More About the Knife Sheath

Kohberger probably left the sheath behind because the bedroom door was locked.

In a recent news report, the Goncalves family revealed a crucial new detail about the state in which Kaylee Goncalves’s body was found: Her body was found in bed slumped in the seated position against the northeast corner of the southeast bedroom. This seems to indicate that Kohberger climbed onto the bed for at least part of the attack.

If Goncalves had retreated to the bottom—or west—end of the bed to leave the room, then Kohberger needn’t have climbed onto the bed at all; he could just begin the attack at the south side of the bed next to Mogen and move to the west end of the bed with his feet remaining planted on the ground.

But the location of Goncalves’s body on the bed indicates that she instinctively retreated back towards the corner of the bed against the wall and was killed there.

If the knife sheath were somewhere on Kohberger’s person at the beginning of the attack, then the sheath could have fallen out of a large pocket or from his belt loop and onto the bed. It could have then become partly wedged underneath Mogen’s body as he shuffled off of the bed. He wouldn’t have known that it fell.

Example of black Dickie’s coveralls, which have large pockets but no belt loops.

The Doors Were Locked

As Kohberger left the room, he likely closed the bedroom door behind him and locked it. He would have realized that he left the sheath in the bedroom by the time he left the residence, but there was no time to retrieve it.

Since the first press conference on Wednesday, November 16, one could reasonably deduce that the assailant locked the bedroom doors behind him. I base this mostly from Moscow police’s initial press releases and Chief Fry’s response to a reporter’s question at the press conference, as seen in the clip below:

Chief Fry clearly states that first responders believed that they were responding to a call about an unconscious person and were unaware of the crime scene until they “arrived on scene.”

Moreover, on November 20, Moscow police indicated that the suriving roommates thought one of the second-floor victims had “passed out”:

Detectives are releasing that on the morning of November 13th, the surviving roommates summoned friends to the residence because they believed one of the second-floor victims had passed out and was not waking up. At 11:58 a.m., a 911 call requested aid for an unconscious person. The call originated from inside the residence on one of the surviving roommates’ cell phone. Multiple people talked with the 911 dispatcher before a Moscow Police officer arrived at the location. Officers entered the residence and found the four victims on the second and third floors.

Moscow police never deviated from their line that “a 911 call requested aid for an unconscious person.” When I have mentioned that the bedroom doors must have been locked, people counter-argue that 911 dispatchers cannot pronounce a person dead; even if the 911 caller believes the person is deceased, there are reasons why it might be unwise for the dispatcher to assume that this is true.

But if the 911 caller discovered the bodies before calling 911 and reporting two stabbing victims to dispatch, then there is no downside to Moscow police simply saying this outright: Shortly before noon, a friend was called to the residence and discovered the crime scene. He then called 911. Such a statement would not reveal sensitive details to the public.

That said, a statement from Moscow police saying that the bedroom doors were locked would reveal sensitive details to the public, so instead they explained that a friend called 911 to report an unconscious person without elaborating.

It is worth noting that locking the bedroom doors is not a creative or unprecedented move; Kohberger would not be the first person to do this. In the Amanda Knox case in Italy wherein Knox was ultimately exonerated and 20-year-old Ivorian vagrant Rudy Guede was convicted of homicide:

Knox said she had returned from a night at [her boyfriend’s] flat to find the cottage door unlocked, a window broken, blood in the bathroom and Kercher's bedroom door locked. After the door was kicked down, police found Kercher . . . dead on the floor under a duvet, partially undressed with three deep knife wounds to her neck.

Both Guede and Kohberger likely locked the bedroom doors for the same reason: They wanted to give themselves as much lead time as possible. Remember that while we know in hindsight that the 911 call didn’t occur for eight hours, Kohberger had every reason to assume that a call was imminent. According to the probable cause affidavit, Kohberger made noise on both the second and third floors. He knew that a resident might have been alarmed and called 911. The locked bedroom doors might give him an extra minute or two.

No victim DNA was found in the car… but what about Kohberger’s DNA in the residence?

The possibility that Kohberger left his DNA behind at the crime scene aside from on the knife sheath has not been ruled out as a possibility.

In the defense’s response to the state’s motion for a protective order to withhold the investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) information, defense attorney Jay Logsdon said the following:

There is no explanation for the total lack of DNA evidence from the victims in Mr. Kohberger’s apartment, office, home, or vehicle.

Logsdon mentioned this to emphasize the importance of the IGG process to investigators identifying a suspect and the apparent lack of connections between Kohberger and the four victims.

What Logsdon didn’t mention, however, is the total lack of Kohberger’s DNA found at the crime scene apart from the touch DNA on the knife sheath. If I am a defense attorney—and to be clear, I am not a defense attorney, so take my opinion for what its worth—I am going to mention not only the lack of victim DNA in locations attributed to Kohberger, but also the lack of Kohberger’s DNA at the locations attributed to the victims. There is no explanation for the total lack of DNA evidence from the victims in Mr. Kohberger’s apartment, office, home, or vehicle; moreover, the only DNA the state claims to have found of Mr. Kohberger’s was touch DNA extracted from the button snap of a transferable object. This means that Mr. Kohberger was unlikely to have been in the residence at all, ever.

But Logsdon didn’t say that. He mentioned the lack of victim DNA and stopped there.

So if Kohberger left his DNA behind at the crime scene somewhere other than on the knife sheath, then where was his DNA found? Well, it could have been found on the bedding of Mogen’s bed. If investigators knew that the assailant climbed onto the bed, then they would have tested every square-inch of that bedding; moreover, it would have been difficult for Kohberger to completely rid his black clothes of his own DNA before the homicides.

It is not necessarily true that Kohberger left his DNA elsewhere at the crime scene, but it cannot be ruled out in a year’s worth of court documents, either.

One More Thing: The Trash Can

According to the article detailing the condition of Goncalves’s body, her family seemed concerned by items at the home that appeared to be unprocessed in the investigation:

[Goncalves’s relatives] were able to collect some of Kaylee's belongings from the university over the summer, which raised concerns for them about how well possible evidence was processed—including a trash can from Kaylee's room that was full and appeared untouched.

Assuming that the trash can had gone unsearched by investigators, then a question remains: Why?

Because Kohberger didn’t go into Goncalves’s room, and they knew it.

Image of an evidence marker next to what appears to be a footprint in the soil outside the residence.