On December 30, 2022, Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in connection to the murders of four University of Idaho students that occured just six weeks earlier.
Join us for this special update episode as we discuss the latest developments in this case, what we know about the suspect and where the case lies right now. We covered this case earlier this season, and since then there has been a ton of progress in the investigation and we're here to cover it all.
FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Instagram: @crimefamilypodcast
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EPISODE RESOURCES:
Idaho College Killings Addidavit (Full Copy):
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/idaho-college-killings/affidavit-dna-cell-records-car-link-kohberger-to-idaho-killings/
Hear what shocked ex-FBI agent about Idaho suspect's behaviour after killings:
https://youtu.be/mY6-xjRmWok
Idaho College Murders: The complete timeline of events (ABC News):
https://abcnews.go.com/US/idaho-college-murders-timeline-events/story?id=93575278
On December 30, 2022, Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested in connection to the murders of four University of Idaho students that occured just six weeks earlier.
Join us for this special update episode as we discuss the latest developments in this case, what we know about the suspect and where the case lies right now. We covered this case earlier this season, and since then there has been a ton of progress in the investigation and we're here to cover it all.
FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Instagram: @crimefamilypodcast
Twitter: @crimefamilypod1
Facebook: Crime Family Podcast
Email: crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com
Become a patron here:
https://www.patreon.com/Crimefamilypodcast
Get your Crime Family Merch here: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/123775076
EPISODE RESOURCES:
Idaho College Killings Addidavit (Full Copy):
https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/idaho-college-killings/affidavit-dna-cell-records-car-link-kohberger-to-idaho-killings/
Hear what shocked ex-FBI agent about Idaho suspect's behaviour after killings:
https://youtu.be/mY6-xjRmWok
Idaho College Murders: The complete timeline of events (ABC News):
https://abcnews.go.com/US/idaho-college-murders-timeline-events/story?id=93575278
AJ: Coming up on this episode of Crime Family.
This week we are going to return to a case that we first talked about a few months ago, and that is the Idaho student murders. On December 30th, 2022, Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested by the police at a home in Pennsylvania, which was nearly 2,500 miles from the crime scene in Moscow, Idaho.
She opened the door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her.
Katie: Yeah. I don't know , if he's a criminology student and he's super smart about the law, then I feel like crime 1 0 1, don't leave your fucking fingerprint at the scene.
Even if he was stalking one of them, he could have just been following one of them home in his car and then once they got in the house, he would leave or something. That's possible too.
AJ: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Crime Family. I'm your co-host, AJ, and I'm here with my two sisters, Stephanie and Katie, just like always. This week we are going to return to a case that we first talked about a few months ago, and that is the Idaho student murders. You may remember this case. Just a brief overview.
In the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022 in Moscow, Idaho, an unknown assailant murdered four, University of Idaho students as they lay in bed in their off-campus home. There were two surviving roommates who were not harmed, and the police were called to the home around noon on November 13th and discovered the slain bodies of Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogan, and Kaylee Goncalves.
We discussed this case earlier this season, season four episode six, and this case has been, you know, a media sensation. There's been tons of people you know watching for updates in these mysterious and seemingly random murders. If you've been following the news at all, I'm sure you've heard of this case, and if you've been following the news even a little bit, you probably know that there has been some massive updates in this case since we released our episode in November. I'm assuming you guys, have you been following the major updates for this case at all, or do you guys know a bit about the new developments?
Stephanie: Yes. I don't know a whole lot about the new updates, but I have been reading some of the updates.
Katie: Yeah. I know a few from, maybe a few weeks back, but if there's anything more recent than that than I might not be aware of them.
