Eerie new images show Bryan Kohberger’s infamous car after it was deconstructed by police investigating the Idaho student murders.
Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra was stripped so clean of evidence after the murders that it was ‘essentially disassembled inside,’ according to prosecutors.
Following his arrest at his parent’s home in Pennsylvania, police obtained the killer’s car and searched every corner for any evidence tying him to the stabbing murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in 2022.
Newly-released images show the inside of the killer’s car after it was torn apart and swept for any connections to the murder scene.
Investigators asked the public for help locating the vehicle after the murders, calling it a critical clue in the case.
However, given the lengths Kohberger went through to clean the car, investigators failed to find any DNA evidence linking the vehicle to the murder house after Kohberger’s arrest.
Kohberger, now 30, had begun a doctoral degree in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University – across the state line from Moscow, Idaho – just a few months before he carried out the November 13, 2022 killings.
Surveillance videos from neighbors and businesses also placed Kohberger’s vehicle – known to investigators because of a routine traffic stop by police that August – in the area.
The killer’s cell phone began connecting with cell towers in the area of the crime more than four months before the stabbings, Thompson said, and pinged on those towers 23 times between the hours of 10pm and 4am in that time period.
On the night of the killings, Kohberger parked behind the house and entered through a sliding door to the kitchen at the back of the house shortly after 4am, prosecutors said.
He moved to the third floor, where Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were sleeping.
After killing both of them with a knife, Kohberger left a knife sheath next to Mogen’s body.
Both victims’ blood was later found on the sheath, along with DNA from a single male that ultimately helped investigators pinpoint Kohberger as the only suspect.
With the DNA of a single mystery male on the knife sheath, detectives worked with the FBI and the local sanitation department to secretly retrieve garbage from the Pennsylvania home of Kohberger’s parents, seeking a DNA match to their suspect.
The pile of garbage yielded investigative gold: A Q-tip that contained DNA identified ‘as coming from the father of the person whose DNA was found on the knife sheath that was found by Madison Mogen’s body on the bed.’
Later, Kohberger changed his car registration from Pennsylvania to Washington State – significant for investigators who were combing through surveillance camera footage because Pennsylvania law doesn’t require a front license plate, making it harder to identify the vehicle.
And by the time investigators did catch up with him weeks later, his apartment and office in nearby Pullman were scrubbed clean.
Idaho investigators began releasing evidence from the quadruple homicide after Kohberger pleaded guilty to the murders last month, in a deal to save himself from the death penalty.
On July 23, the killer was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Newly-released bodycam footage shows Moscow Police officers responding to what they believed was a report of an unconscious individual at 1122 King Road around midday on November 13 – only to find the bodies of the four students.
Outside the home, the 52-minute-long video reveals a heartbreaking and chaotic scene as the surviving roommates and friends of the victims huddle under blankets, sobbing uncontrollably in the road.
New crime scene photos were also released by Idaho State Police, revealing the remnants of a college party inside the home that was now a crime scene.
On a table in the living room, red cups set up for a game of beer pong make the scene eerily ordinary compared to what took place just hours earlier.
One chilling photo shows Kernodle’s half-eaten DoorDash order from Jack in the Box, delivered moments before Kohberger broke in and began his murderous rampage.
Another image shows a large footprint in the snow out the back of the three-story house – a clue Kohberger may have left behind.
Kohberger is serving his sentence inside Idaho’s maximum security prison in Kuna where he has already filed multiple complaints about his fellow inmates.
According to a law enforcement source, Kohberger – now known as inmate number 163214 – is being relentlessly tormented by his new jail-mates, who are shouting through the vents into his cell at all hours of the day.
