Who Was Bryan Kohberger Stalking Before the Idaho Murders?

Before the November 13, 2022 killings, Bryan Kohberger appears to have been watching the King Road house where the four University of Idaho victims lived and paying unwanted attention to several women at Washington State University, though investigators never confirmed which person, if any, he had singled out as a target. Cell phone data placed him near the victims’ home more than a dozen times in the months before the attack, he followed all three female victims on Instagram, and separately, multiple WSU women reported him showing up at their homes and workplaces in ways that alarmed them. No direct personal contact between Kohberger and any of the four victims was ever established.

Repeated Trips Past the Victims’ House

The clearest evidence of pre-attack surveillance came from Kohberger’s phone. The probable cause affidavit filed in the case stated that his phone connected to cell towers covering 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, on at least twelve occasions before November 13, 2022. All but one of those connections happened late at night or in the early morning hours. On August 21, 2022, his phone pinged towers near the house from roughly 10:34 p.m. to 11:35 p.m., and he was stopped by law enforcement in the area shortly afterward.¹

At Kohberger’s July 2025 sentencing, lead prosecutor Bill Thompson gave a higher count, telling the court that the phone had pinged towers near the crime scene 23 times between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. in the four-plus months before the murders. Thompson was candid about what the data did not show. “We do not have evidence that the defendant had direct contact with 1122 or with residents in 1122, but we can put his phone in the area on those times,” he said.²

Investigators also tied Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra to the neighborhood. Neighbors’ and businesses’ surveillance cameras captured the car repeatedly driving past the students’ home in the weeks before the attack.³ Washington state records showed he obtained a new license plate for the car just five days after the killings.⁴

Following the Victims on Instagram

Kohberger followed the Instagram accounts of all three female victims: Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, and Xana Kernodle. None of them followed him back.⁵⁶⁷

In late October 2022, roughly two weeks before the killings, Kohberger is reported to have sent direct messages to one of the female victims. An investigator familiar with the case described them as a “seemingly friendly greeting” along the lines of “Hey, how are you?” sent “again and again.” The woman never responded, and it is unclear whether she ever saw the messages, since Instagram routes direct messages from strangers into a separate requests folder without notifying the recipient.⁸⁹ Which of the three women received the messages has not been publicly confirmed.

What Kaylee Goncalves Told Friends About Being Watched

Of the four victims, Kaylee Goncalves was the one who told others she thought she was being followed. Her roommate Dylan Mortensen told Moscow police that about a month before the murders, Goncalves saw a “shadow” while walking her dog, and that two to three weeks before the killings Goncalves said “an individual was following her.” A former sorority sister told police that around the same time, Goncalves had seen “a dark figure staring at her from the tree line” when she took her dog outside at night.¹⁰

A friend recalled Goncalves referencing a “stalker” during a September 11, 2022 lunch and mentioning something odd she had received in the mail and a “strange message through Facebook Messenger.” Police documents note it is not clear whether any of those incidents were connected to the killings. A woman who lived nearby told investigators that she and her daughter saw a nervous-looking man in their yard in August or September 2022 and that she was “almost certain it was Kohberger.”³

Investigators looked into Goncalves’ concerns and concluded the behavior she described did not amount to what they “would term or think of as stalking.” Lead investigator Darren Gilbertson told CNN that an October 2022 incident at a business, in which two men appeared to follow her, turned out to be unrelated. Gilbertson also stressed the lack of any personal link to Kohberger: “To this date, we have never found a single connection — anything — between any of the four victims or the other two surviving roommates with him. No pictures, no texts.”¹¹

Women at Washington State University Who Reported Him

The more extensively documented stalking-like behavior involved women at Washington State University, where Kohberger was a first-semester criminology Ph.D. student. Two female students described persistent unwanted attention in interviews with the Idaho State Police.

A woman who worked at the WSU bookstore said Kohberger came in daily, learned her name and schedule without her sharing that information, and made specific comments about her hours. In August or September 2022, someone knocked on her bedroom window while she was home alone. On another occasion, she heard someone on her porch, and her husband saw a white car matching Kohberger’s Hyundai Elantra leaving the area.¹²

An undergraduate who worked in the criminology department told investigators that Kohberger sought her out “almost daily” after she rejected his advances and disclosed her sexual orientation. One evening, locking up the building, she spotted him outside and hid in a bathroom to avoid him. A neighbor later called to warn her someone was outside her window.¹² A faculty member arranged for another professor to walk the undergraduate to her car after work because of his behavior.¹³

