Murdered Idaho student Kayleigh Gonsalves’ parents say she was preparing to move to Texas before the murders.

The parents of a University of Idaho student who was killed along with three others said she had recently moved from the home where the murders took place in November but returned to show her close friend her new car and attend a nearby party.

Christy and Steve Goncalves told Dateline that their daughter, 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves, had to graduate early from college and took a job at an IT firm in Austin, Texas.

Kaley Gonsalves just moved out of the house she shared with her longtime best friend, 21-year-old Madison “Maddie” Mogen.

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“These girls have been best friends since the sixth grade, like inseparable,” said Christy Gonsalves.

The two lived together and “were real best friends,” she said. “Maddie has been a huge part of our lives.”

Image: Steve and Christy Gonsalves during an interview with Dateline on NBC.
Steve and Christy Gonsalves during an interview with Dateline on NBC.NBC

Kaylie Goncalves, who just bought a new Range Rover, told her parents she wanted to go back to Moscow, Idaho, show it to Maddie, and attend the next party together.

“That was the last time I saw Caylee,” her mother said.

On November 13, Kaley, Mogen and two others were stabbed to death in a house located in a predominantly rural student community in Moscow.

The attack also killed Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, and Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona.

Top left: Kaylie Gonsalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.
Top left: Kaylie Gonsalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.

Police arrested the suspect, 28-year-old Brian Christopher Kochberger, about seven weeks after the murder. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary.

Authorities linked Kochberger to the case through male DNA left on a knife sheath at the scene, as well as by tracking Kochberger’s car and his cell phone records.

Kochberger, from Pennsylvania, was a doctoral student at nearby Washington State University in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.

The police did not reveal the motive for the murder and did not say whether Koberger could have known the victims and how.

One former classmate of Kochberger’s in criminal justice at DeSales University, where he received his B.S. in psychology and M.A. in criminal justice, said she was shocked when she heard the news of Kochberger’s arrest.

“It definitely shocked me,” classmate Madison said in an interview with Dateline.

Madison, who asked not to be named for fear of persecution, said she remembers Kochberger’s detailed answers in a criminology course they took together in 2018.

“Whenever he raised his hand, he definitely took it upon himself to answer the question, but then gave every possible detail that he could help advance his point of view,” she said. “There was always something like: “Oh, Brian answers this question. It will take the whole class.”

She also felt that Koberger would “look” at her and her friends.

“He was staring at us. He definitely had very bulging eyes,” she said. “I always caught him looking at us. He never tried to ‘talk’, to talk to us.”

Brian Kochberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students, leaves after an extradition hearing at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, January 3, 2023.
Brian Kochberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students, leaves after an extradition hearing at the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, January 3, 2023.Matt Rourke / AP

Hayden Stinchfield, an associate professor in the criminal justice program at WSU, had Kochberger as a teaching assistant.

“He wasn’t a super approachable guy,” Stinchfield told Dateline, adding that Kochberger was originally a harsh appraiser.

But that has changed dramatically.

“At some point, he just started giving everyone 100s and super high marks,” he said. “By the end of the semester, no one was thinking about small conclusions from the past.”

Stinchfield said that, in retrospect, he believes the change in Kochberger’s grading habits “corresponds pretty well” to the timing of the murders.

Steve and Christy Gonsalves said they take some comfort in thinking and hoping their daughter may have helped solve her own death by snatching the scabbard that ended up being used to link Kochberger to the murders.

“I hope that maybe in the struggle she pulled him out of him,” Christy Gonsalves said.

“It’s kind of a checkmate moment,” added Steve Gonsalves.

Both said they hope for conviction and the death penalty.

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