Father of slain Idaho student Maddie Mogen speaks out about Bryan Kohberger’s arrest
>
The father of slain University of Idaho student Maddie Mogen said he was relieved when a suspect was arrested but is heartbroken by the details of her death.
Ben Mogen, who had been patiently waiting weeks for news about the murder of his 21-year-old daughter, smiled as he told Good Morning America about the moment an investigator told him suspect Bryan Kohberger had been arrested.
“He said, ‘Ben, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for,'” Mogen recalled.
However, the grieving father said he couldn’t bring himself to read the full police affidavit describing how they believed Kohberger killed Maddie and her best friend Kaylee Goncalves, 21, as well as Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both of 20.
“I just broke down and cried,” Mogen said of the document. ‘I could only take so much of it. I haven’t read the rest yet.
While details of the affidavit have been made public, an Idaho judge recently sealed a search warrant for Kohberger’s Washington apartment because it risked causing a premature end to the investigation.
Ben Mogen (above), father of slain University of Idaho student Maddie Mogen, described his relief when investigators told him they had finally arrested a suspect.
Suspect Bryan Kohberger (pictured) faces the death penalty for the quadruple murder
While speaking to GMA, the grieving father also described his daughter as “an angel” who always made him proud.
Joined by Mogen, Kaylee’s sister Alivea Goncalves opened up about how the two best friends did everything right when they went out that night before meeting their grisly end.
“They went out together, they asked for a ride, they went to a well-known establishment,” Alivea listed. “They did everything you would want your daughter or your sister to do in that situation.”
He added that his family and the Mogens are still reeling from the tragedy that claimed the lives of their loved ones on November 13.
“We were left not just missing them, exactly who they were, but wondering who they were going to become,” Alivea said.
Kohberger, 28, was arrested in the early hours of December 30 at his family’s home in Pennsylvania and later charged in connection with the quadruple murder of the Idaho students.
Police searched Kohberger’s apartment in Pullman, Washington, looking for evidence about the ongoing investigation.
The alleged killer is a Pennsylvania native who was studying criminology at the University of Washington’s Pullman campus, which is a 15-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho, where the murders occurred.
Kohberger claimed he is innocent while locked up in the Latah County Jail in Idaho.
Ben (pictured with his daughter) said he couldn’t bring himself to read the full affidavit detailing how police believe Kohberger killed Maddie and her friends.
Alivea Goncalves (above), Kaylee’s sister, noted that the duo had done everything right to avoid danger that night, but it still came to a tragic end.
Kohberger has been charged in connection with the quadruple murder of Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen (left), both 21, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20 (right)
According to the police affidavit, Kohberger allegedly staked his victims’ home 12 times and was even at the home the morning of the murder.
His DNA was also found on the knife sheath left next to one of the victim’s bodies.
The document also shows that that night, Kohberger’s phone rang on a cell tower near his Pullman apartment.
He is then seen leaving the area of his residence at 2:47 a.m. and traveling south through Pullman, which police have confirmed aligns with the movements of his white Hyundai caught on camera.
Your phone then stops reporting to the network, which is confirmed by FBI experts to be consistent with the phone being turned off, in airplane mode, or in an area with no phone coverage.
Court documents show that his phone is not active again until 4:48 a.m., in the southbound lane of Highway 95, just south of Moscow. Police believe the victims were killed between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m.
The search warrant documents, filed the same day as his arrest, state that “compelling circumstances warrant the temporary sealing ordered in this matter.” The information will remain secret until March 1.
The language used in the court document has left some questioning about what the ‘threat to public safety’ might be and the ‘threat to the privacy of witnesses, victims and the names of the families of the victims in the affidavit’ .
The documents were filed before Kohberger’s identity was widely reported.
The court documents emerged following a gag order issued by the Moscow Police Department last week.
Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued a nondisclosure order on January 3 regarding the murder case against Kohberger.
“The order prohibits any communication by investigators, law enforcement personnel, attorneys, and the prosecutor’s or defense attorney’s agents regarding this case,” police said in a statement.
“Due to this court order, the Moscow Police Department will no longer communicate with the public or the media regarding this case.”
Court documents filed the same day as his arrest state that “compelling circumstances warrant the temporary sealing ordered in this matter.” The information will remain secret until March 1
Best friends Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, both 21, were murdered along with her roommate Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, both 20, in an off-campus house in Moscow.
Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, prosecutor Bill Thompson said at the time of the arrest.
Idaho is a death penalty state. Fry defended the paucity of information released during the investigation. Providing more “could have alerted the suspect to our progress,” he said.
Kohberger’s arrest is the culmination of an investigation that has spanned more than a month and left the Moscow Police Department facing a barrage of criticism.
Police officers have also been criticized for describing the killings as “targeted” while refusing to release information to explain why.