FBI Denies It Was Involved in Asking Police to Pull Over Idaho Murder Suspect Twice

Bryan Kohberger (L) looks toward his attorney, public defender Anne Taylor (R), during a hearing in Latah County District Court in Moscow, Idaho, on Jan. 5, 2023. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo, Pool)

The FBI on Thursday denied that it asked Indiana police to pull over Bryan Kohberger when he drove with his father cross-country to Pennsylvania weeks before he was arrested on four murder charges.

“The December 15th traffic stops conducted on the vehicle being driven by Bryan Kohberger in Indiana were not requested or directed by the FBI,” the FBI said in a statement to multiple news outlets. The Epoch Times has contacted the bureau for comment.

Authorities in Indiana said Kohberger’s vehicle was stopped twice while he was driving on Interstate 70, once by sheriff’s deputies and the other by state troopers for allegedly tailgating and speeding. He was warned twice and received no fines.

Bodycamera footage was also released of one traffic stop, showing Kohberger and his father speaking with police. Unconfirmed reports this week said that the FBI had requested the stops to obtain footage of Kohberger’s hands and arms amid the investigation into the murders of four University of Idaho students in Moscow, Idaho, in November.

In its statement, the FBI also said that it disputes those reports. The bureau did not elaborate further.

Affidavit

After his arrest last week, Kohberger, 28, was extradited this week from Pennsylvania to Latah County, Idaho, where he is being held without bail. A probable cause affidavit was released Thursday after he was served with an arrest warrant, showing why authorities suspect Kohberger was behind the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.

Kohberger made an initial appearance in an Idaho courtroom on Thursday following his extradition from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week. His attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, though a public defender who represented him in Pennsylvania, Jason LaBar, has said he is eager to be exonerated and should not be tried “in the court of public opinion.”

The affidavit said that police were able to narrow down what was at first known only vaguely as a white sedan to a 2015 Hyundai Elantra registered to Kohberger. Further investigation matched Kohberger to DNA at the crime scene, it said.

The affidavit also said that a cellphone belonging to Kohberger was near the victims’ home on a dozen occasions prior to the killings, and that while it was apparently turned off around the time of the early-morning attack, cell tower data place his phone in that region of Idaho shortly afterward.

(L–R) Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, and Madison Mogen. (Obtained by CNN)

It also details an alleged encounter between one of the victims’ surviving roommates and a masked intruder the night of the stabbings in Moscow, Idaho. But many questions remain unanswered, including whether Kohberger and any of the victims knew each other, and why police weren’t alerted until nearly eight hours after the killings likely occurred.

The roommate told investigators that she heard Goncalves allegedly saying on the night of murders that “there’s someone here,” before opening her bedroom door. She allegedly heard crying from victim Xana Kernodle’s room and heard a man saying something to the effect of ”it’s ok, I’m going to help you,” according to the affidavit.

Traces of DNA from a lone male later determined to be Kohberger were found on the button of a leather knife sheath found in the rental home where the victims were killed, according to the affidavit written by Brett Payne, a police corporal in Moscow. Investigators later closely matched the DNA on the sheath to DNA found in trash taken from Kohberger’s parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week.

The sheath had a U.S. Marine Corps insignia on it, though there’s no record of Kohberger having served in the military.

Meanwhile, the father of Kayla Goncalves, Bryan Goncalves, told Fox News on Friday that he wants the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted of the crime.

“I want this case to get stronger and stronger to the point where he realizes he’s not going to be on the planet that long,” he told the outlet. “Every time he turns on the TV, he sees us, and every time he thinks something positive is happening in his case, he sees one of us communicating, and he realizes he has zero hope,” he added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.