AJ: Okay. Yeah. So we actually posted on our social medias during the holidays cuz that's when the major update happened. So all three of us were actually together in person when this development broke and then we posted it on our Instagram. On December 30th, there was an arrest in this case. 28 year old Bryan Kohberger was arrested in his home in Pennsylvania, and he was charged with four counts of first degree murder and felony burglary. The question that was arising is what could have caused this young man to kill four university students in their beds as they slept? He went as far as stabbing them all multiple times with a fixed blade knife, which has still never been recovered. Those are the questions that everyone's wondering when the news broke of the arrest and there's been more information that's been slowly unfolding most recently, just, you know, in the past week or so. I'm gonna go over the major developments since his arrest and where the case stands now or where the trial stands now, and the major pieces of information that we didn't know back in November when we released the initial episode. Like I said before, on December 30th, 2022, Bryan Christopher Kohberger was arrested by the police at a home in Pennsylvania, which was nearly 2,500 miles from the crime scene in Moscow, Idaho. It was essentially on the other side of the country. Since the arrest, some information about Kohberger has been released which leads to more questions than answers. So Bryan was a criminal justice PhD student at the University of Washington, and this was a campus which was only about a 13 minute drive from Moscow, Idaho. Even though it's in a different state, it is pretty close. It's by the state line. So it was really only a 13 minute drive from the town in Idaho where the victims were murdered. And so at this time, it's not known how he knew the victims or if he did know them at all. But I myself have a hard time believing that it was random. You know, it seems like he knew the layout of the house just based on the logistical information about the case. All of the information is alleged at this point, and he has not been proven guilty in a court of law, so I do want to preface it with, you know, he is a suspect at this point. He's not been convicted of anything, even though he has some charges outstanding, innocent until proven guilty. There was a major court affidavit that came out and was released to the press right before one of his preliminary hearings, and that's where the bulk of this information in the updates is gonna come from. It's from that affidavit. Also just wanted to let you know that a lot of this is coming straight from the source because I didn't really want to get into too much of the speculative stuff. There's a lot of media outlets out there that will just bring on quote unquote "experts" and give their expert opinions about certain things. I'm just going to stick to the facts.
Katie: Like Nancy Grace .
AJ: Yeah. Yeah. We don't really need her commentary up in here. I'll just stick to what we know for the most part. I mean, we're probably gonna speculate of course, but that's after I give the rundown of the facts, which I guess Nancy Grace is too, but you know, Nancy Grace , sometimes she can be over the top. One of the major developments that came out from the release of the affidavit was that, something that really kicked off the investigation ,that was actually discovered pretty much right away as soon as the police discovered the bodies, and that is that the police found a tan colored knife sheath in the bedroom of one of the victims." KA-BAR and U S M C were stamped on the sheath along with the US Marine Court Insignia," authorities said. Once the police found this, they sent it for testing and then on the button snap of that knife sheath, they found a fingerprint which matches the suspect, Bryan Kohberger. That was obviously a huge significant development. One major thing that points to him also, there were cell phone records that show that Bryan was in the surrounding area of the house in the time directly before the murders. There was no cell data that was collected for the time of the murders or the hours after. It's speculated that he either turned his phone off or it was on airplane mode for this portion of the night. So when you look at the timestamps, there's cell phone activity in that area, you know, a little bit before, and then you know it's turned back on, or the cell phone activity returns after. I don't have the exact timestamps, but there is a chunk of time that is not really accounted for. The police also discovered during their investigation that Bryan's cell phone indicates that he was in the area surrounding the house a total of 12 times in the months before the murders. Almost all of them are in the overnight or early morning hours. So, you know, I've watched some CNN videos and they're discussing this. They say that it's significant just because, you know, the fact that he's in this area 12 times, at least in the months leading up to it. It maybe points to the fact that he could have been, you know, stalking some of the victims, or he was eyeing this property or eyeing these students for a significant portion of time. I believe the first time was in August of 2022, which would've been, you know, three months before the murder. That's odd. He did attend Washington State University, which was only a 13 minute drive from the home. Police have said that this is a dead end road, or not a dead end road, but it's a very quiet, isolated road that not many people would just happen to drive by. The fact that he's in this area, not one time but 12 times leads to, you know, suspicion that he could have been or may have been eyeing these students for a long time. So these cell phone records, plus the fingerprints that they found on the knife sheath that matched him were enough to place Bryan near the scene and at the scene itself. How it came about with the DNA on the knife sheath, they found that knife sheath on the bed, they obviously sent it for testing and got the DNA profile. Then there were events, which I'll get into later that led them to Bryan. Then once they were eyeing Bryan, or they were putting him under surveillance, they were able to test some trash that was recovered from Brian's family residence and test it against the DNA that was found on the knife sheath. Results of this concluded that the DNA from the trash belonged to the father of the person whose DNA was on that knife sheath. So according to the affidavit, "At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect's biological father." That's how they were able to tie to him. I guess the DNA that they had matched his father and they said that it's most likely certain that it was his father and that's how they were able to tie that to this D N A fingerprint. Obviously these are huge, significant updates. There's also the car that Bryan was driving is also of note in this case because it was his white Hyundai Elantra that was seen on surveillance footage in the area surrounding the victim's homes that surfaced in the weeks before Bryan's arrest. I remember one of the updates, you know, on the few weeks after or early December to the media was that they released this surveillance footage of this white Hyundai Elantra, and they said that this is significant to the case. They didn't really release how or reveal how, but they said this vehicle is significant to the case. Anyone who knows the owner of this vehicle or knows someone with a similar vehicle please call it in to the police. So on November 25th, that's when the Moscow police told all the surrounding law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for this Hyundai Elantra. This make and model of the car was spotted in the parking lot of a townhouse complex in Pullman, Washington shortly after and Pullman Washington is where the university is that Bryan attends. So once they found the similar make and model that matched the description from this video, then they were able to pull the records of the car and find out that it was registered to Bryan and the police eventually got his driver's license information from this. That's how they were able to initially put their eyes on Bryan because he was the owner of this car that was thought to have been in the area of the murders. In this affidavit they also explained that there's very few vehicles, like I said, that would go down this road during that time of night, and because that was one of the only vehicles that did, and it was right around that time, that's why it was a significant car. That's what first brought them to Bryan and then, like I said, when they put him under surveillance, they were able to track his movements and they could pull some trash that he had discarded, and that's when they pulled the DNA and got all that DNA evidence together.
