Newly released police bodycam video and court documents provide fresh insight into the man accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students, with investigators testing items for blood found in his Washington state apartment in December.
In previously unseen video, Washington State University campus police are seen stopping Bryan Kohberger on Oct. 14, 2022, for allegedly running a red light, the Idaho Statesman reported Thursday. The stop in Pullman, Washington, occurred about a month before the killings in Moscow, Idaho.
During the nearly 10-minute video, WSU Police Officer Isobel Luengas parks her vehicle behind Kohberger’s 2015 Hyundai Elantra in a parking lot. Luengas approaches Kohberger as he sits in the car and she says he drove through a red light. She asks for Kohberger’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance.
Kohberger tells the officer he was stuck in the middle of the intersection.
“I was behind you the whole time,” she said. “You’re not supposed to enter the intersection at all for that reason because if the light turns red, then you’re stuck in the intersection.”
Kohberger, then a WSU graduate student living in Pullman, says he is unfamiliar with how to drive through crosswalks because he’s from rural Pennsylvania and asks for further explanation.
“It never even occurred to me that was actually something wrong,” Kohberger said. “I’m just curious about the law. I don’t mean to disagree with anything.”
Luengas notes in the video that Kohberger’s registration was current, with an expiration of Nov. 22, 2022. The officer eventually lets him go with a warning.
Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths in Moscow.
The bodies of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found on Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home across the street from the University of Idaho campus.
The slayings shocked the Idaho community and neighboring Pullman, where Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30 at his parents' home in Pennsylvania. The murder weapon — a large fixed-blade knife — has not been located, police have said.
But according to an affidavit, Kohberger was linked to the scene through male DNA discovered on a knife sheath left at the students' apartment house. In addition, investigators said they tracked Kohberger in the area through his cellphone use and surveillance that picked up his Hyundai Elantra.
Another newly released video shows the moment WSU police served a search warrant at Kohberger's Pullman apartment on the same day of his arrest.
Inside his residence, investigators seized several items, including a black glove and receipts, and then conducted chemical tests for blood. Positive results for blood were found on a pillow with a "reddish brown stain" and on a mattress cover on his bed, according to the court documents. The report does not indicate who the blood may have come from.
In addition, investigators noted a storage closet inside of the apartment. But "it did not appear the closet had been used recently and nothing was seized or collected from the closet," they said.
Kohberger remains in custody with a court hearing set for late June.
Few details have been made public in the highly publicized case after a judge in Latah County, Idaho, issued a gag order in January barring lawyers, police and other officials from making statements.
