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Bryan Kohberger asked his neighbor if he had heard of gruesome murders in Idaho weeks before he was arrested, calling it a “crime of passion” that police “had no clues about.”
- The neighbor spoke to Kohberger at his off-campus apartment complex in WA
- The murder suspect said police had “no leads” just days after the Nov. 13 killings.
- Kohberger, 28, is scheduled to return to court in Idaho today for a brief preliminary hearing.
- The appearance will mainly focus on scheduling future court dates.
Weeks before he was named as the prime suspect in the gruesome quadruple murder of four Idaho students, Bryan Kohberger told a neighbor he believed the unsolved murders were a “crime of passion.”
The neighbor now speaks for the first time in an interview with CBS.
He lives in the off-campus apartment complex where Kohberger lived while studying for a doctorate in criminology at Washington State University, seven miles from the Moscow crime house.
He did not want to be named, but recounted how Kohberger questioned him about the killings days after they occurred in November.
He mentioned it in conversation, asked me if I had heard of the murders. What did I have.
He said: “It seems that they have no leads… as if it were a crime of passion.”
The neighbor (left, hooded with his back to the camera) speaks for the first time in an interview with CBS. He requested anonymity
Bryan Kohberger is shown entering court during his final appearance in Idaho on January 5.
‘At the time of our conversation, it had only been a few days after it happened. There were not many details,” she said.
Kohberger will appear in court in Idaho today for what will be his second appearance.
The hearing is expected to be brief and will focus on programming. Kohberger has yet to plead guilty.
He is charged with four counts of first degree murder and one count of robbery. If he is found guilty of the murder charges, he faces the death penalty.
Although he has yet to enter a formal plea, his previous attorney in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested in a dramatic December 30 raid on his parents’ home, has indicated he maintains he is innocent.
He said Kohberger was eager to return to Idaho, where he believed he would be exonerated.
Kohberger, 28, is accused of murdering Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on November 13 in the sleepy college town of Moscow, Idaho.
Kohberger’s apartment in Pullman, Washington, is 8.4 miles from the crime scene.
Police have yet to offer a motive for the slayings and it has not yet been confirmed if Kohberger knew any of the victims.
An attorney for the family of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, told Business Insider earlier this week that none of the students “knew” Kohberger.
“Nobody knew about this guy,” attorney Shannon Gray said.
Police say they compared a DNA sample found at the scene to DNA taken from Kohberger’s trash in Pennsylvania.
They also traced his cell phone multiple times to the area of the crime scene and matched his white Hyundai Elantra to the suspect vehicle seen in the area the night of the attacks.
The surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, told police he saw the killer in the house wearing a black ski mask covering his face and nose.
She noted that he had “bush eyebrows,” a characteristic that police say they immediately noticed in Kohberger once they learned his name.