Katie: So, a question about the DNA. Did they already have Bryan's father's DNA on file then? Was he known to them or how did they already have his DNA?
AJ: No, cuz they matched the DNA that was left on the knife sheath and the DNA on the trash were statistically, through the programs that they have or the software or whatever that they have was able to determine that those two fingerprints were from two related people.
Katie: Oh, I see. They didn't track it back to his father, but they knew that it was from his father. I see now. Okay.
AJ: Yeah. So they knew that that was the family home. They're watching him and so then they can pull the trash. Once you dispose of trash it becomes public property and the police are able to confiscate it. They tested it against that DNA on the knife sheath and they found these two pieces of DNA are from related people.
Katie: Okay. All right. Yeah, I got it now.
AJ: This is obviously stuff that we know now, but obviously at the time they're keeping it very hush hush and there was a lot of pushback from the public because they were people saying that the police weren't doing enough. But as you can see, they really were doing a lot. It's just obviously, I had said in the previous episode, that there's a lot that happens right behind closed doors that's not really out there and known to people. I thought people should have been a little bit easier on the police in this situation because obviously as we can see, they were doing a lot that we just didn't know at the time. So we have the cell phone data that is placing him near the scene of the crime months before the killings, and then also on the night of the killings, right before and after. We also have this fingerprint, but even those two things aren't even the most incriminating or the most significant or scary parts of this. I mean, it was actually eyewitness testimony from the surviving roommates that came to light in this affidavit as well, that really creeps me out. I'll read a bit of the affidavit here, but it's what everyone's nightmares are made out of, what this roommate witnessed. So of course the two roommates, they were interviewed by the police immediately after the bodies were found. That's when they got this information initially. So police knew this piece of information pretty much right away. Obviously this wasn't something they released to the public either. There was a lot of people that were harsh on the two surviving roommates because, and even we were saying, you know, how could you not hear anything? You know, it's pretty wild that there's two people in this house that were unharmed when the other four were murdered. So a lot of questions surrounding that. Also about the nature of the 9 1 1 call, cuz we were like, the police were responding to an unconscious person versus four murdered people. So it was just very suspicious. But we do know a little bit more about one of the roommates, what happened the night that the murders were taking place. I'm gonna read it directly from the affidavit here, because I think it's just easiest to go right to the source. So, It's about a page and a half here, so I'm gonna read this section of the affidavit here. The two roommates, they go by the initials, DM, and BF in the affidavit, so they're never named in full. So when I say those initials, I am referring to the two roommates. "DM and BF, both made statements during interviews that indicated the occupants of the King Road residence were at home by 2:00 AM and asleep, or at least in their rooms by approximately 4:00AM. This is with the exception of Kernodle, who received a DoorDash order at the residence at approximately 4:00 AM. Law enforcement identified the DoorDash delivery driver who reported this information. DM stated she originally went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor. DM stated that she was awoken at approximately 4:00 AM by what she stated sounded like Goncalves, so that's Kaylee playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms, which were located on the third floor. A short time later DM said she heard who she thought was Goncalves say something to the effect of quote, "There's someone here." A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Kernodle's phone showed that this could have been Kernodle as her cellular phone indicated she was likely awake and using the TikTok app at approximately 4:12AM. DM stated she looked out of her bedroom but did not see anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house. DM stated she opened her door a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kernodle's room. DM then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of, "It's okay. I'm going to help you." At approximately 4:17 AM a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately to the northwest of 1122 King Road, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper, followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4:17 AM .The security camera is less than 50 feet from the west wall of Kernodle's bedroom. DM stated, she opened the door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose walking towards her. DM described the figure as 5ft 11 inches or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past DM as she stood in a "frozen shock phase." The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. DM locked herself in her room after seeing the male. DM did not state that she recognized the male. This leads investigators to believe that the murderer left the scene." Super creepy. This would've been testimony that this roommate would've given to the police right away saying that she actually saw this figure walking towards her, coming out of Xana's room and gave the description saying he had bushy eyebrows, that he was 5ft 10. So very, very creepy. That would've happened just like I was describing, after 4:00 AM in the morning. As we know, the 911 call was initially placed just before noon, that same day. So that would've been, you know, eight hours later, when the 911 call was made. So there was a lot of questions about why this roommate would've waited eight hours after this to call 9 1 1. We still don't know that information.
