It turns out Bryan Kohberger got in trouble with the law just before the University of Idaho murders… unfortunately not enough trouble.
In a newly released police bodycam video, the quadruple murder suspect — who has been charged with the brutal slayings of students Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin — is pulled over for a simple traffic violation on October 14, 2022. Apparently he was being that annoying guy who drives into the intersection in heavy traffic. Obviously all our readers know you’re supposed to keep the intersection clear so when the light turns red, you aren’t blocking traffic. Anyway, he didn’t — meaning he ended up technically running the red light.
Related: First DNA Lab Did NOT Match Knife Sheath To Bryan Kohberger!
Obviously one crime has nothing to do with the other, and not everyone who would screw up traffic in the intersection would commit murder. Apart from everyone’s time, we guess… But Kohberger’s behavior in the face of police scrutiny is fascinating in retrospect. He doesn’t simply own up to committing a crime, he confronts the officer — who is a female, which is important given what we’ve heard about how he views women. He asks about the specifics of his violation, saying where he’s from, in rural Pennsylvania, what he did wouldn’t even be an offense. (We aren’t sure that’s even accurate — we do know way too many people don’t know they’re not supposed to do it, even in big cities like El Lay!)
We just find it inneresting how the criminology grad student isn’t trying to stay low profile or anything. He’s just forcing the issue with this cop. Remember, this is October 14 — almost exactly one month before the November 13 murders. If he’s guilty, he probably already knows he’s going to commit the murders — he was allegedly stalking the girls for months. And yet, he’s risking being more on the radar than ever before.
In the end, the officer tells him she won’t write him a ticket, just letting him off with a warning. He does show the cop respect then, apologizing for seeming confrontational about the law:
“I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law. I wasn’t trying to, like, disagree with you.”
She tells him it’s not a problem and moves him on. It’s clear she is at no point in fear for her life. Just a couple months later it might have been a completely different story for police seeing this face… See the whole interaction (below):
The traffic stop was in the public record previously, cited in the probable cause affidavit due to the role it played in Washington State University police having all the information on Kohberger’s car. His white Hyundai Elantra was, as close followers of the case will recall, a big part of finding the murder suspect in the first place. So this stop may actually have helped police catch Kohberger — or at least catch him faster.
What do YOU think of the video??
[Image via Law&Crime Network/YouTube.]
