Gripping details on what Idaho murderer Bryan Kohberger searched online hours before his arrest have been revealed. He reportedly panicked after realizing that the investigators were closing in on him soon. After finding out that investigators appealed for details on a white Hyundai Elantra, which is similar to his car, Kohberger did some panic searches online.
His first few search phrases were psychopaths, paranoid, and wiretap, according to the search history on his phone. He then read a news story related to a police investigation into a car that matched the description of his car. Kohberger then checked the latest news on the murder by visiting the official website of the Moscow Police Department. Shortly, the Idaho murderer browsed through an auto detailing shop and bought a new car online 10 minutes later.
"Literally the pressure of, 'Oh, look, they're really talking about my car,' caused...within 15 minutes of behavior, him trying to clean it and get rid of it. Just not normal. I think the vehicle was a huge stress point for him because he had registered it to park there. He had a PDF download of like a list of Hyundai Elantras for the university, and you can see this long list of cars. If you weren't the bad guy, you wouldn't care, but he was scrambling, and he thought the police were on him. And they were. They were at that point," Jared Barnhart, owner of forensics firm Cellbrite, told Fox News Digital.
Investigation Timeline
Kohberger, 30, was arrested on December 30, 2022, at his parents' home in Pennsylvania hours after his panicked internet searches. According to the investigation team, they found a Ka-Bar knife sheath at the crime scene, and it had the killer's DNA on it. They used modern genealogy testing to identify the murderer.
Police said his car was spotted on several surveillance cameras near the crime scene. In the footage, the Hyundai was spotted entering and leaving the crime scene. The detectives would have found him by tracking leads related to his car.
The Idaho murderer formally admitted killing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Maddie Mogan, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, during a plea deal on July 2, 2025. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for taking the lives of four students at a student house in Moscow in November 2022. However, the motive behind killing these students was not revealed as he declined to speak during the hearing last month.