Stephanie: I was just gonna comment on why she didn't call 9 1 1 right away. Cuz my first instinct, I see this strange man in somebody's bedroom, the first thing I'm gonna do is call 9 1 1. I don't know why she would've waited so long. Maybe, I don't know. I'm confused about that as well.
AJ: Yeah, that's something that's very questionable. I've been talking to Lisa, our other sister who's not on the podcast, but I was talking to her and she says that if it was her, you know, she would be in a frozen state and terrified for hours and wouldn't be able to even muster up the courage to even call 9 1 1, cuz she'd just be so afraid. So it is possible that she was just totally in a completely different mindset because she was so scared. I mean, who knows? But I mean, obvious ly she didn't call 9 1 1 for almost eight hours, which seems like such a long time.
Katie: Maybe she could have thought that her friend had brought this guy home for whatever reason, and that he was now leaving. I don't know if that was a thing that they commonly did, but maybe she just convinced herself that that friend knew this guy and now he was leaving.
AJ: I mean, he was coming from Xana's room, which Xana was in a relationship with Ethan, who was also in the room and was murdered.
Katie: Oh. Yeah. Maybe not then.
AJ: Yeah. It was Xana and Ethan in one bedroom on the second floor. Then Kaylee and Madison, the other two victims were on the third floor in the same bedroom. This roommate was on the second floor, seeing him come out of Xana's room where he would've killed Ethan and Xana.
Katie: Okay. Yeah. I can't think of an explanation about why it would take her so long. I guess maybe if she was in shock and scared, maybe she fell asleep and then when she finally woke up, it kicked in that something was wrong. That's possible, I guess, if she was drinking and stuff, maybe she wasn't thinking clearly. So I mean, there are maybe some explanations, but it just seems super weird.
AJ: Yeah, it does seem super weird. You'd think your first instinct would be to call 9 1 1 right away when you see this masked person.
Stephanie: That would me, because I'd be scared that he'd come after me next. You don't know who this person is. Right?
Katie: Yeah. Did he see her peeking out? I'm assuming he didn't know that she was looking at him.
AJ: Yeah. Well actually I'll get into it a little bit later, a theory. In one of the videos I saw there was a theory of if he saw her, if he didn't. I guess I could just talk about that now. CNN always will have you know, forensic experts and criminology experts on their new shows to talk about this case. They speculate, or one of them actually speculates that they don't think that he would've seen her because if you look at the layout of the floor plan of that floor, just from the angle, it's possible that he wouldn't see her. If the door is open, just a barely a crack and she's just peeking out, then he wouldn't even necessarily see that. She makes the point too, that if, you know, he would've probably wanted to get outta the house right away as soon as he killed Xana and Ethan. He's trying to get to that sliding glass door as soon as he can to get out. He's not gonna be really looking around. If the door is only open a tiny crack, then it is possible that he wouldn't have seen her. Cuz obviously if he saw her, wouldn't he want to then kill her? Because I mean, as it turns out, this sort of eyewitness testimony is a major thing that led the police to him, other than the car. There's some identifying information in there that helped build that case against him. So I'm assuming that he wouldn't have seen her.
Katie: Yeah. It seems like he probably didn't know she was looking at him, and so there's no other evidence that anyone else was involved because I remember early on, one of the news reports that came out was when he was arrested, he actually asks the police is if he was the only one being arrested. So it was like asking if the other people involved had been caught as well?
AJ: Yeah. Yeah, I remember that was something he asked if anyone else had been arrested in the case, which is a weird thing to say. So people were speculating, was there multiple people there? The only eyewitness or the roommate only said she saw one person. So there was no eyewitness from the roommates that there was any other person, but also too, he was a PhD student studying criminology, so people think that he is very smart when it comes to the criminal justice system, and he just said that, so that he could start to plant his seeds of doubt, you know, because then during trial it's gonna come out like, "Oh, what's the first thing he said?" "Did you arrest anyone else?"
Katie: I don't know, it seems like if he's a criminology student and he is super smart about the law, I feel like crime 1 0 1, don't leave your fucking fingerprint on the murder weapon at the scene. That seems pretty obvious.
AJ: Mm-hmm.
Katie: But he did. Right? So, I don't know.
