Police body camera footage has been released of Indiana murders suspect Bryan Kohberger’s first traffic stop in Indiana as he was driving with his father back to Pennsylvania.
Mr Kohberger was pulled over at about 10.44am on 15 December by a Hancock County Sheriff’s deputy for following too closely to a vehicle, according to footage obtained by King5.
He and his father told the deputy they were coming from Washington State University (WSU) where they said a SWAT team had been responding to an on-campus shooting.
The incident they appear to be referring to involved a seven-hour stand-off where an WSU police officer shot and killed a man who had been threatening to harm his roommates at an apartment complex in Pullman in the early hours of 15 December.
Mr Kohberger tells the deputy he works at the university, and his father interjects that he is a PhD student.
Separate police body cam footage released on Tuesday showed an Indiana State Police trooper pulling Mr Kohberger and his father over shortly afterwards.
The two traffic stops took place as the pair made the 2,500-mile journey from Washington to their home state where they planned to spend the holidays.
Mr Kohberger was arrested at his parent’s home on 30 December.
In the clip, shared with The Independent by the Indiana State Police Department, an officer approaches a white Hyundai Elantra during a traffic stop.
The car matches the description of the one Idaho police began searching for after it was spotted near the crime scene of the 13 November homicides of four University of Idaho students.
The footage shows Mr Kohberger’s startled face when an officer pulls the car over and approaches the door.
The officer tells Mr Kohberger – who is driving – and his father that he was trailing too closely behind a truck trailer as he drove.
The conversation is largely unintelligible due to road noise, but Mr Kohberger’s father is heard telling the officer that his son attends Washington State University and that there had been a shooting there recently.
One day earlier on 14 December, a man had barricaded himself in an apartment near WSU and threatened to kill his two roommates before being killed in a shootout with police.
Mr Kohberger’s concern over the shooting at his son’s college indicates his lack of awareness that his son would soon be arrested for a quadruple murder.
The officer cordially chats with Mr Kohberger about how he was trailing too closely behind a truck trailer and discusses the pair’s ongoing road trip.
“That’s a long haul. You guys scared of airplanes?” the officer asks.
The father and son also tell the officer that they have just been pulled over by another trooper. The Hancock County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed it also carried out a stop on the suspect’s car that day.
The Indiana State Trooper told Mr Kohberger and his father that he was not giving them a ticket or warning but urged them to be “giving yourself plenty of room” on the road.
Indiana State Police said that, at the time of the stop, the trooper had no information linking Mr Kohberger to the murders in Moscow.
On Tuesday, Mr Kohberger appeared in court in Pennsylvania and formally waived his right to an extradition hearing, meaning he will be sent to Idaho within the next two weeks to face murder charges in the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
The 28-year-old was arrested last Friday near the Pocono Mountains in northeastern Pennsylvania, with 50 officers executing an early morning search warrant on 30 December.
According to the Washington State University website, Mr Kohberger is a PhD graduate student in the criminal justice and criminology department in Pullman, Washington.
The grieving father of Idaho murder victim Kaylee Goncalves has vowed to face Mr Kohberger in court.
Steve Goncalves told NBC News that he wants Mr Kohberger to be “sick of seeing us” as he spoke of his determination to win “a battle of wills” against the man accused of stabbing his daughter to death in her bed.
“I want him to be sick of seeing us and sick of knowing that these people won’t let it go,” he said on Monday.
“You know, it’s a battle of wills, and we’ll see who wins.”
