionally, landfill authorities recovered from the Coberger family home have revealed a DNA profile linked to the DNA of a tan leather knife sheath found lying in the bed of one of the victims. said the affidavit. The DNA recovered from the trash is believed to be that of the biological father of the person whose DNA was found in the pod.
Coberger was also monitored for four days prior to his arrest, law enforcement sources told CNN. During that time, he was seen putting the garbage bag into his neighbor’s trash can and “cleaned the inside and outside of the car without missing an inch.”
