Did Bryan Kohberger Befriend Kaylee Goncalves’ Dog Before Idaho Murders

Did Bryan Kohberger make an effort to befriend the dog of one of his victims before stabbing her to death?

The friends and roommates of the four University of Idaho students murdered by Kohberger told police that Murphy, the dog owned by Kaylee Goncalves, developed a sudden and surprising new habit in the weeks leading up to the massacre.

Surviving roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke both told investigators about at least one incident when Goncalves felt she was being watched and followed as she took her goldendoodle out for a walk near the off-campus home they shared in Moscow.

Funke told police that Goncalves described the incident to her by saying she saw an “unknown male up above their house to the south who was staring at her when she took Murphy out to go potty.”

Around the same time, Murphy began to sometimes suddenly run off into that same wooded area above the house.

That information comes from two friends of the victims who spoke with police, in interviews which were just unsealed by the Moscow Police Department.

The names of these friends are redacted in the reports.

“[Redacted] stated Murphy ran up into the bushes behind the house on several occasions and would not return when called,” one friend told police. “[Redacted] stated they called Murphy numerous times before he would come back.”

That friend then directed officers to another individual who they claimed could confirm her story and provide more examples.

The person confirmed the first story, and provided additional examples to officers.

She told police it happened at a Halloween party shortly before the murders while the group was “on the back patio once again, and Murphy began to run into the wood line behind the house and not come back.”

The group also “heard noises too” that time, similar to what it would sound like if “someone was moving through the woods on foot,” the friend said in his interview.

She the cited another example when, two weeks before the murders, Murphy once again “displayed similar behavior of running into the woods and not coming back when called .”

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She told police that both she and Goncalves “were concerned about someone being behind the house when Murphy would behave in this manner.”

The most concerning incident, the friend told police, was when she and Goncalves arrived at the home to find “the rear side door standing open and Murphy was missing.”

Murphy was eventually located, but why he developed this habit remains a mystery.

However, a neighbor of the girls also noticed something concerning around that time, telling police she spotted a man who “looked nervous“ walking through her backyard and then returning along that same route.

The man allegedly ignored her as she informed him he was trespassing on private property.

She told police that the man who had ‘curly hair with a large nose” was Kohberger, adding that she was 92 percent certain of this fact.

If it were Kohberger who had been sneaking around and drawing Murphy’s attention, it could explain how he managed to slip undetected into the home without an excited or protective dog loudly barking at the intruder.

Instead, the interviews and police reports suggest that Murphy did not start to bark until after Kohberger left the scene.

Kohberger spared Murphy’s life, and police found the dog with the bodies of Goncalves and Madison Mogen.

Murphy was then sent off to the Humane Socity for a few hours before Goncalves’ ex picked up the canine and took him home.