In a startling turn of events, Idaho State Police inadvertently released a collection of graphic photographs on Tuesday, capturing the grim scene following the tragic murders at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. These images, briefly made public before being swiftly removed, expose the chilling aftermath of the tragic events that unfolded on November 13, 2022.

That fateful night saw Bryan Kohberger committing a heinous act, taking the lives of four University of Idaho students. Kohberger would later admit to these brutal killings, entering a guilty plea on July 2, 2025.

The released images paint a haunting picture: blood-smeared walls, bedsheets drenched in blood, and furniture chaotically overturned. They also depict gory handprints amidst the remnants of college life, including red solo cups and scattered clothing, highlighting the stark contrast between everyday normalcy and the violence that shattered it.

The public’s reaction was one of horror, prompting the police to retract the images quickly. However, authorities have announced plans to reissue the photographs, stating they will address general concerns before doing so.

Police have taken down the photos in the face of public revulsion, but now they say they’ll soon reissue them after reviewing general concerns.

I, like countless others, was shocked by the barbarism. But the grisly evidence also gives away something else – no less disturbing.

I began reporting on this case in the days immediately after the killings. In the months that followed I spent weeks in Idaho, review thousands of pages of law enforcement reports, interviewed numerous officials and even visited the small Pennsylvania town where Kohberger was born and raised. And, even after Kohberger’s sentencing, a startling possibility has been taking shape in my mind.

While I believe Bryan Kohberger is guilty, I have never been able to shake a long-held hypothesis that he didn’t act alone. Now this newly released evidence only bolsters that belief.

On Tuesday, IdahoState police briefly released – before hurriedly removing – a ghastly cache of graphic photographs revealing the horrifying aftermath of the murders inside 1122 King Road House in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022

At the heart of the prosecution of Kohberger is a troubling question: Could he have managed to murder four students, on two different floors, during the estimated 13-minute timeframe (from 4:07am to 4:20am) that police believe he was in the house?

The authorities in Moscow suspect that Kohberger entered the residence at 4:07am – shortly after his car was captured on surveillance camera driving toward the location – and left the scene at 4:20am – minutes before his car was filmed speeding off.

They’ve even performed two test runs – reenacting the murders as best they could – to establish a working theory for how this could be done.

But I’ve never been convinced.

For starters, I suspect the 13-minute timeframe to be wrong. It does not take into consideration the time that would have elapsed after Kohberger exited King Road after the murders, trudged up an icy slope to his car, presumably changed out of his clothes, possibly stored bloody items in a plastic bag in his trunk, started his car, proceeded down the hill and drove away. All of that activity would have reduced his actual time inside the residence by several minutes.

My timeline suggests all four assaults were committed in nine minutes, more or less.

I’ll concede that a nine-minute window might have been sufficient to kill four people, but likely only if the killer moved methodically from one victim to the next, making no mistakes, wasting no time.

These newly released crime scene photos, in conjunction with autopsy reports that I’ve reviewed, suggest this killer (or killers) was anything but methodical.

Police have taken down the photos in the face of public revulsion, but now they say they’ll soon reissue them after reviewing general concerns 

The pictures show blood-streaked walls and blood-soaked bed streets, overturned furniture and gory handprints all amid red drink cups, discarded clothes and the banal disarray of college life

This was a rageful massacre.

That house was a battlefield.

Xana Kernodle, 20, was stabbed over 50 times, and many of these were defensive wounds. She fought for her life.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was stabbed more than 20 times (her family put the precise number at 34). She too resisted her assailant, and his response was ferocious. There is evidence of asphyxia injuries, meaning Goncalves was strangled and perhaps gagged. And there were also blunt force trauma injuries; her nose had been broken and her face beaten beyond recognition.

Madison Mogen, 21, was stabbed ‘multiple times’; the exact count has not been released.

Ethan Chapin, 20, was stabbed ‘multiple times.’ Again, the precise number is not known.

In total there were, I conservatively estimate, well over 100 separate knife thrusts. And there very well might have been another weapon.

State prosecutor Bill Thompson mused in an interview after Kohberger’s sentencing that ‘There were injuries that appeared to have been caused by something other than the knife, although it could have been the knife.’

‘I don’t think we can exclude the possibility that there was an additional weapon involved,’ he said.

And what about the DNA found on the knife sheath (also depicted in the new photos) left on the bed next to the body of Maddie Mogen?

There was a speck of touch DNA belonging to Kohberger on the button snap. That was the unshakeable touchstone of the state’s case – but investigators also found something else.

Another DNA report recently released by Idaho authorities indicated that there was another male’s DNA present on the knife sheaf – and tests determined it did not belong to victim Ethan Chapin or several other men who had frequented the house.

Clockwise from left: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison ‘Maddie’ Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were killed in their Moscow, Idaho, home by Bryan Kohberger in 2022

While I believe Bryan Kohberger is guilty, I have never been able to shake a long-held hypothesis that he didn’t act alone. Now this newly released evidence only bolsters that belief

Howard Blum is author of the New York Times bestseller ‘When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders’

Whose DNA was it?

And what about the motive? That was never established.

Prosecutor Thompson admitted to the court on the day of Kohberger’s sentencing that no evidence exists tying the criminology graduate student to any of the victims before the day of the killings. There’s no proof that he’d ever spoken to any of them or even followed them on social media. All that can be definitively state is that a knife sheath with Kohberger’s DNA was found at the scene.

The prosecution argued that Kohberger, intent on murder, randomly picked a house at four in the morning, but it’s not enough to put all my suspicions to rest.

It would have been very risky business for Kohberger – a high-achieving scholar who had poured over crime scenes and police investigations – to settle on such a target without any foreknowledge.

There were five cars parked around 1122 King Road that night, suggesting many people inside – perhaps too many to be dealt with. Entering 1122 King Road without a specific mission fixed in his mind would be the height of recklessness. But Kohberger is calculating, not impetuous.

My theory is that there was indeed a clear motive – it just wasn’t Kohberger’s own.

Kohberger, in my opinion, likely had hooked up with someone who – for whatever hellish reasons – wanted at least one of the students dead.

Eager to win over a new friend and apply his morbid book knowledge, Kohberger, I believe, tagged along.

Finally, there is one last piece of unexplained evidence that has always weighed on my mind.

On the night of Kohberger’s apprehension at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, he was led in handcuffs to the back of a police vehicle.

Before the car drove off to the state police barracks, he reportedly asked a single question: ‘Was anybody else arrested?’

At the time, his concern was attributed to the worries of a son and sibling anxious to know if any of his family had also been taken from their home in the middle of the night.

When illuminated by the fresh light of the newly released evidence, a more ominous question surfaces: Is there another King Road Killer still out there?

Howard Blum is author of the New York Times bestseller ‘When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders.’