Police arrested a suspect in connection to mysterious killings of four Idaho college students

• Police arrested a suspect in the killings of 4 Idaho college students.
• The gruesome deaths went unsolved for over a month and garnered national attention.

Police have arrested a 28-year-old man in connection to the November 13 killings of four University of Idaho undergraduate students.

Police say Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, were each stabbed multiple times in an early morning ambush at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho. Their deaths have shocked and baffled the small community where they lived.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania and will be extradited back to Idaho, according to court documents obtained by Insider. Arrest documents filed in Monroe County said that the suspect is being held on a warrant for first-degree murder.

He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and a felony charge for burglary, the county prosecutor announced at a press conference Friday.

"I recognize the frustration with the lack of information that's been released," Moscow Police Chief James Fry said, noting that law enforcement was vigilant not to say or do anything to compromise the investigation.

Kohberger is a Ph.D. student in criminology at Washington State University, about a 12-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho.

Kohberger was arrested in Indian Mountain Lakes, a gated community in the Poconos, according to a letter to residents posted on Facebook.

"We have been made aware that a suspect was taken into custody in IMLCA last night by the FBI," the letter stated.

Kohlberger lives in Pennsylvania, Fry said.

Residents posting on a community Facebook group reported seeing law enforcement activity around 1 a.m. Friday morning. According to property records, the suspect's father owns a home in the community.

Shock and fear

Moscow Police previously said that the victims — four friends at the University of Idaho — were killed with an "edged weapon" such as a knife at their off-campus housing less than a mile from the university.

Police had responded to a call about an unconscious person in the small town of Moscow when they found the students dead.

As news of the killings spread, the community was consumed with grief and fear. Vigils were held on campus, and some students and community members left the area, fearing for their safety.

Latah County Sheriff's Deputy Scott Mikolajczyk told the Idaho Statesman that people were "getting out of Dodge" after the attack.

The mystery garnered national attention, with people around the country questioning how anyone could avoid the police for a gruesome homicide scene for so long.

"I've been here a long time and stuff like this doesn't happen often in Moscow," Mikolajczyk, a 28-year department veteran, told the Statesman at the time. "It has every once in a while, and I think this is probably one of the worst."

Law enforcement thanked the community and media at the press conference Friday.

They had received 19,000 tips in the case.

Fry said people should continue to report "anything and everything" they know about the case as they are still trying to "put all the pieces together."

While they have confiscated the Hyundai Elantra they were looking for in connection to the case, they have not yet located the murder weapon, he said.

Fry said state law prohibits police from releasing details from the investigation pretrial, but that more information will come to light in a probable cause affidavit that will be unsealed when Kohberger has his first court appearance in Idaho.