Bryan Kohberger May Have Known Victims Year Before Idaho Murders

Newly released court documents suggest Idaho police suspect that Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the November 2022 slayings of four University of Idaho students, may have known the victims for at least a year before the gruesome murders took place.

Retired FBI special agent Jennifer Coffindaffer shared the theory via Twitter, where she posted some court documents that contained search warrants demanding TikTok and Google provide authorities with the user history of three of the murder victims: Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20.

The fourth victim, Kernodle's boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, did not appear to be included.

Idaho authorities demanded that social media companies hand over the three female victims' data dating back to January 2021.

Coffindaffer suggested that the police are looking for a connection between Kohberger and his female victims.

"Interesting how far the [search warrants] went back in time? Why 1/2021? Did Bryan Kohberger somehow meet Kaylee or Maddie on a possible school visit early on?" she tweeted. "What made [Kohberger] choose WSU? Did [Kohberger] have a nexus [with] his victims sooner than we thought?"

Last month, Idaho prosecutors filed over 60 search warrant applications demanding tech and retailer companies provide information about Kohberger and the victims.

Some of the companies served with a search warrant were Apple, Amazon, Google, Doordash, Meta, Snapchat, Tinder, Walmart and KA-BAR knives.

However, the search warrants were "sealed and redacted" by a judge, as they "contain highly intimate facts or statements ... which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person" as well as "facts or statements that might threaten the safety of or endanger the life or safety of individuals," Fox News reported.

Danny Cevallos, a legal analyst for NBC News, suggested that the search warrants were likely aimed at diffusing any doubts by Kohberger's defense team.

"I can almost guarantee that one of the prime defense strategies will be that the prosecution got tunnel vision, that they focused on him and stopped looking for anybody else, that they didn't chase down any other leads," Cevallos said.

Idaho prosecutors also notified Latah County Magistrate Court Judge Megan Marshall about an internal affairs investigation involving an officer, which could affect the proceedings.

Last week, Judge Marshall granted the prosecution's request for a protective order that shields the officer's personnel records from public view.

Kohberger, a 28-year-old criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

Kohberger is accused of stabbing to death University of Idaho students Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied responsibility for the murders.

During his December 2022 arrest, police did not disclose Kohberger's possible connection to the victims and have yet to provide his potential motive.

Kohberger is being held in the Latah County Jail in Moscow as he awaits his June 26 preliminary hearing.