AJ: Yeah. It seems super weird because, I mean, they never found the actual murder weapon. So the knife that was used was never actually recovered, but the sheath of the knife was.
Katie: Right yeah.
AJ: Yeah. That does seem very murder 101. How stupid are you? So I don't know. I was gonna ask you guys too, what do you guys think of that? I mean also too, some of the Reddit forums and the online sleuths sensationalize these sort of things. We'll talk a little bit about what his thesis was about. He was studying the mindset of killers as they commit crimes or something, so people are trying to suggest that maybe he was doing this as part of his research for his study or for his paper or something, which seems far fetched. I don't know. A part of me was thinking he's a very smart person, so why would he leave his fingerprint on this knife sheath. A part of me was thinking maybe did he want to get caught? Maybe it was part of it. He wanted the notoriety, I don't know. You know what I mean? He's making these very obvious mistakes that even people who aren't PhD students of criminology know not to make. The fact that he was a PhD student and still did that seems very weird. Maybe he was just arrogant. Maybe he was just incredibly arrogant and thought that he was one step ahead of them.
Katie: Yeah. Or maybe he has a plan where he somehow thinks he can get out of it, even though he's made all these mistakes, he still thinks he's gonna get out of it. Maybe that was his whole thing all along. That's farfetched too, but you never know.
AJ: Yeah. And also this case is so early on, so who knows what things that they're gonna try to come up with in the defense. You know, maybe he has some big elaborate story planned that will somehow get him out of it, or you know, that there was some other person involved. But to me, that whole statement in the affidavit where it's talking about this eyewitness testimony from the roommate is terrifying to me because I feel like that's everyone's worst nightmare, to wake up in the middle of the night and a masked figure is walking towards you in the dark. To me that's absolutely terrifying.
Katie: Oh my God! Yeah.
AJ: I couldn't even imagine what she was thinking at the time. There was also no information in the affidavit about if the other roommate heard or saw anything. All of that was from that one roommate DM, so I'm not really sure about the other one, but she probably, I mean, obviously she gave a statement, but I don't really know if it was anything significant. I guess it suggests to me, which seems a little bit weird, is because the layout of the house, as I outlined in the initial episode, was that he entered, the theory was that he entered in through the sliding glass door, which would be consistent with this roommate saying that he left out that way. But if he came in that way, and that is in the back of the house, which already puts you on the second floor, so once you enter through that door, you're already on the second floor. So if he left right after leaving Xana and Ethan's room, then that means he would've killed them after he killed Kaylee and Madison. So, why did he go in there and then go up the stairs to kill those two first? Did he know those two personally? Did he know Kaylee personally? Was she really the target and then the other two maybe heard something? Maybe because also, you know, Xana, I feel like it's relevant that Xana had that DoorDash delivery right around that same time. So, you know, maybe she was in her room, she came out to get her DoorDash and then saw something, or heard something. Also the roommate was testifying that she heard someone that she thought was Kaylee say, "There's someone here." But then it says in the affidavit that that could have been Xana because cell phone records show that she was awake and on her phone at that time. So she could have went to go get her food and then saw something, and then he had to kill her and Ethan because of that.
Katie: Well, was her food eaten at all? Did she even have time to sit down and start eating or maybe she did see him and then she didn't even have time to open her food. Is there anything about that?
AJ: Yeah, I don't think there's anything about that. It just says her DoorDash delivery was at approximately 4:00 AM. Then her phone records show that she's on TikTok at approximately 4:12 AM and then at 4:17 AM that's when the security camera that's located northwest of the house picked up the distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper, followed by a loud thud and a dog barking cause there was also Kaylee's dog that was found alive at the scene when the police arrived. That starts at 4:17 as well. It all happens in that timeframe. Then also, this one piece too from the affidavit, it says, "The combination of DM's statements to law enforcement reviews forensic downloads of records from BF and DM's phone and video of a suspect video as described below, leads investigators to believe that the homicides occurred between 4:00 AM and 4:25 AM." She got her food at 4:00, and even if you give it the latest timeframe at 4: 25, so she still would've had that 25 minute interval in there to eat her food. It's just weird how she would've had to get out of her room, go get her DoorDash, and then she heard something and then went back to her room, and then he must have seen her or was afraid that they had heard something. I don't really know those details.
Katie: Yeah, it's creepy. Maybe he was already in the house and then she got her DoorDash, so he knew that somebody was awake at that point, and then he realized he would probably have to kill them too, even if she wasn't the actual target. So yeah, it does seem like that DoorDash is significant for sure in what happened to Xana.
