Kaylee Goncalves had lined up a job with an IT firm in Austin and recently moved out of the house where she was killed.
Kaylee Goncalves, one of four University of Idaho students found stabbed to death on Nov. 13.@kayleegoncalves via Instagram
A University of Idaho student who was killed along with three other people in November, according to her parents, had just moved out of the residence where the killings occurred, but she returned there to show her close friend her new car and go to a neighboring party.
According to Kristi and Steve Goncalves, who spoke to Dateline, their daughter Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was scheduled to graduate college early and had secured a position with an Austin, Texas, IT company.
Madison "Maddie" Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves' longtime best friend, and she had only recently left the home they shared.
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Since the sixth grade, these girls have been inseparable best friends, according to Kristi Goncalves.
They had shared a home and, in her words, "were true, ultimate best friends." Maddie had played a significant role in our lives.
In order to show Maddie her new Range Rover and to bring her along to a local party, Kaylee Goncalves informed her parents that she intended to return to Moscow, Idaho.
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| Steve and Kristi Goncalves during an interview with Dateline on NBC |
That was the last time I saw Kaylee, according to her mother.
On November 13, Kaylee, Mogen, and two other people were fatally murdered inside a house in Moscow, a predominantly rural college town.
Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, and Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona, were also murdered in the assault.
Seven weeks after the deaths, police detained Bryan Christopher Kohberger, a 28-year-old suspect. He is accused of criminal burglary and four charges of first-degree murder.
In addition to finding Kohberger's automobile and cellphone records, authorities were able to connect him to the case thanks to his DNA found on a knife sheath left at the crime scene.
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| From top left: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. |
Pennsylvania native Kohberger was a criminal justice and criminology PhD student at the adjacent Washington State University.
No motive has been given by the police, nor have they indicated whether or how Kohberger may have known the victims.
One of Kohberger's former criminal justice classmates at DeSales University, where he earned a master's degree in criminal justice as well as a bachelor's degree in psychology, said she was astonished to learn of his arrest.
According to Madison, a classmate, "It definitely took me by shock."
Madison, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of harassment, recalled the thorough responses Kohberger provided in the criminology course they both took in 2018.
He always answered the question when his hand was raised, she said, but he also provided all the details he could to support his argument. "It was always something like, 'Oh, Bryan's responding to this. This will consume the entirety of the class.
Additionally, she thought Kohberger would "stare" at her and her companions.
"He kept glancing our way. He undoubtedly had large, expressive eyes "She spoke. "He would frequently be caught staring at us. He never really made an effort to "speak" to us."
Kohberger worked as a teaching assistant for junior criminal justice major Hayden Stinchfield at WSU.
Stinchfield told Dateline that Kohberger "wasn't a really friendly guy," adding that Kohberger was at first a tough grader.
However, that immediately altered.
He claimed that "at some point, he just started giving everyone 100s and like very high marks." By the conclusion of the semester, nobody was considering the earlier small deductions.
Looking back, Stinchfield stated that he thinks Kohberger's change in grading practices "fits up very well" with the time of the killings.
By stealing the knife sheath that was ultimately used to connect Kohberger to the crimes, Steve and Kristi Goncalves' daughter may have helped solve the mystery surrounding her own death, they said.
Kristi Goncalves said, "I hope that maybe in a scuffle, she got it off of him.
Steve Goncalves remarked, "It's a checkmate-type situation right now."
The two expressed their desire for a guilty verdict and the death penalty.
According to Steve Goncalves, "He repeatedly chose to end people's lives, and it has to be accounted for."
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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