Bryan Kohberger Searched Ted Bundy Online, 'Dateline' Says
The NBC program Dateline has revealed new details about the infamous Idaho murders of four college students in an off-campus residence.
In 2022, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Madison Mogen were found deceased inside the Moscow, Idaho, home where the latter three lived off-campus. Bryan Kohberger, a former graduate student in criminology, is accused of the murders and is fighting the charges in court, pleading not guilty to them.
In a press release, Dateline NBC revealed that the program had obtained "new footage" and details in the Idaho murders case, including a video that shows a car "resembling Bryan Kohberger's driving around the time of the murders.
According to the release, "Phone data from Kohberger's phone and in the possession of law enforcement include internet searches in the weeks before and after the killings on serial killer Ted Bundy and searches for pornography with the words 'forced,' 'passed out,' 'drugged,' and 'sleeping.'"
The special aired on May 9, 2025.
According to E Online, which described the new details as "shocking," it's now believed that Chapin was "the last of the four to be targeted by the killer," and was likely asleep in bed when the killer "carved the victim's lower legs with a blade." First, though, the killer stabbed Kernodle to death, E Online reported, noting that she was "still awake after ordering food from DoorDash." That site reported that Mogen might have been the killer's initial target because she was killed first, and Goncalves happened to be next to her.
In the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, "when four University of Idaho students would be stabbed to death in an off-campus house as some of them slept, a neighbor's home security video captured the same white car circling the block multiple times," the show wrote in the release. "The vehicle approached the house again and again before speeding away 13 minutes later."
According to Dateline, "The previously unseen footage obtained by Dateline offers another angle into the turbulent events at the time prosecutors believe the students were murdered."
Photos and digital materials "are included in a two-hour special airing Friday, tracing suspect Bryan Kohberger's movements and online habits before and after the killings that stunned the small community of Moscow, Idaho," the release notes.
Investigators "referred to a white Hyundai Elantra, believed to be from 2011 to 2013, as a critical clue as they solicited the public's help in finding a suspect," the program added. Kohberger "drove a white 2015 Elantra," the release says.
Cellphone tower data and phone records obtained by Dateline "indicate that an FBI cellphone expert said Kohberger's phone connected to a cell tower providing coverage within 100 meters of the rental house at 1122 King Road. It connected 23 visits over a four-month period, all after dark. One visit was just six days before the killings," the release adds.
Kohberger's lawyers "have said in court filings that Kohberger would take drives alone late at night, often hiking or stargazing, and contend cellphone data shows he was not near the crime scene when the killings occurred," Dateline added.
In addition, Dateline revealed that "a former female graduate student" told the program that Kohberger texted her about hiking, writing, in part, 'I really enjoy that activity so please let me know.'
'The wording of the text, as I look back on it, is kind of peculiar,' the woman said to the show. 'It was almost overly formal.'
Keith Morrison said in a preview released by Dateline, "For the last two and a half years, Dateline has been on the ground - reporting gathering, and learning from people with direct knowledge of the case. We have obtained things that have never before been seen publicly. Like these security videos from a camera on a house near the murder scene. Videos that show a white sedan, a car that investigators believe was driven by Bryan Kohberger, making repeated passes of the King Road house that night before the murders."
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