MOSCOW, Idaho – The tan leather knife sheath found next to the bodies of two slain University of Idaho students could indicate the killer attacked them, according to a forensic expert.
Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21, were found stabbed to death in bed on November 13 on the third floor of a rental home in Moscow, Idaho.
Moscow Police Department Cpl. Brett Payne noticed “what appeared to be a tan leather knife sheath on the bed to Mogen’s right side,” the investigator wrote in an affidavit released Thursday.
The document names Bryan Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminology student at nearby Washington State University, as the suspect in the quadruple homicide.
“I think that’s where the attack started, and that’s important,” Joseph Scott Morgan, a distinguished scholar in applied forensics at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, told Fox News Digital.[It] it goes to progression, and it goes to who was the target. That was perhaps the specific location it was headed for.”
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Morgan described the moment the alleged killer’s murderous rampage may have started. “It’s pretty dramatic when you think about it,” he said. “He’s near the bed, grab the handle of the blade and turn that knob on the scabbard [while] his other hand drops the scabbard on the bed after pulling out the knife.”
The other two victims, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20, were found stabbed to death on the second floor.
The scabbard was labeled “Ka-Bar” and “USMC,” and had a United States Marine Corps insignia emblazoned on the outside, the affidavit says.
The Idaho State Police lab later identified Kohberger’s DNA on the knife’s button, Payne wrote.
Morgan said leaving the scabbard behind was a “giant misstep” that provided police with Kohberger’s DNA and could lead them to the source of the weapon.
After Kohberger and her father drove more than 2,500 miles to her family’s home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, over winter break, investigators recovered her home’s trash.
A DNA profile developed from a piece of trash belonged to the biological father of the DNA profile found in the pod, the affidavit says.
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CeCe Moore, chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs and founder of DNA Detectives, said the DNA evidence left in the pod likely “touches the DNA” that came from skin cells.
“Defense attorneys will probably argue that the DNA could have been transferred,” he explained. “Tactile DNA can stay on something for a long time.”
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Kohberger could say that he sold or gave away a similar sheathed knife.
University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
(Jazzmin Kernodle via AP/Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
“It’s still strong evidence along with everything else,” he said.
Police may have much stronger DNA evidence from the crime scene, such as Kohberger’s blood, which they did not disclose in the affidavit, Moore added.
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Criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos noted that while the DNA found in the pod is significant, there is much more DNA work that still needs to be processed and analyzed.
He also said investigators went to great lengths to place a phone and vehicle belonging to Kohberger near the crime scene in the early morning hours of November 13 through records obtained through search warrants.
Bryan Kohberger arrives at the Monroe County courthouse before his extradition hearing. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of four University of Idaho students.
(The direct image for Fox News Digital)
Kohberger’s vehicle, a white 2015 Hyundai Elantra, was seen on surveillance footage near the crime scene between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m., the time of the murders, the affidavit says.
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His phone rang at his residence in Pullman, eight miles from the King Road home, just before 3 a.m. and went off until 4:48 a.m.
Later, her phone rang near the crime scene after 9 a.m. on Nov. 13, hours before police responded to the home, according to the affidavit.
Police have not revealed a motive for the mass murder or a connection between the alleged killer and the victims.