AJ: Yeah. It just makes you think , that piece of information, I was always thinking too, in the initial episode that we released and throughout, I was thinking what the order of the killings was. Did he go into the second floor, kill Xana and Ethan first, and then go upstairs and kill the other two and then leave? What was the order? But based on this eyewitness from the roommate seems like he went upstairs first to kill Kaylee and Madison. Were they the real targets or was Kaylee the initial target? Maybe he knew her or knew of her. So only had planned to kill her because Kaylee and Madison were sleeping in the same bed that night. Maybe he went to go kill Kaylee, but then saw that they were both together and then realized he had to kill them both. Then Xana heard something and then he had to kill them both. So maybe it was just intended to kill one, but then it ended up being four, just based on the events of what happened or where they were sleeping or the things that they heard. Now we do know too that the roommate did hear, at least one of the roommates heard something, right? Because how could this happen and you wouldn't know, you wouldn't hear anything. Based on all of the statements we now know that she did in fact hear something and before we didn't know where they were sleeping cuz there was one vacant room in the apartment. Now we know that they weren't both on the first floor. One of them was on the second floor, which is the same floor as Xana's room and heard some stuff. After they took this statement from the roommate, they have this surveillance footage of this car that's in the area, and they also find the knife sheath and then they link the car to Bryan and upon search of the car when they find it, the investigators noticed that the car had been cleaned thoroughly, which is obviously suspicious, but no smoking gun, of course. So that description that witness DM gave to the police was actually very similar to the information that was gleaned from Bryan's driver's license, after the police acquired the vehicle information of the white Hyundai Elantra that belonged to him. So once they were able to determine that that was his car that was registered to him, they were able to pull his driver's license and they could see the photo of him and also his height and all of that stuff that you would have on a driver's license. So that information was also similar to what this roommate said, the bushy eyebrows, you could see the picture that he had bushy eyebrows and that he was 5ft 10. That also lines up too so it turns out that this roommate seeing him actually ended up being quite significant in solidifying what this person looked like and putting it together through that. Also something too that's interesting is that when the police were putting him under this 24/ 7 surveillance , it all happened within six weeks from the time that the murders happened to when he was arrested, so somewhere in there after they have him as a person of interest, they witnessed Bryan throwing garbage into neighbors garbage bins as well in the overnight hours. This is an odd thing that might have some significance even if we don't know what that significance is, you know, maybe the murder weapons in there or something else. It's weird that you would go out in the middle of the night, not just to throw out garbage, but throw it out into your neighbor's garbage bin and not yours. That was also something too that was flagged by the police during all of this as well. There are still so many questions in this case, such as a motive, and the nature of how Bryan knew the victims, if he did at all. There have been, like I said, many internet sleuths that are pouring over any bit of information they can get about this case, going through both his and the victim's social media presence to try and discern a possible social media link between them. So, you know, looking at things like Instagram pages and if they followed each other or if he maybe liked one of their pictures or their videos or something to see if he had been watching them for a while. A lot of that information hasn't really come out. I did see, I think it was on TikTok, I did see one TikToker who had a video of him going through a screen record of him basically just showing us that Bryan did follow some of them on social media, or at least one of them on social media. Again, I don't really want to go too much into that because that's just an internet sleuth, you know, injecting themselves into the case and trying to be relevant. So I don't know if he really did follow them or not, but anyway, police are going through everything that there is to go through and we'll see what comes up from that. There was also talk, like I said, that Kaylee could have had a stalker, and at one point her family said, "No, she didn't have a stalker because she was a very open person and she would've told us." But then I suggested, but maybe she didn't know she had a stalker. Maybe someone could have been stalking her and she didn't know. Then there was an episode of 20/20 that came out just a few days ago, and I haven't been able to actually watch that episode yet because it's not out on the internet yet and I don't have cable, so I didn't watch it. But there was a clip from the preview of her father saying that, "Yes, she did say that she had a stalker." Which is a completely different story than he said a week after the murder, so I don't really know where that lines up either. It's just very messy and there's still a lot of information out there that we don't really know. I don't really wanna jump to too many conclusions, but we do have quite a significant amount of information that we didn't have, even a month ago, or a couple weeks ago, even. After Bryan Kohberger's arrest on December 30th, he waived his right to fight the extradition process, so he was arrested, like I said, in Pennsylvania, which is on the other side of the country from Idaho. They were gonna have to extradite him back to Idaho, and he had the option to fight that, and they would've had to go through a lot of logistical paperwork and all of this stuff to do that. He waived that right to fight the extradition process, so he was just extradited pretty quickly back to Idaho. Kohberger has appeared in court twice this month, and the most recent was on January 12th, so just a couple days ago from this recording and during this preliminary hearing they outlined what the charges were and it's the first step in the process. This wasn't really a preliminary hearing, it was just a meeting at the court. His preliminary hearing is actually scheduled for June 26th now, so we won't get any more information from court until at least June, so that's still five months away. He waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing. He could have had a preliminary hearing within 14 days because that's always the right, your right to a speedy trial. He decided against that, or his attorney's did, so now his preliminary hearing isn't gonna happen until June 26th. So there's still gonna be months and that's just the preliminary hearing. So once that happens, then there's still gonna be, you know, months and years before we even get, you know, to the actual trial. We don't know if he's gonna plead, like maybe he'll plead guilty. I somehow doubt it, but maybe he'll plead guilty and then there won't be a trial. So still lots of stuff that we don't know, but this affidavit was very interesting and we're gonna put a link to the full affidavit in the show notes. It's 19 pages long. I read all of it and it's pretty interesting, but I just picked out the most significant pieces of information there. But go ahead and feel free to read all 19 pages of it because it is pretty interesting. So that's where the status of the case is right now. Do you guys have any thoughts about any portion of these updates, you know, the car or the fingerprint or anything like that, or the eyewitness?
