The University of Idaho victims murdered by Bryan Kohberger came home to find their front door wide open and loose on its hinges — just days before they were viciously stabbed to death.
The students also spotted a man lurking outside their home in the weeks before the shocking quadruple murder.
The eerie happenings were laid bare in a massive trove of documents released by cops late Wednesday after the 30-year-old cold-blooded killer was sentenced to life in prison for butchering Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin in their off-campus Moscow home.
In one frightening ordeal, a disturbed Goncalves had told her roommates that she’d seen a strange man staring her down when she took her dog, Murphy, outside roughly a month before the Nov. 13, 2022, slayings.
Bethany Funke, who was one of two roommates to survive the night of the stabbings, told cops in an interview after the murders that Goncalves saw the unknown man “up above their house to the south.”
The run-in was concerning enough that Goncalves had “told everyone” about it and even called her roommates to ask if they’d be home soon, Funke told police.
Then, just nine days before the attack, the roommates came home at 11 a.m. on Nov. 4 to find their front door open, loose on its hinges, as the wind blew, the documents revealed.
Funke told police in her interview that Kernodle’s father fixed the door.
It remains unclear if Kohberger was the man spotted outside the home in the lead up — or if the strange occurrences were in any way linked to the murders.
The newly released documents, though, shed light on the frenzied efforts by law enforcement to follow every possible lead as they hunted down the killer.
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The documents also disclosed gruesome, bloody details of the vicious killings — including how Kernodle had sustained more than 50 stab wounds — including two to the heart — as she attempted to fight off her deranged killer.
Police said they found her lying on her back in her bloodstained underwear and shirt, with defensive knife wounds to her hand, including a deep gash between her index finger and thumb on her left hand.
The files also detailed how investigators processed the gruesome crime scene and ran down tips from people who claimed to have gone on a Tinder date with Kohberger or to have seen him walking along a highway.
The chilling documents were released just hours after Kohberger, who pleaded guilty weeks before his trial was to start in a deal to avoid the death penalty, was handed four life sentences over the killings.
During the sentencing, Kohberger refused to explain why he slipped into the rental home in Moscow through a sliding glass door in the early hours and stabbed his victims.
“I share the desire expressed by others to understand the why,” Judge Steven Hippler told the packed courtroom.
“But upon reflection, it seems to me, and this is just my own opinion, that by continuing to focus on why, we continue to give Mr Kohberger relevance, we give him agency and we give him power.”
With Post wires
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