DETROIT, United States

After last week’s high-profile arrest, the family of the suspect in last year’s slayings of four University of Idaho students expressed sympathy for the families of the victims, adding that they also support their relative the accused, according to US media reports.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, is currently being held after being taken into custody on Friday in the eastern state of Pennsylvania at the home of his parents as a suspect in the killings, which cast a pall of fear over the university community last November.

He is the sole suspect in the brutal murders of four college friends age 20 and 21 who were stabbed to death while sleeping in a three-story rented home just off the University of Idaho campus in the Midwestern US state.

Kohberger is enrolled at the University of Idaho as a doctoral student in criminology and has also served as a teaching assistant in the Criminal Justice and Criminology Department.

In a statement released Sunday by Kohberger’s public defender, the suspect’s parents Michael and Maryann Kohberger along with his two older sisters conveyed the utmost sympathy for the relatives of the victims, saying they “care deeply for the four families who have lost their precious children. There are no words that can adequately express the sadness we feel, and we pray each day for them.”

The Kohbergers also said that they would support Bryan Kohberger’s “presumption of innocence.”

“As a family we will love and support our son and brother,” they said.

Kohberger was arrested by the Pennsylvania State Police along with the FBI after having driven across the country to visit his family for the holidays. He is being held for extradition as a suspect for first degree murder by police in Idaho.

Kohberger will appear before a judge on Tuesday and has said he is eager to be exonerated, and that he will waive his extradition hearing so he can be taken quickly to Idaho.

The weapon used in the killings has yet to be found.