Breaking down the details of the Idaho killings affidavit

(NewsNation) — The arrest affidavit revealed new details about what authorities believe happened during the surrounding hours of the University of Idaho deaths.

According to the affidavit, a surviving roommate noted a series of sounds that woke her up.

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Around 4 a.m. she apparently heard a male voice saying something like “it’s OK, I’m going to help you.” That same roommate opened the door and saw what appeared to be the killer in black clothing, with a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose, walking towards her.

Read the full probable cause affidavit here.

She described him as “not very muscular, but athletically built, with bushy eyebrows” and stood in a “frozen shock phase” as he walked past her and back out the sliding glass door.

She then locked herself in her room. The first 911 call was made hours later at 11:58 a.m.

“Obviously you’d like the call right away so you can have an immediate response and get on it. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world,” Jesse Weber, Law & Crime Network host,  said during an appearance on NewsNation’s “On Balance.”

Investigators at the scene found two traces of a possible suspect. A shoeprint, just outside the door of the surviving roommate’s bedroom and a knife sheath that had the words “Ka-Bar” and “USMC” stamped on it.

A single source of male DNA was found on the button snap of the sheath.

“A very subtle finding if you will on the sheath to find his connection and find the DNA and I think that’s the money,” a DNA expert told NewsNation.

As investigators scoured the neighborhood for cameras and clues, what stuck out was a white Hyundai Elantra. 

It’s the same car investigators asked for information over and over, insisting they wanted to speak to the “occupants” inside.

What the public didn’t know at the time, was investigators believed it was suspect Bryan Kohberger’s car by Nov. 29.

On Dec. 23 authorities got a search warrant for Kohberger’s cellphone records.

“The data that is generated by a cell phone is quite alarming,” said former FBI agent Kevin Horan, Co-Founder of Precision Cellular Analysis.

Those records put Kohberger near the crime scene at least 12 times before the murders. It was also in the area the early morning hours of the crime, and right after investigators believe the phone may have been turned off, or in airplane mode in between.

Police say Kohberger went way out of the way to get back to his home in Pullman, Washington. He apparently went down a country road and made it to his apartment around 5:30 a.m.

Four and a half hours later, Kohberger’s phone was near the Moscow house again from 9:12 a.m. to 9:21 a.m., and back home in Pullman by about 9:32 a.m.

Later that day, there was another three-hour window where the phone was out of service again. Investigators say that is consistent with the same location as the phone after the murders — perhaps retracing his steps one last time.

For weeks between Nov. 29 and Dec. 23, authorities surveilled Kohberger’s car using license plate readers and cameras. They got even more information during two traffic stops in Indiana on Dec. 15 when Kohberger and his father were pulled over twice in Indiana.

When investigators confirmed Kohberger’s car was in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, things escalated.

On Dec. 27, agents recovered trash from the Kohberger family home and sent it to the Idaho state crime lab for testing. It came back as a profile matching the biological father of the DNA left behind on the knife sheath.

For now, the work continues. Investigators are still going in and out of the suspect’s home, removing things like furniture and mattresses.

They’re preserving the home for the next step in the case: a push for a conviction in the courtroom for the victims’ families who have waited for answers.