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‘True Evil Was Genuinely Watching’: University Of Idaho Victim’s Sister Says Family Had ‘No Idea’ Alleged Killer May Have Been Stalking Victims
“That’s been the hardest part of this is to sit back and look at the totality of it. When my sister was Facetiming me about a new egg bites recipe, he was planning his next visit to the home,” Alivea Goncalves said of suspected killer Bryan Kohberger.
The sister of University of Idaho victim Kaylee Goncalves said her family had “no idea” that suspected killer Bryan Kohberger may have been watching his intended victims for months before the brutal slayings.
“We had no idea. She had no idea. I had no idea that true evil was genuinely watching,” Alivea Goncalves told NewsNation.
Investigators alleged last week in a probable cause affidavit obtained by Oxygen.com that Kohberger’s phone was in the area of the 1122 King Road home — where Kaylee Goncalves and three others were fatally stabbed to death — on “at least twelve” occasions before the Nov. 13 murders. All of the occasions, except for one, had been in the late evening and early morning hours, police said.
The chilling detail was just one of many revealed in the affidavit as investigators laid out the basics of their case against Kohberger, who was a 28-year-old Ph.D. student in criminal justice at the nearby Washington State University at the time of the killings.
“That’s been the hardest part of this is to sit back and look at the totality of it,” Alivea said of reading through the affidavit. “When my sister was Facetiming me about a new egg bites recipe, he was planning his next visit to the home. That’s really difficult not to wish that you had done more and wish that you had known more.”
Alivea believes Kohberger also likely tried to insert himself into public discussions about the murders of Kaylee, her best friend Madison Mogen, 21; roommate Xana Kernodle, 20; and Xana’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20; noting that Kohberger had allegedly returned to the scene of the crime later that day.
His cell phone allegedly placed him near the home between 9:12 a.m. and 9:21 a.m., hours after police believe the killings took place — sometime between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. — according to the affidavit.
“He went back to the home the morning of, before police had been called, I think to see if his circus, so to say, had started to unfold,” Alivea speculated. “I think he would not have been able to refrain from engaging with the online communities, the theories, the conspiracies, and everything in between.”
She and others are now trying to determine whether Kohberger had other connections to the victims.
"I've had a lot of people reach out with Instagram posts or even Spotify or lots of connections that they've been able to find and those are super valuable, all of those go over to the Moscow Police Department as well as the Idaho State Police and the FBI because nothing is insignificant at this point and everything is being looked through," she said.
Kohberger was arrested Dec. 30 at his parents Pennsylvania home after investigators allegedly linked him to DNA found on a knife sheath left on Mogen’s bed, according to the affidavit.
A vehicle believed to be his white 2015 Hyundai Elantra was also captured on surveillance footage circling the neighborhood that morning and attempting to park in front of the home, before its seen fleeing the area “at a high rate of speed” around 4:20 a.m., authorities said.
Alivea said Kohberger’s arrest has allowed her family to start to mourn Kaylee’s loss.
"It's kind of an odd time to do that being that we still have such a long road ahead of us, but the relief that we all felt having a suspect in custody was — it was like I can't even describe it, like the weight of the world was lifted from our shoulders,” she said.
Alivea also addressed recent criticism popping up online about surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen, who allegedly spotted the killer “clad in black” inside the home after hearing crying and noises throughout the house sometime after 4 a.m.
After the man walked right by Mortensen and out a second-story sliding glass door, police said she “locked herself in her room.”
A call wasn’t placed to 911 until 11:58 a.m., nearly eight hours later, when Dylan and her other roommate, Bethany Funke, found a victim "passed out and not waking up” on the second floor oh the home, according to the affidavit.
Alivea told News Nation she didn’t know the reason for the delay but noted Mortensen’s young age.
"I do know Dylan is really young and she was probably really, really scared, and until we have any more information, I think everyone should stop passing judgments because you don't know what you would do in that situation,” she said.
The Goncalves’ family attorney, Shanon Gray, also recently came to Mortensen’s defense in an interview with Fox News.
“She was scared. She was scared to death and rightly so,” he said. “This guy had just murdered four people in the home. So, you know, who knows what was going through her mind but the Goncalves family doesn’t have any ill will towards her or anything like that.”
As the legal case against Kohberger gets underway, Alivea said she plans to attend every hearing.
Kohberger is facing four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He has yet to enter a plea — though his Pennsylvania defense attorney noted that Kohnerger believes he'll be exonerated.
