A link has emerged between Bryan Kohberger and Danny Bolling, known as the “Gainesville Ripper,” an American serial killer who murdered five college students in four days in Gainesville, Florida, with a hunting knife in August 1990. Rolling’s crimes inspired screenwriter Kevin Williamson to create the 1996 horror film Scream.
Kohberger — who pleaded guilty in July to murdering four University of Idaho (U of I) college students with a hunting knife called a KaBar knife, according to prosecutors — was a criminology graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, near Moscow, Idaho, where U of I is located.
“This wasn’t casual browsing”
Read the latest DFIR news – evidence of Kohberger’s detailed murder preparations, an alarming rise in child sextortion cases, Brian Carrier’s new mini-course on automation and AI in forensics, and more. https://t.co/u07iNIjbKg #DigitalForeniscs #DFIR pic.twitter.com/VemKdjDxO0
— Forensic Focus (@ForensicFocus) August 13, 2025
Heather and Jared Barnhart, from Cellebrite, a company specializing in digital forensics and data extraction tools, traced Kohberger’s digital footprint and were set to testify at Kohberger’s trial before he accepted a plea deal.
Speaking with The Independent, Heather now reveals Kohberger’s careful planning before the attack, which she was prepared to present to the court, including downloading PDF case files related to Bolling’s case.
“What we learned is, he prepared,” Heather said. “He didn’t just Google these cases,” she added, of evidence Kohberger, who studied serial killers in school, researched murderers like Ted Bundy and Bolling, executed by lethal injection in 2006.
Instead, she said, “He downloaded full PDFs of case files. Not once, but repeatedly. He was downloading detailed reports on serial killers. This wasn’t casual browsing. This was meticulous research.”
Other digital breakcrumbs led to Kohberger
Cellebrite’s investigation also revealed that Kohberger’s devices passively logged into the WiFi network at a Moscow restaurant called The Mad Greek, where two of his victims, Xana Kernodle and Maddie Mogen, worked. Kohberger also murdered Mogen and Kertnodle’s roommate, Kaylee Goncalves, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin.
The Mad Greek WiFi evidence suggests a link between Kohberger and the victims, but since it was a passive log-in, meaning his device just had to be in the area, prosecutors were unable to find a smoking gun proving Kohberger had seen Kernodle and Mogen while working there.
Heather also told The Independent, Kohberger’s forensic phone activity showed he purposefully turned his phone off with a button press around the time of the murders, and it didn’t just lose power or signal.
“Turning off your phone isn’t enough,” Barnhart said. “You have to disable Wi-Fi, disable cellular, then power down. And that’s what he did.”
Kohberger was primarily linked to the murders through DNA recovered from a knife sheath he left behind, but if the case had gone to trial, Cellebrite’s digital evidence would have been crucial to the case.
Kohberger effectively erased much of his digital information from before and after the attacks, but Jared from Cellebrite told The Independent, “We found that the digital evidence told the story of preparation. DNA can tell you who did it. But the digital evidence showed us intent. And that’s what we were going to testify to.”
