MOSCOW, IDAHO: Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged with misdemeanor theft for allegedly stealing his sister's iPhone nine years before he became the prime suspect in the Moscow killings. It was Kohberger's father, Michael, who reported the incident to the police. Michael Kohberger apparently informed the authorities that his son warned him "not to do anything stupid" after he came to know Bryan stole the phone, court records show. He also told the police at the time that his son had struggled with drug addiction.
This shocking news comes to light as Bryan prepares to defend himself against the charges of murdering four University of Idaho students last year. He was only 19 years old when he was arrested for the alleged theft in 2014, as per the court records. However, the officials said that Kohberger did not spend any time behind bars for the alleged crime. In fact, there is now no public record of that arrest or the outcome of the case.
Why was Bryan not jailed?
Monroe County, Pennsylvania, offers first-time offenders the opportunity to enter into a pretrial program called "Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition." Once the accused successfully completes the probation, the program allows for charges to be dropped and the record to be expunged.
Prosecutors in Idaho said they planned to seek the death penalty against Kohberger for the savage killings in a court filing Monday, June 26. It is now unclear if the alleged 2014 incident and his previous history of substance abuse played any major role in what happened in the early morning hours on November 13 last year when Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21 were brutally stabbed to death at an off-campus home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho.
iPhone theft now a subject of inquiry
"You want to get all the puzzle pieces figured out, even as you keep finding new pieces," said ABC News law enforcement contributor Richard Frankel, a retired senior FBI official and former prosecutor in the New York City suburb of Suffolk County. "You're working to figure out how they all fit together," he said about the investigative procedure for building a case. "One, that's a big jump to go from [an alleged] non-violent theft -- and from a family member -- to being charged with multiple homicides. And two, eight years is a long time for nothing to happen," Frankel said. "So, I would want to know, both as a prosecutor and as the investigator, what he did in those years in between."
Robert Boyce, the retired chief of detectives for the New York City Police Department, said, "What you look for now, is, was this a foundational moment, and was this a precursor for things to come." A trial in the quadruple homicide has been set for October 2 but it could be delayed. Bryan Kohberger was scheduled to appear at the Latah County Courthouse Tuesday afternoon for another ongoing series of pretrial hearings connected to the murder case. He is currently held without bail at the Latah County Jail.
'Sounds like he was a ticking time bomb'
Twitter users reacted to the new information regarding Kohberger's alleged theft. One user wrote, "This dude sounds like he was a ticking time bomb." Another opined, "Like if you drew a picture of a serial killer, it would look like this." "Sounds like true serial killer to me," said a third while another tweeted, "Wow. This is a huge development. I bet this changes everything." "I don’t know what’s worse, the mass murder or the sibling iPhone theft," wrote one.
