Suspect in Idaho college killings got pulled over twice during a cross-country road trip before being arrested, lawyer says

• Police twice stopped the Idaho murders suspect on the road before he was arrested, his lawyer said.
• Bryan Kohberger was arrested on suspicion of killing four University of Idaho students.

Police twice pulled over the man now suspected of killing four Idaho students during a cross-country drive home to Pennsylvania, a lawyer for the suspect said. But both times they let him go.

Police announced on December 30 the arrest of Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, in Pennsylvania, thousands of miles away from the killings in Moscow, Idaho, in November.

Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, were stabbed at a rented house near the campus of the University of Idaho. Their deaths shocked the local community and received nationwide attention.

Kohberger's extradition lawyer Jason LaBar, a Pennsylvania public defender, told NBC on Sunday that Kohberger and his father had driven cross-country in what they described as a planned road trip over the holiday, according to Boise-based NBC affiliate KTVB.

This was some time between December 13 and 16, LaBar told Law & Crime.

Kohberger's father had flown into Spokane, Washington, before driving to pick up his son in Pullman, nine miles over the state border from Moscow, LaBar reportedly told NBC. They then set off on the 2,500-mile trip to Pennsylvania, LaBar said.

On that road trip — described by Kohberger's father as ordinary — they were twice pulled over "almost back to back," as LaBar related to NBC.

LaBar said, per the outlet, he didn't know if they had been speeding or if tickets had been issued, but said that he believed the stops were "once for speeding and once for falling too closely to a car in front of them."

A spokesperson for Indiana State Police, Sgt. Glen Fifield, told Fox News that they had not found any evidence of such stops.

LaBar did not make clear in what Indiana police jurisdictions the reported stops took place.

The car they were driving was a white Hyundai Elantra — the same model sought by police — and was taken away from outside the Kohbergers' Pennsylvania home on Friday, according to NBC News.

Kohberger is due back in Idaho for trial this week, LaBar told NBC. Until then, many aspects of the investigation remain under seal, including police reasoning behind Kohberger's arrest, NBC News reported.

Kohberger was "shocked" by the arrest and "eager to be exonerated," LaBar said, per NBC News.

On Sunday, Kohberger's family put out a statement saying that they were cooperating with police in the investigation and expressed condolences for the families of the four slain students, according to NBC News.