CLARKSTON, Wash. — An affidavit in the Moscow murder case against Bryan Kohberger shows his cell phone location in the hours following the quadruple homicide, investigators say.
That court document details how the suspect traveled roughly 35 miles from Pullman, where he lived, to the Lewis-Clark Valley just hours after investigators believe the University of Idaho students were killed.
Police believe, based on an eyewitness account and surveillance video near the King Road home in Moscow where the students were killed, the murders happened between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. on November 13.
The affidavit says the suspect later traveled along Highway 195 to Clarkston, Washington.
That's unnerving new information for people who live in the small riverside communities of Clarkston and Lewiston, which are separated by a state line and bridges. Both communities are just minutes apart and about 30 minutes from Moscow.
“Yeah it’s kind of bizarre, so soon after the murder," says Chase Peters, who lives in Lewiston. "Kind of wonder what he was doing down here.”
The affidavit does reveal some of the suspect's activities while he was in the Lewiston/Clarkston area.
Around 12:36 pm on November 13, investigators report his phone used cell resources near Kate's Cup of Joe on Port Drive in Clarkston.
Employees at the coffee stand did not want to comment on the case.
Investigators did get surveillance video from the neighboring U.S. Chef'Store, which they say shows a white Elantra drive by around that time.
The two locations are across the street from a popular Walmart.
Around ten minutes later, 12:46 p.m., Kohberger's phone pinged a couple blocks away near Albertsons on Bridge Street.
That's a main roadway in Clarkston, which also connects it to Lewiston.
The affidavit says security video shows the suspect get out of a white Elantra, walk inside the Albertsons, and make an unknown purchase. He left four minutes after 1 p.m.
“Who knows what he was up to? They might put this whole thing together and there’s all kinds of other stuff he’s accused of along the way," Peters says.
The same phone pinged near "Johnson, ID" just after 5:30 that evening, according to the court record, and the phone stopped reporting to the network from 5:36 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Kohberger's phone connected to a cell tower servicing the Moscow area on November 14, but investigators don't believe the phone was in Moscow at that time. The phone didn't connect to any towers there after that.
Peters says while he understands investigators had identified Kohberger as a person of interest within weeks of the crime, he's still uneasy that the suspect was arrested more than a month later and in Pennsylvania.
“It’s definitely freaky," Peters says. "I mean, it’s concerning because, I don’t know, I understand they were trying to build their case against him or whatever but it’s freaky he was able to get so far to the other side of the country.”
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