A man arrested in connection with the deaths of four Idaho college students was stopped twice by police last month as he was driving back to his home state of Pennsylvania, according to his attorney, as reports indicated that he was flying to Idaho on Wednesday after waiving his extradition.
Indiana State Police and the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that 28-year-old suspect Bryan Kohberger was pulled over twice within a nine-minute time period while traveling on Interstate 70 in December. Kohberger was not ticketed for either traffic stop, the public defender said.
Kohberger and his father were traveling 2,500 miles from Washington state to Pennsylvania for the Christmas holiday, LeBar confirmed.
The Hancock County Sheriff’s Department in Indiana told news outlets this week Kohberger was pulled over by a deputy at 10:41 a.m. on Dec. 15 for tailgating, and he received a verbal warning. Nine minutes later, at 10:50 a.m., the suspect was pulled over for speeding, according to the Indiana State Police, adding that a trooper gave him a verbal warning.
“The Trooper, having learned the two had been stopped minutes before by a Deputy from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department, who he knew was working just down the interstate from him, used his discretion and released the two men with a verbal warning,” state police said in a statement to news outlets.
State police troopers added: “At the time of this stop, there was no information available on a suspect for the crime in Idaho, to include identifying information or any specific information related to the license plate state or number of the white Hyundai Elantra which was being reported in the media to have been seen in or around where the crime occurred.”
Kohberger is a graduate student at Washington State University and resides in Pullman, located near the Idaho border. Officials with the school confirmed he is a doctoral student there and completed his first semester.
The suspect was arrested in Pennsylvania on Friday on four first-degree murder charges and burglary charges. During a hearing Tuesday in Stroudsburg, he agreed to be extradited to Idaho.
According to reports, Kohberger is currently traveling from Pennsylvania to Idaho, where he will face charges. Prosecutors in Latah County said that a probable cause affidavit will not be released to the public until he’s served with an arrest warrant.
Mike Mancuso, Monroe County’s first assistant district attorney, told a news conference Tuesday that he believes Kohberger wants to return to Idaho to see what is inside the probable cause affidavit.
“Having read those documents and the sealed affidavits of probable cause, I definitely believe that one of the main reasons the defendant chose to waive extradition and hurry his return back to Idaho was the need to know what was in those documents. So, that’s a significant development,” Mancuso said.
Latah County prosecutors in Idaho have said they believe Kohberger broke into the victims’ home near the university campus intending to commit murder. The students were: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington. They were close friends and members of the university’s Greek system.
Mogen, Goncalves, and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating, and he had been visiting the house that night.
Capt. Anthony Dahlinger, of the Moscow Police Department in Idaho, told The Associated Press on Saturday that authorities believe Kohberger was responsible for all four slayings at a rental home near campus.
“We believe we’ve got our man,” said Dahlinger, adding that investigators obtained samples of Kohberger’s DNA directly from him after he was arrested.
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