Creepy and strange experiences at King Road home leading up to Moscow killings

It’s unclear if Bryan Kohberger stalked any or all of the four University of Idaho students he murdered in the early -morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022.

Investigators followed every lead in the aftermath and wrote chilling reports after every interview with people who may have been able to shed light on the frightening case that paralyzed and then united a city late that year.

Now that Kohberger has been sentenced to a life of imprisonment, Moscow police have released hundreds of investigative documents outlining the work undertaken to capture the killer of Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Ethan Chapin.

Many more records from other agencies such as the FBI and the Idaho State Patrol could continue to be released in the coming weeks and months.

Among the newly released records is a narrative collected from multiple people interviewed of creepy and uneasy moments shared by the young college women living in the off-campus home leading up to their murders.

About one month before the slayings, Goncalves saw a man on the hillside near their house staring at her while she took her dog, Murphy, outside, according to police interviews with Bethany Funke, one of the two roommates who was not attacked by Kohberger.

Goncalves, Funke remembered, called the other roommates asking them whether they were going to be home soon, documents say.

Others who knew Goncalves apparently had heard the same or similar stories.

An ex-boyfriend told police that Goncalves once saw a “shadowy figure” behind the house while taking the dog outside.

And a third person interviewed told police that Goncalves told her that Goncalves saw a dark figure staring at her from the “tree line” near the house when she took the dog out.

The woman told police there was “light-hearted talk and jokes made about a stalker in the past,” but “all the girls were slightly nervous about it being a fact, though.”

From July 9 to Nov. 7, 2022, Kohberger’s cellphone connected to the same cell tower serving the victims’ home 23 times late at night or in the early -morning hours, according to Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson.

Thompson said at Kohberger’s plea hearing earlier this month that evidence does not show whether Kohberger had direct contact with the house or the occupants.

So far, Kohberger has not disclosed a motive for the killings.

Funke told police of an incident when she and her roommates found the door leading into the house open at about 11 a.m. on Nov. 4, or nine days before the murders. The house had two ways in and out: a front door with a coded entry lock and a ground-level sliding glass door to the kitchen at the back of the house.

Funke said the roommates entered the house and grabbed golf clubs out of one of the bedrooms before checking the rest of the house for burglars.

Goncalves was not with her roommates at that time, as she had gone home from college for the weekend.

The screws on the door hinges were loose, Funke recalled to investigators, so Kernodle’s father fixed it before he left that weekend, according to Funke.

Goncalves’ ex-boyfriend told police that she would call him on occasion when she was walking home alone or when “she was feeling sketched out,” according to records.

He said people frequently came in and out of the King Road house and that “more people knew the code to their door than they should have,” he said. He added that he wasn’t sure if the sliding door in the kitchen was regularly locked.

Dylan Mortensen, the other surviving roommate, told investigators that she and the other women living in the home “were usually pretty good about locking doors and never had problems before.”

She said, however, she did not believe the slider door was locked the morning of the murders.

Investigators have posited that Kohberger gained access to the house through the sliding door in the kitchen.

Another person interviewed by police described a strange experience during a birthday party at the house sometime in 2022 before the killings.

She said that Goncalves and several others were on the back patio at the party when the dog ran into the bushes behind the house several times and only returned after he was called for several times.

She said the group eventually went inside and shut the door.

A different woman told police it was unlike the dog not to come when called, which is the reason she and Goncalves were concerned about someone being behind the house.

During a midday Halloween party two weeks before the killings, the woman said the victims and others gathered on the back patio when Murphy again ran to trees behind the house and did not come back for a while. She said they also heard noises akin to someone walking through the wooded area. They did not see anyone behind the home, but Murphy’s behavior and the noises caused them to go inside and close the door.

She also recalled during this same time frame that she and Goncalves returned to the King Road home and found the sliding door open and Murphy missing. She said it was not uncommon for people who didn’t live at the home to walk in when no one was home, and added some friends would feel free to come and go when they wanted.

A woman who lived about one-tenth of a mile from the King Road home called the Moscow police tip line nearly four months after the murders saying she was “92% sure” Kohberger walked by her house in August or September 2022. She told police her daughter came running into the house saying there was a man walking through their yard.

The woman said she looked out the window and saw a man who “looked nervous” walking on the south side of her house. She said people frequently walk by the house, but not in that particular area.

She described the man as having curly hair and a large nose. She said the encounter became stranger when the man walked back by the house 15 minutes later on the same route in the opposite direction. She said she stepped outside and yelled to the man that he was on private property. The man didn’t acknowledge her, she said.

She believed the man was Kohberger after she saw a side profile photo of him on the news after his arrest.

The woman told police that in June or July of that year, a white sedan was parked near her mailbox for over an hour on a dead-end residential road. She said the man drove away after her neighbor asked the man if he needed help.

Surveillance footage showed Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra near the King Road home around the time of the murders.