Bryan Kohberger, who has been accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November, allegedly followed the three female victims on Instagram before the attack, a new report claims.
After Kohberger’s name was announced following his arrest being made public, multiple Instagram accounts were made in his name and followed the victims. It is unconfirmed that any of the accounts belonged to him.
However, at least one of the four accounts that was in his name, which was found to be following Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, appears to have been removed from Instagram, while the other three remained active Thursday afternoon.
As of Thursday, a message for the profile URL for one account read “the link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed.” This is standard practice for Meta, Instagram’s parent company, which often removed accounts linked to murder suspects.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30, nearly seven weeks after police allege he entered a six-bedroom home in Moscow, Idaho, and stabbed four college students: Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin.
All three female victims had public Instagram accounts, while Chapin’s was private. None of them followed Kohberger, People reported. That report did not name the account, adding that the outlet had reviewed it before it became inactive.
It was also reported earlier this week that Kohberger had approached at least one of the victims on Instagram months prior to the attack, messaging her numerous times but never receiving a response.
“He slid into one of the girls’ DMs several times, but she didn’t respond,” an unnamed investigator told People. “Basically, it was just him saying, ‘Hey, how are you?’ But he did it again and again.”
Kohberger reportedly sent the first message in late October, following up multiple times after he didn’t receive a response.
Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued a gag order on the case earlier this month, meaning that investigators and attorneys on both sides would be restricted from commenting on the case.
Shanon Gray, the attorney for Goncalves’ parents, said “no one” knew about Kohberger before the slayings; however, he left open the possibility of a further connection.
“Any information any of the families gather regarding connections to any of the victims will be turned over to the Moscow Police Department,” he told Fox News.
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