Idaho student deaths: gag order issued, housemate reports seeing a “man in black”

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho judge has issued a gag order in the case against 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022.

Investigators, law enforcement personnel, attorneys, or associates of the prosecutors or defense attorney are barred from making statements about the case which have not been made public.

Also, the release of new information shows that a woman who lived at the home where four University of Idaho students were killed awoke to the sound of crying that night to find a masked man in black clothing who walked past her and toward a sliding glass door, an investigator said in court documents unsealed Thursday.

The unidentified housemate, who wasn’t harmed in the attack, told authorities she opened her second-floor door at around 4 a.m. after hearing the crying and then stood in “frozen shock” as the man, whom she didn’t recognize, walked past her, the police investigator said. She then went back into her room and locked the door.

Kohberger was flown from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested, to Idaho on Wednesday and was due to appear Thursday in a court in Moscow, the college town where the attack happened.

He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and felony burglary in the closely watched case that struck fear into the community along the Idaho-Washington border.

His attorney in Pennsylvania, where his parents live and where he was arrested, has said he is eager to be exonerated.