Kaylee Goncalves’ dog appeared to be lured to the woods twice in the weeks before she and three other University of Idaho students were brutally murdered at home.
Goncalves and some of her friends were in the patio of the Moscow home sometime in 2022 when her dog Murphy ran into the bushes and had to be called back several times before he returned, an unidentified woman told police.
A different woman told investigators that it was unlike the dog to not return when called, and that Goncalves and the others were concerned someone was in the woods behind the house.
Then two weeks before the murders, during a Halloween party, the victims were in their patio when Murphy again ran to the trees behind the house and did not come back for a while.
The woman told police they also heard what they believed was someone walking through the wooded area. They did not see anyone, but the dog’s behavior was enough to make them go inside and lock the door.
The same unnamed woman told police that during this time, she and Goncalves returned to the home and found Murphy gone, and the sliding door opened, The Spokane Spokesman-Review reported after new files about the murders were released.
However she added that it was not uncommon for friends of the victims who did not live in the home to come and go freely when no one was home.
The incidents prompt the question of whether killer Bryan Kohberger, 30, could have had previous contact with Murphy. That may explain why the pet allowed Kohberger to slip into the student home undetected before the November 2022 murders.
The new information was included in files released by the Moscow Police Department after Kohberger was sentenced to life in prison last week without the possibility of parole for the murders of Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
The new files also revealed that a woman who lived near the home told called police four months after the murders to say she was ’92 percent sure’ she had seen Kohberger walking by her house in August or September, 2022.
The woman said the man ‘looked nervous’ and he had curly hair and a large nose.
She added that in June or July of 2022 she had seen a white sedan parked near her mailbox for over an hour. The man reportedly drove away after a neighbor asked if he needed help.
Moreover, Goncalves told her roommates she saw a man she didn’t recognize staring at her when she took her dog outside in the weeks before the murders. Another time, the residents came home to find the door open, loose on its hinges. They grabbed golf clubs to arm themselves against a possible intruder.
Then, on November 4, nine days before the attack, the roommates came home at 11 a.m. to find the door open, loose on its hinges, as the wind blew.
It remains unclear whether the strange happenings had anything to do with the killings. But the documents do illustrate the frenzied efforts by law enforcement to follow every possible lead to find and convict Kohberger.
Officers eventually identified Kohberger — a doctoral student in criminology at nearby Washington State University — using a DNA sample found on a knife sheath at the crime scene.
They tracked his movements that night with cellphone data, obtained online shopping records showing he had purchased a military-style knife, and linked him to a car that repeatedly drove by the students’ house.
Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, about six weeks after the killings. He was taken to a state police barracks to be interviewed by officers from the Moscow police department, Idaho State Police and the FBI.
They chatted about the Washington State football team, Kohberger’s doctorate studies in criminal justice, his required duties to be a teaching assistant while in college, and why he wanted to become a professor.
Kohberger eventually said he understood they were engaging in small talk, but he would appreciate if the officers explained what they wanted. One detective told him it was because of what had happened in Moscow. Asked if he knew what had transpired, he replied, “Of course.”
Did he want to talk about it? ‘Well, I think I would need a lawyer,’ Kohberger replied.
He continued speaking, though — asking what specific questions they had and asking if his parents and dog were OK following his arrest.
Kohberger finally said he would like to speak to an attorney, and police ended the interview because he had invoked his Fifth Amendment right.