BOISE, Idaho — Initial analysis showed blood on two items that police seized during their search of Moscow homicides suspect Bryan Kohberger’s Washington State University housing, documents the university released Thursday revealed.
Testing of 50 items found in Kohberger’s student apartment in Pullman, Washington, came back with at least trace amounts of blood on brown- or reddish-stained bedding, according to an inventory list obtained by the Idaho Statesman through a public records request.
A mattress cover and an uncased pillow each were positive for blood in the “presumptive chemical tests.” A dark red spot on the kitchen counter near the sink could not be tested but was collected, the records showed.
Kohberger, 28, a former WSU graduate student, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in November. The victims were seniors Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, each 21, junior Xana Kernodle, 20, and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20.
The newly released WSU records do not indicate whose blood may have been present on the bedding. Among a list of other items police sought, the search warrant directed them to seize evidence of “blood, or bodily fluid or human tissue or skin cells,” or any items that contained them as part of their investigation into the Moscow homicides.
The other 48 tested items, including stains on towels, swabs of bathroom sinks and the shower drain, and a microwave and pizza cutter in Kohberger’s kitchen, each came back without the presence of blood. Not all tested items were seized by police.
Police took the two pieces of bedding, plus the red spot that flaked off the kitchen counter, as part of more than a dozen items seized in the search, as the Statesman previously reported.
Campus police executed the search warrant on Kohberger’s WSU housing and office Dec. 30 — the same day he was arrested in eastern Pennsylvania. Upon discovery of a storage closet assigned to Kohberger’s apartment, the documents showed police sought from a judge and received an amended search warrant for the closet, which was located in the same building as the student housing complex’s laundry area.
Police suspected Kohberger used the storage closet between the Nov. 13 homicides and his trip to Pennsylvania in mid-December to visit his parents during WSU’s winter break, they wrote.
Kohberger’s storage closet had cobwebs leading up to its door, which was found ajar, and with dust on the floor, the documents showed. “It did not appear the closet had been used recently,” wrote Dawn Daniels, WSU’s assistant police chief, in a post-search warrant narrative included in the records.