How Bryan Kohberger Got New Identity Days After Murders — and Used that to Fly Under Cops' Radar

Bryan Kohberger may never reveal why he murdered four University of Idaho students in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, but there is evidence that could explain why he chose the date of his crime.

Five days after the murders, on Nov. 18, Kohberger registered his white 2015 Hyundai Elantra car in the state of Washington.

The vehicle had previously been registered in Pennsylvania, as evidenced in body camera footage and court filings from two traffic stops that same year — the first in Moscow on Aug. 21, and the second near the Washington State University campus on Oct. 14.

The body camera footage from the October stop also shows that Kohberger changed his insurance information on July 1 of that year and listed his address as his Washington State University dormitory in Pullman.

Kohberger still had a Pennsylvania license though, because the officer who pulled him over noted that it would expire on Nov. 22. That is the same expiration date on the license entered into evidence by Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson in a March 2025 court filing.

Thompson explained, during Kohberger’s plea hearing earlier this month, why this registration change helped Kohberger fly under the radar.

“That’s of note because Pennsylvania cars do not require a front license plate. The vehicle seen on the surveillance cameras of defendant’s car showed it didn’t have a front license plate on it,” Thompson explained.

He then added that even though there was a record of the car in the system from that stop in Moscow, that was linked to the Pennsylvania registration and not the one in Washington.

Furthermore, Kohberger also obtained a completely new license issued by the state of Washington.

And he managed to do all this without raising any red flags because his license and registration were expiring within days.

It was not until Dec. 7, 2022, that police announced they were searching for a white Elantra in connection with the case, and at the time said it was a 2011-2013 model.

When the police said the car could be a later model a few weeks later, Kohberger was gone.

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On Dec. 13, he opted to drive the car he just registered in the state of Washington more than 2,500 miles home rather than fly. His father accompanied him on the road.

Kohberger did get pulled over twice on that trip home, and body camera footage from those two stops show that he was using a Washington State license.

It also shows his car covered in dirt by the second stop. His back license plate is clearly visible during the first stop and then difficult to read and obscured by dust when he is pulled over a few hours later on that same day.

That changed when he got home, with Thompson noting that Kohberger’s car was “pristine” by the time police obtained a search warrant.

Police were able to arrest him when DNA from a used Q-tip his father threw in the trash a few weeks later matched the DNA profile obtained from a knife sheath left behind at the scene.

Kohberger confessed to the murders in court on July 2 and will be sentenced on July 23.