Video captured convicted University of Idaho killer’s vehicle just before attack
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Newly released security video shows Bryan Kohberger's car circling King Road four times.
- Footage depicts vehicle movements before and after the Moscow killings in November 2022.
- Kohberger pleaded guilty and received four consecutive life sentences without parole.
Bryan Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra was caught circling the King Road neighborhood on a neighbor’s balcony security camera within the hour before he killed four University of Idaho students in November 2022, and then as he sped away to escape from the off-campus home in Moscow.
The full video, captured between 3:30 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, from 1112 King Road, has not before been released to the public. The Moscow Police Department provided it for the first time Wednesday in response to a public records request from the Idaho Statesman.
Behind the wheel of his 2015 sedan, Kohberger made three initial passes by the victims’ home between 3:30 a.m. and 3:58 a.m., according to court records and the footage. The vehicle did not have a front license plate, which was not required in Pennsylvania, where it was registered at the time.
In the security video footage, a white vehicle with its headlights on is seen entering the neighborhood. It went south on King Road and slowly turned east onto Queen Road first at 3:30 a.m. It drove west on Queen Road back into the camera’s view at 3:33 a.m., and turned north back onto King Road and left.
The white vehicle returned along the same path 5 minutes later at 3:38 a.m. It exited again at 3:40 a.m. On the third pass, the white vehicle drove the route into the neighborhood at 3:56 a.m. and exited 2 minutes later at 3:58 a.m.
Finally, the white sedan police labeled Suspect Vehicle 1 reentered the camera’s view at 4:04 a.m. headed back into the neighborhood. At 4:07, Kohberger completes a three-point turn in the King Road cul-de-sac and heads back toward the home at 1122 King Road.
Prosecutors say they believe Kohberger committed the murders in a 13-minute window. His car is not seen again until 4:20 a.m. as it left west on Queen Road and turned north onto King Road “at a high rate of speed,” the probable cause affidavit for Kohberger’s arrest read.
At the time, Kohberger, 27, was a Ph.D. student of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, just over the Idaho state line, about 9 miles west of Moscow. Five days after the murders, he registered his vehicle in Washington and swapped out his license plates, lead investigator Moscow Cpl. Brett Payne wrote in the affidavit.
The victims were four U of I undergraduates: Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, and Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20. The three women lived in the home at 1122 King Road, while Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and slept over for the night. All four were fatally stabbed with a large, fixed-blade knife and each died with multiple wounds.
DoorDash delivery driver in footage
Kernodle received a DoorDash food order at 3:59 a.m. The delivery driver appears to arrive in the view of the neighbor’s security camera at 3:46 a.m. as she entered the King Road neighborhood in a gray Subaru Forester.
In a Nov. 23 interview with Payne, the DoorDash driver said she could not find 1122 King Road to drop the Jack in the Box order for about 15 minutes, according to a recently released Moscow police report. She said she walked down Queen Road looking for the home with her flashlight, which Payne wrote could be seen in the video. At 3:51 a.m., the DoorDash driver can be seen in the camera footage on foot walking west on Queen Road before turning around and walking east back toward 1122 King Road.
At 4 a.m., her gray Subaru appears in the footage to have left the neighborhood. She never saw Kohberger or his white Elantra, Payne’s report read.
At 4:17 a.m. on the security footage, the camera picked up audio of “what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud,” Payne wrote. Starting at that same time, a dog also could be heard barking repeatedly. The 1112 King Road camera was located fewer than 50 feet from the west wall of Kernodle’s second-floor bedroom.
The footage audio revealed the dog barked off and on for nearly 15 minutes. The security video released by Moscow police ends at 4:30 a.m.
Kohberger, now 30, pleaded guilty last month to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in a deal that avoided a trial and the possibility of the death penalty. He was sentenced two weeks ago to four consecutive life prison terms, with no chance of parole, and waived all appeals.
Kohberger’s motive for the crime was never established, according to case investigators and prosecutors. Neither was any connection between him and the four U of I students.
Kohberger is in custody serving his sentences at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise.
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Video captured convicted University of Idaho killer’s vehicle just before attack."
