Keith Morrison reveals new insights, unseen video in Kohberger case to be featured on ‘Dateline’ Friday
Published at
IDAHO FALLS — Bryan Kohberger’s online habits, never-before-seen surveillance video and new interviews will be featured in a two-hour “Dateline” program Friday.
Producer Shane Bishop and correspondent Keith Morrison have spent months working on “The Terrible Night on King Road.” They interviewed former students, including a young woman named Holly who said she met Kohberger at a pool party and told him about a hiking group she was in.
“He had put his number into my phone and then I had texted him my name,” Holly told Morrison. The next day, Kohberger sent her a text that Holly describes as “peculiar” and “overly formal.”
“Hey I am pretty sure we spoke about hiking trips yesterday. I really enjoy that activity so please let me know. Thanks!” the text said.
“One of the other people there then ran into him later on, on a hike, and was puzzled by the fact that he was walking alone into the night when everybody else was getting out of this area because it was nighttime,” Morrison tells EastIdahoNews.com. “Then we discover that he was somebody who loved the nighttime and was out at night all the time.”
“Dateline” will also show security footage taken from a neighbor’s home near the off-campus house where Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were killed.
The camera captured the same white car circling the block multiple times and approaching the students’ house at 1122 King Road repeatedly before speeding away 13 minutes later.
Investigators referred to a white Hyundai Elantra as a critical clue as they solicited the public’s help in finding a suspect. Kohberger drove a white 2015 Elantra and the vehicle is a key piece of evidence.
“Every three minutes or so, the car will kind of come around and go away again and come back and then go away again, as if somebody is casing the house or is trying to make up his mind about something,” Morrison explains. “But then what we see is the car pulls into what would have to be 1122 King Road and disappears. Thirteen minutes later, it reappears going hellbent around the corner and out of sight and it isn’t seen again. The authorities are pretty convinced this is video of the killer in his car making up his mind. The 13 minutes where the car is not visible to the camera is when the murders are occurring, and then afterwards, you see the car drive away.”
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 students’ house, according to NBC. It connected 23 visits over a four-month period, all after dark. One visit was just six days before the killings.
“Dateline” reports that data from Kohberger’s phone includes internet searches in the weeks before and after the killings on serial killer Ted Bundy, along with searches for pornography with the words “forced,” “passed out,” “drugged,” and “sleeping.”
“Dateline” will air Friday at 8 p.m. MDT on NBC and is available for streaming on Peacock the following day.
Watch our entire interview with Keith Morrison in the video player above.