According to newly filed court records, a DNA sample collected from Bryan Kohberger indicated a near-exact match to the DNA recovered on a knife sheath at the scene of the quadruple murder in Idaho last November. The murders took place in November of last year.
Kohberger, who is suspected of killing four students at the University of Idaho, was indicted by a grand jury in May on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. The charges stem from an incident that allegedly occurred in May.
Ethan Chapin, 20, from Conway, Washington; Madison Mogen, 21, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, from Avondale, Arizona; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, from Rathdrum, Idaho; all died after being fatally stabbed by Kohberger, 28, according to the allegations made by the prosecutors. Kohberger is accused of breaking into an off-campus house and carrying out the attack.
On the bed near to where the bodies of Madison and Kaylee were located, the law enforcement personnel discovered the knife sheath. According to a motion that was filed on June 16 with Idaho’s Second Judicial District Court, the sheath was lying on its back with part of it buried under Madison’s body and the other part buried under the blanket of the bed.
In the beginning, the DNA that was found on the sheath was compared to the DNA that was found in the trash that was found outside of the Kohberger family house in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, the previous year.
According to the newly filed court records, a cheek swab was collected from Kohberger in order to perform an additional, more direct DNA comparison utilising technology that was comparable to that which is utilised by firms such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe.
Using what is known as investigative genetic genealogy, law enforcement authorities used genetic data that was readily available to the public to construct a family tree of possible relatives of the suspect, guided by the information received from the sheath DNA sample. The tree was based on the information obtained from the sheath DNA sample.