Katie: Did they ever say anything about that weird red stuff that was coming from the pipes?
AJ: No nothing that I could see. Nothing that came out from that, so that's still a mystery to me. I mean, I'm assuming it's probably blood and like I said, that would've been right outside of Xana's bedroom, where that stain was found, but no update on that.
Katie: Hmm. Okay. Yeah, so I'm definitely looking forward to hearing his story and what the motive may have been because, at this point, I don't think there's any doubt that it was him. Whether there's other people, still not sure. But yeah, I really wanna know his relationship with them, if he had any relationship with any of them. So definitely gonna follow this one.
Stephanie: Yeah, I feel the same way as Katie. I wanna know why he was at the house, why he targeted those people. This whole case to me is just so weird. He didn't go to the same school as them and he wasn't even from Idaho. To me, to drive all the way there to kill these people and then drive all the way back, it just seems really odd to me. But like AJ said before, he was a PhD student, so he is pretty smart, so probably thought he could get away with it, but you don't leave your DNA at a crime scene if you're that smart. But anyways, I, yeah, I'm definitely gonna wanna follow this one and see what happens. It's unfortunate, it's gonna take a long time to see what does happen, but definitely looking forward to the outcome of this.
AJ: Yeah, and I know you said he drove all the way there and then drove all the way back. I mean, it was only a 13 minute drive from his campus where he was living to Moscow, Idaho. It's only 13 minutes so it's not like he went super far out of his way. But it does seem like it was planned out and methodical because if he had been in that area 12 times in the months leading up to it, it's like he was scoping it out, right? Who knows, maybe he had been in the house before. We don't know. Right? Maybe he had cuz all of the times that he was in that area was in the middle of the night or in the late evenings. It's like he was going there at around the same time and maybe he went up to the back of the house to see if the door was unlocked and saw it was unlocked and was planning it out and plotting it out. Maybe he had been in the house before and that's why he knew the layout of the house or knew that, you know, Kaylee slept upstairs. Who knows if this was his actual first time inside the house either.
Katie: Oh yeah, that's creepy to think that he was watching and seeing their routines. That's creepy. But also, yeah, he could have been, cuz you said it was a party house before, so he could have been at a party and just never really stood out. They never really, you know, paid much attention to him, and that's how he knew the layout and then he was coming back.
AJ: Yeah, that's true, and it was a big party house. There's actually even body cam footage that got released from the months before the murders where the police had responded to noise complaints coming from the house, and they talked to Xana outside one time and then they talked to Kaylee outside one time. I guess the police had been there before just with noise complaints and loud parties and stuff, so it was a party house. It isn't weird to think that he could have just been attending the party. He might have had very brief contacts. The roommate said in her statement, that she saw him. She didn't say, "Oh, I recognized him. That's this person who's been at a party before." Because there's no indication of that we don't think that he knew that roommate at least. He could have just been at one of their parties and was just not someone who stood out, to even have them remember him. Or it could be, like I said, he had been going in the house or something before this, in the middle of the night. Because what was he doing those other times when he was in the area? Just driving up to the house, looking at it, going back. He was obviously eyeing that house for a while if he was in the area 12 times. At least 12 times. And like I said before, the police were saying that this is not really a road that you have to drive by as a big part of the town to get to the other parts. It's out of the way from the rest of the place. So it's a road that you would really only come across if you're looking for it or if you live there.
Katie: So that cell phone data, it didn't just show that he was driving by. It showed that he stopped and was there for a little bit sometimes?
AJ: Mm-hmm. Well, the police have just said that his cell phone data indicates that he was in the area at least 12 times in the months leading up to it.
