Attorneys for Bryan Kohberger plan to argue at his trial that the evidence against him could have been planted at the crime scene by the real killer who slaughtered the four University of Idaho students two years ago, prosecutors wrote in a new court filing.
Kohberger, 30, is accused of fatally stabbing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022. His trial is slated to start in August. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Key evidence in the case is the DNA recovered on the button of the knife sheath that was found near one of the victims, which ultimately led authorities to Kohberger in the weeks following the murders.
In a motion filed this week, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson made the new claim that Kohberger’s defense team will try to pin the slayings on someone else.
“Instead of challenging the conclusion that the DNA on the knife sheath belonged to Defendant, the defense’s expert disclosures reveal that the defense plans to argue the DNA on the knife sheath does not prove Defendant was ever at the crime scene and the knife sheath itself could have been planted by the real perpetrator,” Thompson wrote.
Many of the court documents detailing both sides’ plans for expert witnesses have been sealed, so it’s not currently possible to compare Thompson’s characterization of the defense plans against the defense team’s own court filings.
Prosecutors have said the use of investigative genetic genealogy has matched DNA from the knife sheath to Kohberger’s DNA. Yet, Kohberger’s lead attorney Anne Taylor has fought to have the IGG thrown out. Her request was denied last month.
Still, prosecutors say they don’t intend to refer to the IGG evidence during the trial and will instead tell jurors that a “tip” led them to Kohberger as a suspect.
The latest filing on the defense’s potential strategy comes a week after a slew of motions were filed by Kohberger’s team, which included a motion to take the death penalty off the table citing Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder and a motion to exclude the terms “psychopath” or “sociopath” from the trial.
Court documents were also released that revealed what the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, texted each other on the night of the murders after Mortensen thought she saw a masked man in the house.
The two texted that they were “freaking out” when they couldn’t get in touch with the other four roommates in the house. They ended up in the same bedroom and fell asleep until the next day when their roommates’ slain bodies were found. A transcript of the 911 call was also included in the documents.
Both surviving roommates are expected to testify at Kohberger’s trial, which is scheduled to begin on August 11 and is expected to last more than three months.
