Police video shows Idaho murders suspect talking his way out of traffic ticket month before killings: "I don't mean to disagree"

Newly-released body camera video shows the man accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students being pulled over for allegedly running a red light about a month before the killings.

The video shows campus police at Washington State University stopping Bryan Kohberger on Oct. 14, 2022, in Pullman, the Idaho Statesman reported Thursday.

Newly released video shows the defendant in the University of Idaho student killings getting off with a warning after talking to the officer who pulled him over. https://t.co/orOVeDaCmX

— Idaho Statesman (@IdahoStatesman) May 5, 2023

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.

"I do apologize if I was asking you too many questions about the law," Kohberger says.

The footage of the incident was mentioned in the probable cause affidavit for Kohberger's arrest in December.

Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths in Moscow, Idaho.

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, Washington, where Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University.

The traffic stop video comes about four months after police released body cam video of Kohberger and his dad being pulled over twice in Indiana on a December road trip home to Pennsylvania. The video was taken more than two weeks before his arrest at his family's home in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

Kohberger remains in custody with a court hearing set for late June.

Last week, one of the roommates who survived the murder agreed to an interview with Kohberger's defense counsel, according to a Wednesday court filing obtained by CBS News. 

Bethany Funke, 21, will meet with Kohberger's attorneys in Reno, Nevada, in lieu of appearing in court in Idaho for a preliminary hearing, the filing said. The suspect's attorneys had subpoenaed Funke to appear before the Second Judicial Court in Idaho on June 28, arguing she had information "exculpatory to the defendant."

In:
• University of Idaho
• Bryan Kohberger
• Pullman

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