The location of the murder weapon used by Bryan Kohberger in the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students became a central focus of the killer's recent trial.
Kohberger, who confessed to the killings, was this week sentenced to life without parole. For the families of the victims, the punishment alone does not bring closure, especially without answers to the lingering questions that still surround the case.
Steve Goncalves, the father of 21-year-old victim Kaylee Goncalves, voiced his frustration on CBS News ahead of the sentencing. "By hiding the truth, we're protecting our killers," he said. Goncalves plans to deliver a victim impact statement in court and believes the details of what happened to his daughter should be made public.
“I need to know the facts. How many times was my daughter stabbed? Was she choked? What happened? That should be part of the victim's statement,” he said.
At the center of this unresolved trauma is the mystery of what Kohberger did in the hours following the murders and, most crucially, what became of the murder weapon, a Ka-Bar knife investigators believe he purchased online. Despite an extensive investigation, the knife has never been recovered.
Drawing from police affidavits and cell phone data, the Daily Mail reconstructed Kohberger’s movements after the murders, from his departure from the off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, to his reappearance nearly 10 hours later at a grocery store in Clarkston, Washington.
The murders occurred between 4:00 and 4:25AM on November 13, 2022. Surveillance footage captured Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra circling the neighborhood just before the attack and speeding away afterward. His phone was turned off during the killings, but reconnected to a cell tower at 4:48AM as he drove south, then west toward his apartment in Pullman, Washington.
Strikingly, he returned to the vicinity of the crime scene later that morning between 9:12 and 9:21AM, possibly searching for the Ka-Bar sheath he had unknowingly left behind, an item later found under Madison Mogen’s body with a trace of his DNA.
By mid-morning, Kohberger was back on the road, this time heading south on Highway 195 through rural Washington, eventually crossing into Idaho. At 12:26PM, his phone pinged near Memorial Bridge over the Clearwater River, before crossing back into Washington ten minutes later.
These crossings of the deep and fast-moving rivers have led some to suspect that Kohberger may have disposed of the knife there.
Around 12:36PM, Kohberger was spotted near Kate’s Cup of Joe in Clarkston, Washington. A staff member recalled seeing a vehicle matching his parked behind the coffee shop, near Granite Lake Park and the edge of the Clearwater River. “He was there for a while before he drove off,” she said.
Ten minutes later, at 12:46PM, Kohberger was seen on surveillance video at an Albertson’s grocery store nearby, his next known stop.
Whether that missing 10 minutes holds the key to the knife’s whereabouts remains unknown.