Bryan Kohberger Search Warrants Could Be More Crucial Than We Thought

Bryan Kohberger might have come across the University of Idaho students he is accused of killing much earlier than previously thought, according to a former FBI agent.

Kohberger, 28, is charged with killing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. All four were found stabbed to death in a rental home near the university campus on November 13.

Kohberger was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania on December 30. He has not entered a plea to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary, but a lawyer who previously represented him said he was "eager to be exonerated." A preliminary hearing is set for June 26.

Little has been publicly released about the case against Kohberger since a judge in early January issued a sweeping gag order, barring attorneys, law enforcement agencies and others associated with the case from talking or writing about it.

Kohberger reportedly followed all three of the female victims on Instagram. People magazine reported that Kohberger messaged one of them several times in late October but never received a response.

However, court documents indicate investigators are going as far back as January 2021 to determine if Kohberger had any earlier contact with the victims.

Authorities submitted several search warrants to TikTok and Google, requesting user history dating to January 2021 for Goncalves, Mogen and Kernodle. Tinder, a dating app, was asked to hand over user history for Goncalves and Mogen dating to January 2021.

"Interesting how far the [search warrants] went back in time? Why 1/2021?" Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent, wrote in a tweet.

"Did Bryan Kohberger somehow meet Kaylee or Maddie on a possible school visit early on? What made BK choose WSU? Did BK have a nexus w/his victims sooner than we thought?"

In an appearance on NewsNation, Coffindaffer explained that law enforcement officers "have to have a reason" for the date range they set out.

"I think it's very interesting it specifically tunes into TikTok, Tinder and then also Google and it also is very specific to particular people," she said. "Ethan is not even considered in these particular set of warrants."

Coffindaffer said it "tells us that law enforcement believes possibly that they had a connection well prior to the timeframe we thought and that could either be through social media, or through physically meeting them on a visit there."

At the time of the killings, Kohberger was just weeks into his first semester as a Ph.D. student in criminology at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, just across the Idaho-Washington border from Moscow.

Coffindaffer said it was "possible" that Kohberger had chosen to attend WSU because of a connection with the victims, noting that he previously studied at DeSales University in Pennsylvania.

"Certainly law enforcement is going to be looking in every direction," Coffindaffer said, "including that direction, could that have led him to choose this university clear across the country from Pennsylvania where he had previously attended, or his undergraduate and his master's degree? What took him there, that has to be at least considered, and when you look at this timeframe they chose, I think that that gives us a pointer as a possibility."

Newsweek reached out to Coffindaffer for comment.