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Albrightsville, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania state trooper Justin Leri signs his name to each of the two long lists that go into the “FBI’s Receipt of Property” document, which will be made public months later.

From Bryan’s car, they take:

From the Kohberger family home they take items that quite obviously could connect Bryan to the “firefighter” of Dylan Mortensen’s half-awake dream: an assortment of clothing, including black face masks, hats, gloves, boots.

They take his phone, laptops, hard drives, computer, the black-box Samsung car-navigation system, as well as three knives—including a large, sheathed Taylor Cutlery knife—a gun (a Glock 22), and three magazines.

They also take a flashlight, two bags with a “green leafy substance,” an AT&T phone bill, and a large Craftsman shop vacuum.

More tantalizingly on Leri’s list are items that are not fully explained but that could suggest a possible motive for murder. It’s the inclusion of these that catches the attention of cybersleuths when the list is made public, months later in March.

For instance, the list intriguingly mentions a book—it doesn’t give a title—with underlinings on page 118.

All the online forums—the Facebook discussion page, Reddit, TikTok, Instagram, and more—will debate for days if this could be underlining on page 118 of Elliot Rodger’s manifesto.

On that page, Rodger wrote of how he came to select the date of his “day of retribution,” his act of misogynistic terrorism.

After ruling out Halloween because of the heavy law enforcement presence, he decided it “would have to be on a normal party weekend, so I set it for some time during November.”

Then there’s the item on Leri’s list of a drawing referred to as “A Man’s Mind.

” Could this be a reference to a well-known black-and-white poster of a man’s face in profile with a naked woman erotically arched backward, cleverly drawn into his frontal lobe?

The name Sigmund Freud is scribbled underneath.

That’s the question posed by cybersleuths, who post the drawing side by side with page 118 of Rodger’s manifesto and suggest—to much agreement—that both point to the mind of a misogynistic incel who planned a murder that was more or less a copycat of Rodger’s 2014 killing spree as vengeance for all the women who would not sleep with him.

Other miscellaneous items are harder for the online community to analyze.

These include a “note to dad from Bryan, a note in his desk,” a “note from Bryan to Montana,” a criminal psychology book, other criminology books, a maroon notebook, documents, and the DeSales University handbook.

As the items are being seized and documented, on the other side of the country, in Pullman, at 10:38 p.m. PST—1:38 a.m. EST—Chief Jenkins gets the call from Moscow he’s been waiting for.

Kohberger has been arrested in Pennsylvania.

Some of Fry’s team, led by Sergeant Dustin Blaker, are already en route to sit outside Kohberger’s Pullman apartment while Jenkins’s crew paper and serve the warrants.

By 7:15 a.m., the paperwork is done. And while Jenkins’s team watches, the Moscow team goes in looking for evidence that ties Kohberger to the King Road murders.

They take, according to papers filed in court:

One nitrile type black glove

1 Walmart receipt with one Dickies tag

2 Marshalls receipts

Dust container from “Bissell Power Force” vacuum

8 possible hair strands

1 Fire TV stick with cord/plug

1 possible animal hair strand

1 possible hair

1 possible hair

1 possible hair

1 possible hair strand

1 computer tower

1 collection of red dark spot (collected without testing)

2 cuttings from uncased pillow of reddish/brown stain (larger stain tested)

2 top and bottom of mattress cover packaged separately both labeled “C”

Multiple stains (One tested)

When this list is published, it isn’t just the internet forums that focus on the “possible animal hair strand,” along with the bloodstains and human hair, as being of vital importance.

Steve Goncalves wonders if the hair could belong to Murphy, Kaylee’s goldendoodle, now in Jack’s care. “She loved to sleep with Murphy, so the question I want answered is who put Murphy in a separate room that night?”

If it was Bryan Kohberger, well, Steve thinks, that could have been a costly mistake.