Idaho investigators speak out about targets, motive and interviewing Kohberger

ABC News was the first to sit down with Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson, the lead detective in the University of Idaho murder case, days after Bryan Kohberger was put behind bars for life for the quadruple murders.

Gilbertson and lead prosecutor Bill Thompson opened up about their theories on who was targeted and the investigative process, including an interview with Kohberger.

'How do you prepare for that?'

Gilbertson walked ABC News through the horror found at 1122 King Road on Nov. 13, 2022, where Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death.

The common rooms on the second floor had no trail of blood and no indication of a crime, he said.

"It looked like what you would expect a house full of college kids to look like," he said.

In Kernodle's room, her body was on the floor and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin's body was on her bed. Chapin's blood seeped out of the side of the house in the hours before his body was discovered, officials confirmed.

Angela Palermo/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images - PHOTO: Four University of Idaho students were found dead at an off-campus home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, November 2022.

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Police found blood on the third-floor stairwell, Gilbertson said.

On the third floor, Goncalves' dog was in her room while Goncalves and Mogen were together in Mogen’s bed.

Goncalves had unique injuries described as a horizontal pattern, and it’s not clear what caused those injuries, Gilbertson confirmed.

Moscow lead detective Brett Payne immediately noticed the abandoned knife sheath, Gilbertson said.

"I don’t think anyone of us were prepared that it was four young, completely innocent kids," Gilbertson said. "How do you prepare for that?"

Kaylee Goncalves/Instagram - PHOTO: A photo posted by Kaylee Goncalves a few days before their deaths shows University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.

He's the only one that has the 'why'

"He's the only one that has the 'why,'" Gilbertson said of Kohberger. "And oftentimes that 'why,' it may only make sense to him.”

Thompson noted "there was evidence that [Kohberger] had been deleting things from his devices, trying to sanitize his devices. So we don't know if there was something there he got rid of."

Moscow police said they don't know which victim was the specific target and have not found any link between Kohberger and the victims.

But Thompson said he believes that either Kaylee or Maddie was the target.

"I personally feel that, for whatever reason, he targeted one of the young women on the third floor," he said.

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"The fact that he found them together, whether that was planned, we'll never know," he said. "It's more likely than not he did not expect to encounter Xana and the others up and about."

Kernodle was up around the time of the 4 a.m. murders to grab a food delivery order, officials said.

"We are fortunate that he got scared and ran and left without harming Dylan or Bethany," Thompson added, referring to the two surviving roommates.

Dylan Mortensen told police she saw a masked man in the house carrying an object she described as a container he had to carry with both hands, Thompson said.

"Dylan was so vulnerable. That young woman had an angel watching over her," Thompson said.

'We're here because of the case in Moscow'

After the gruesome discovery, authorities launched a massive manhunt for their suspect. By December, they zeroed in on Kohberger, after he was identified from the DNA on the knife sheath left behind at the crime scene.

"Once we had his name, we figured out everything about him: his life, his behaviors, his routines, from both his phone usage to his financials ... all that tells a story," Gilbertson said.

Kyle Green/via Reuters - PHOTO: Bryan Kohberger, 30, appears for his sentencing hearing after he was convicted in the 2022 stabbing deaths of four Idaho college students, at the Ada County Courthouse, in Boise, Idaho, July 23, 2025.

Kohberger was a criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University in nearby Pullman, Washington, at the time of the killings.

His phone was near the victims' house at least 12 times before the murders, at least as far back as August, court documents said. All of those times, except for one, were late at night or early in the morning.

"Up until Nov. 13 was regular visits to Moscow ... kind of everywhere that you would think somebody that lives in Moscow or Pullman would be back and forth," Gilbertson said.

"After Nov. 13, every bit of that changed. It all stopped," Gilbertson said.

Kyle Green/AP - PHOTO: Bryan Kohberger, charged in the murders of four University of Idaho students, appears at the Ada County Courthouse, July 2, 2025, in Boise, Idaho.

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Gilbertson has a theory on Kohberger's phone's last trip to the area of the victims' house, which was just hours after the murders -- between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., according to court documents.

"My hunch is that it was curiosity," Gilbertson said. "I think he had to be wondering, 'Why is nothing happening? Why is there no news? Why is there nothing? Why are the police not there? Why am I not hearing anything about this?'"

"His phone never comes to Moscow again. After that, nothing. Nothing shows him ever over in Moscow again," Gilbertson said.

Around noon, the victims' friends called 911.

MORE: 1st set of police records released in Idaho college murders, revealing gruesome new details

In December, once police had a name, authorities surveilled Kohberger in Pennsylvania, where he was home for winter break. Authorities found he'd often wear gloves in public, like to the pharmacy.

"It looked like he was sorting through garbage, with gloves on, just shortly before the arrest occurred," Gilbertson said.

Gilbertson was among the authorities who interviewed Kohberger.

Kyle Green/Pool/Getty Images - PHOTO: Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse for his sentencing hearing on July 23, 2025 in Boise, Idaho.

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“We started with just very general questions about Pullman, about WSU ... he spoke at length about that with us," he said.

Gilberton said Kohberger asked several times why he was being interviewed.

Gilbertson said he eventually told the suspect, "We're here because of the case in Moscow.”

"As soon as we mentioned that, then he stopped, and he said, 'I don't want to talk anymore.' We asked if he was familiar with it, if he knew anything about Moscow, and he said, no ... and stopped right then and said he wanted an attorney," Gilbertson said.

'Best closure we could hope for'

On July 2, weeks before Kohberger's trial was set to start, he pleaded guilty to all counts. As a part of his plea deal, the death penalty was taken off the table.

Thompson is empathetic to the Goncalves family, who wanted a trial instead of a plea deal.

"I respect and recognize that not everybody agrees with the decision we made," Thompson said.

"We considered what all the families had to say before we decided to make the resolution that we did. They were heard," he said.

Kyle Green/Pool/Getty Images - PHOTO: Steve Goncalves, father of victim Kaylee Goncalves, hugs his daughter Alivea after speaking at the sentencing hearing of Bryan Kohberger at the Ada County Courthouse on July 23, 2025 in Boise, Idaho.

He called the deal the "best closure we could hope for," because "we got what we wanted, and we got what the law was going to provide -- we got guilty pleas."

"We had something that a trial would have never given us, or the community, or families: we had his sworn acknowledgement that the charges are true," Thompson said. "That would have never occurred after a trial -- [if] he would have been found guilty, we would have been engaged in, literally, decades of appeals with him maintaining his innocence."

"We have the closure of avoiding those appeals. We have certainty," he said.

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Asked why prosecutors didn't push for a full confession or the location of the murder weapon to be included in the plea deal, Thompson responded, "There was no legal way we could have compelled those. And quite frankly, there is nothing that he could have said that I think would have been credible or believable. He's manipulative."

"The misstatements, the mistruths, would have even been more damaging and frustrating to everybody," he said.

On Wednesday, Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences on the four first-degree murder counts and the maximum penalty of 10 years on the burglary count.

"This murderer is now in the custody of the Department of Correction. ... That door is closed behind him and it’s not gonna open again till he’s dead," Thompson said.

But he added, "This case is never going to be over and done with. The court case will, but for everybody who's been affected by it, no."

ABC News' Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.