New Book Suggests Idaho Murder Suspect Bryan Kohberger Was Targeting One Particular Victim

Idaho police arrested Bryan Kohberger in 2022 as the sole suspect in the infamous quadrupole murder case, involving four college roommates who were stabbed to death earlier that year.

Due to an ongoing gag order, we've heard little details about the case since January. It's unclear if investigators have discovered any links between Kohberger and the victims. 

Journalist Howard Blum tried to uncover the missing details in his new book "When the Night Comes Calling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders." In the book, Blum suggests Kohberger was targeting only one of the roommates: Madison Mogen, 21.

"I think Maddie was his target," Blum told ABC News – noting the suspect supposedly bypassed two other bedroom doors and made a beeline for Mogen’s when he entered the house.

"If he was just on a killing spree, it would have been natural, instinctive, to go to one of those doors," Blum explains. "Instead he goes up this narrow staircase and he turns directly into Maddie’s room."

Blum's conclusion is consistent with a report from NewsNation last December that Mogen's stab wounds were "significantly more brutal" than those of the other victims: Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.

Two surviving roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, discovered the bloody scene hours after the murders, which took place around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022.

Kohberger was pursuing a doctorate in criminology in nearby Pullman at the time of the Moscow, Idaho murders.

MOSCOW, Idaho - Bryan Kohberger sits with his attorney, public defender Anne Taylor during a hearing in Latah County District Court on January 5, 2023. Kohberger was arrested for the murders of four University of Idaho students in November 2022. (Photo by Ted S. Warren - Pool/Getty Images)

Now, to the evidence, per the affidavit, Kohberger's phone location contributed to his arrest. Authorities documented that while Kohberger's phone was shut off during the time of the stabbings, cellphone pings showed his phone in the area of the King Road home "at least 12 times" before the morning of the murders. 

The filing adds that officials tracked Kohberger’s device back to the house, some five hours after the murders. 

Police also recovered a knife sheath left at the scene next to a fatally stabbed Mogen that contained Kohberger's DNA.

The sheath was made for a rare Ka-Bar knife that police believed was used to slay the four roommates.  And get this: a subsequent report from "Dateline" revealed that Kohberger purchased a Ka-Bar knife and sheath from Amazon seven months before the murders.

Eerie, to use a term. 

Howard Blum also reports that Kohberger's family was "already suspicious" about his possible involvement before the arrest. 

"[His father] has been reading the headlines – he knows that four students were killed 12 miles from his son’s house. He knows what a troubled son he has," Blum told ABC.

Notably, Kohberger and his father drove across the country from Washington to Pennsylvania after the murders, where they were stopped twice by Indiana police.

Blum adds that one of Kohberger’s sisters confronted their father about the possibility that Bryan was involved in the murders, to which his father dismissed his daughter.

"[His father] can’t confront it," the author concludes.