Other women in the program described similar incidents. One found snow footprints leading to her apartment’s back window, with the person having retraced their steps. Another classmate said someone tried to open the door to her home a few weeks earlier. A faculty member told investigators that in September or October 2022, a female graduate student’s apartment was broken into and that perfume and underwear were stolen, though the source did not confirm Kohberger was responsible.¹²¹⁴

Formal Complaints and a Professor’s Warning

Washington State University received as many as thirteen formal complaints about Kohberger during his first semester in the program, which started in fall 2022. The complaints came from faculty, administrators, and students, and described belittling behavior toward women, lewd and discriminatory remarks, and physical intimidation. Specific allegations included pressing a female student for a date after she declined and asking a deaf classmate whether “she would be comfortable procreating given the fact she had a disability.”¹⁵

Faculty members reported that Kohberger would enter offices used by female graduate students and physically block the doorway, at times requiring a professor to step in so a student could leave.¹⁶ Fellow students called him “disparaging toward women” and “unsettling,” and some speculated he was an “incel.”¹⁷ His conduct became a weekly topic in departmental disciplinary meetings. First-year doctoral students were required to attend a mandatory discrimination training, one session of which fell on November 8, 2022, five days before the murders.¹⁵

One criminology professor delivered a blunt warning to colleagues. She told investigators she believed Kohberger was “stalking people” and urged the department to cut his funding to force him out. “Mark my word, I work with predators,” she said. “If we give him a Ph.D., that’s the guy that in many years, when he is a professor, we will hear is harassing, stalking, and sexually abusing his students.”¹⁷

Was a Specific Victim His Target?

Investigators have said openly that they do not know. Detective Darren Gilbertson said Kohberger is “the only one that has the ‘why,’ and oftentimes that ‘why,’ it may only make sense to him.” He also noted that Kohberger had been deleting data from his electronic devices, so any digital evidence of a motive may be gone.¹⁸

Prosecutor Bill Thompson shared a personal view at sentencing that “either Kaylee or Maddie was the target” and that Kohberger likely did not expect to encounter Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin awake on the second floor.¹⁸ Kaylee’s mother, Kristi Goncalves, echoed that reading, saying she believed “he intended to kill one and killed four.”¹⁹ Her sister Alivea Goncalves told the court at sentencing that Kohberger had been “stalking” Kaylee and Madison Mogen for months.¹⁰

One other reported connection points at Mogen and Kernodle specifically. PEOPLE reported that Kohberger visited the Mad Greek restaurant in Moscow, where the two women worked as servers, at least twice in the weeks before the killings to order vegan pizza. A former employee said nothing seemed suspicious, and it is not known whether either victim was working during his visits. The restaurant’s owner publicly disputed the report and called it “completely fabricated.”⁵ Kohberger declined to address the court at sentencing, saying only, “I respectfully decline,” and has never publicly explained the killings.²⁰

1
Idaho Courts. Probable Cause Affidavit, Statement of Brett-Payne
2
PBS NewsHour. The Key Evidence That Linked Bryan Kohberger to the Murders of Four Idaho Students
3
CBS News. Bryan Kohberger Police Documents Reveal Strange Incidents Before Idaho Murders
4
ABC7 New York. Idaho Murders Affidavit Court Documents
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CNN. Bryan Kohberger University of Idaho Killings Restaurant Visits
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CBS News. Idaho Student Murders: Bryan Kohberger Followed Victims on Instagram, Says Family
7
The Independent. Bryan Kohberger Idaho Murder Victims
8
Oxygen. Bryan Kohberger Reportedly Messaged Idaho Victim on Instagram
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The Oregonian. Idaho Murder Suspect Repeatedly DMed Victim on Instagram
10
PEOPLE. Kaylee Goncalves Said She Was Being Watched
11
CNN. Bryan Kohberger Idaho Murders Investigator Interview
12
PEOPLE. Bryan Kohberger Stalk College Students
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CNN. Kohberger Washington State University Peers Police Interviews
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CBS News. Bryan Kohberger Behavior Alarmed University Faculty, Students Before Idaho Murders
15
New York Post. Bryan Kohberger’s Classmates Made 13 Formal Complaints
16
ABC11. Bryan Kohberger’s Sexist, Creepy Behavior Alarmed University Faculty
17
WWLP. Bryan Kohberger’s Former Professor, Fellow Students Were Alarmed
18
ABC News. Idaho Murders Investigators Speak on Targets, Motive
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CBS News. Idaho Murders Victim Kaylee Goncalves Mother Says Evidence Shows She Was Trapped
20
Fox News. Bryan Kohberger Sentencing Hearing