Katie: Okay. Well even if he was stalking one of them, he could have just been following one of them home in his car and then once they got in the house he would leave. That's possible too.
AJ: Yeah.
Katie: Just watching them.
AJ: Yeah, that's true. And also there is in this affidavit too, they actually did find a shoe print inside the house as well. Then they also describe the footage of this car. If you want me to read it, I can, it just describes how they see this car? But then they don't see anyone leaving the car. You know what I mean? They don't say anything about, "Oh, there's this person captured on surveillance footage, leaving the car and entering the home." It's just we see the car in this area, but they never mention anything about a person leaving the car, which obviously how does it capture the car, but not the person leaving it and going into the house.? You know what I mean? That's weird.
Katie: Hmm. Yeah. That is strange.
AJ: So that was also my question because they're talking about how if you read the affidavit, you'll see once the car gets in front of the house, it tries to do a three point turn and turn around and it tries to pull in. They can see it trying to park, but then it never says anything about seeing a tall person walking up to the back of the house. You know what I mean? That I feel would be significant and that wasn't in there. They describe it as , at approximately 2:53 AM a white sedan, which is consistent with the description of the white Elantra, known as suspect vehicle one was observed traveling southeast on Nevada Street in Pullman, Washington towards SR 270. SR 270 connects Pullman, Washington to Moscow, Idaho. This camera footage from Pullman Washington was provided to the same F B I forensic examiner. The forensics examiner identified the vehicle observed in Pullman Washington as being a 2014 to 2016 Hyundai Elantra. At approximately 5:25 AM a white sedan, which was consistent with the description of suspect vehicle one was observed on five cameras in Pullman, Washington and on S W U campus cameras. So that would've been at 5:25 AM which would've been an hour after they believe the murders took place. The first camera first recorded the white sedan was located at 1300 Johnson Road in Pullman. It was observed traveling northbound on Johnson Road. They give a detailed description of the movements of that car that night. So it shows that he drove from Pullman, Washington to Moscow, was there for, you know, that length of time. Then his phone is turned back on later, away from the house. So it's like he did turn it off for that and they tracked the vehicle through that. In the affidavit they described that. So it's just very odd how they didn't capture him actually on camera, if they captured the car in front of the house. So that was just a little bit odd to me, but definitely a strange, crazy case. We still have so many questions and we still don't know his motive. We don't know his relationship with any of these victims. If he knew them. If he didn't. If he didn't know them, why did he choose them? What was it about them? Was he doing this for some sort of sick, twisted thing for his research study, which seems far-fetched. So just very, very odd. That's where it stands now. Like I said, all of this is alleged, of course, he hasn't been proven guilty in court yet, so it's all just alleged and he is just a suspect at this time. We'll continue to update you as the case continues. Like I said, his preliminary hearing is now scheduled for June 26th, so we still have, you know, five months before we even get some more information. Who knows what will come out before that, you know, from other people that they interview. So still very interested to see where this case goes. But it's also very sad too, that it just seems so senseless and this person just, if he is the one that did it, it just seems so random and just, I just can't understand it. Somebody 28 years old, going for a PhD, has everything going for him seemingly. So the fact that he would just do this just seems just so bizarre. And also, I mean, he was in Pennsylvania when they arrested him because his family lives in Pennsylvania and he had actually driven cross country with his father from Washington to Pennsylvania. There's also police body cam footage of Bryan and his father in the car when they stop him along that route for something unrelated. I think they stopped him for a broken taillight or tailgating or something like that. There's body cam footage of him and his father in the car driving cross country, but he ended up in Pennsylvania and that's why he was in Pennsylvania cuz his family lives there, not because he was on the run or anything, even though he technically was.
This what we have for you for the update episode. Follow us on all the social medias if you want to be up to date with the latest developments in this case, there'll be lots more to come. And of course, we'll update you every step of the way as much as we can and you can follow us on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast. We're on Twitter @crimefamilypod1, and we're on Facebook @ Crime Family Podcast. You can send us an email at crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com. Send us your case suggestions or if you have theories about the Idaho murder case or your thoughts just let us know what you think. You can always interact with us. We'd love to hear your feedback. As always, if you like the show and you want to follow us on Patreon to be a patron, you can find us on patreon.com/crime family podcast. We'd love to have you. And then you can also get our exclusive Red Bubble merch at the link in the show notes. We'll put the link there and you can get all your crime family merch that you want from the Red Bubble store. So lots of great things and lots of great ways you can interact with us and support the show. So thank you so much and until next time, take care. Bye.
Katie: Bye.
Stephanie: Make sure you lock your doors. Bye.