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Murder victim Kaylee Goncalves was not living in the three-story Idaho home the night she was brutally murdered along with three other people.
Kaylee, 21, had moved out of the off-campus home weeks before she was murdered, but returned to Moscow to visit her childhood best friend, Maddie Mogen, also 21, and show off her new Range Rover. .
Kaylee’s parents said date line that her daughter was ready to graduate early and move to Texas for an IT job.
When Kaylee returned to town, she had plans to visit Maddie and attend a nearby party. The two shared a room and were murdered in the same bed on November 13.
“These girls were best friends since sixth grade, like inseparable,” Kristi Goncalves said. “That was the last time I saw Kaylee.”
Kaylee Goncalves, 21, moved out of her Moscow, Idaho home before she was brutally murdered along with three other people on November 13. She returned to the three-story house to visit Maddie Mogen (above) and show off her new Range Rover.
Maddie (left) and Kaylee (right) were described as ‘inseparable’
Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, were also allegedly killed by Washington State University criminology student Bryan Kohberger, 28.
Chapin did not live in the house, but was visiting his girlfriend Kernodle when he was killed.
Kohberger was arrested on December 30 during a raid on his family’s home in Pennsylvania, where the white Hyundai Elantra, which was seen near the Moscow home on the night of the murders, was also found.
A sheath that fitted the KA-BAR knife believed to have been used in the brutal murders was found next to the bodies of Kaylee and Maddie, according to an affidavit released last week.
DNA found at the bottom of the pod linked Kohberger to the crime scene.
Steve and Kristi Goncalves told NBC date line in a recent interview that the new details seemed to paint a clearer picture of his daughter’s final moments.
Research has given them hope that through the struggle, she played a role in solving her own murder by wresting the all-important scabbard from her assailant.
Kristi Goncalves told Dateline’s Keith Morrison that when she read the new details, she felt her daughter did everything she could to defend herself.
‘I just… I just said, ‘Can you believe that?’ And I said, “I hope maybe a fight, she took it off, in the fight or whatever…”
Kaylee’s dad, Steve, was teary-eyed as he chimed in: ‘Yeah, it’s a checkmate type moment. And our girls were a part of that.
Goncalves was found stabbed to death on November 13, along with her roommates Maddie Mogen, 21, top left, Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20.
DNA found on the scabbard button linked 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger to the crime scene and he was arrested more than a month after the murders.
Kaylee returned to Moscow to visit her friend and show off her new silver Range Rover (above).
Kaylee Goncalves’ parents say they take solace in the hope that their daughter’s willingness to fight her killer was possibly what helped police arrest a suspect.
A police source claims that the sheath found at the crime scene matches a 7-inch knife sold by KA-BAR, a hunting weapons manufacturer.
Police have yet to offer a motive for the slayings and it has not yet been confirmed if Kohberger knew any of the victims.
An attorney for the family of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, told Business Insider earlier this week that none of the students “knew” Kohberger.
“Nobody knew about this guy,” attorney Shannon Gray said.
Police say they compared a DNA sample found at the scene to DNA taken from Kohberger’s trash in Pennsylvania.
They also traced his cell phone multiple times to the area of the crime scene and matched his white Hyundai Elantra to the suspect vehicle seen in the area the night of the attacks.
The surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, told police he saw the killer in the house wearing a black ski mask covering his face and nose.
She noted that he had “bush eyebrows,” a characteristic that police say they immediately noticed in Kohberger once they learned his name.