At a recent hearing, lawyers for the guy accused of murder said that detectives looking into the deaths of college students in Moscow, Idaho, discovered blood at the crime site from two individuals who have not yet been identified, suggesting a potential trial defense tactic.
In the off-campus residence where the four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed, the blood DNA of an unidentified person was found on a railing. Late last month, Bryan Kohberger’s main defense lawyer told the court that investigators had discovered another unidentified blood sample on a glove they seized just outside the house.
Police said they also discovered what many consider to be the most important piece of evidence in the case—a leather sheath for a fixed-blade knife—on the bed of one of the stabbing victims. According to police and prosecutors, DNA found on the sheath during processing was subsequently directly linked to Kohberger. His defense stated in court documents dated June 2023 that the state’s assertion is based on contact DNA on the sheath found at the violent scene rather than blood.
The defense said that in those same documents, the male DNA on the glove outside the house was discovered along with the DNA from two other males located inside. At a hearing in August 2023, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson informed the court that the DNA samples were not uploaded in an attempt to identify them using the FBI’s national DNA database, CODIS, because they did not meet the requirements.
The fact that at least two of the unidentified male DNA samples were obtained from blood was not made public until the court hearing last month. Furthermore, it is still unknown what kind of DNA sample was taken from the third male and whether its origin has been determined.
However, defense lawyer Anne Taylor claimed during last month’s hearing that police failed to provide a magistrate judge with the unidentifiable blood DNA samples when they requested a warrant for Kohberger’s arrest, a claim that prosecutors did not contest. According to Taylor, such judgment should invalidate certain evidence since it amounted to investigators purposefully leaving out facts from the court for her assessment of probable cause.
During the January hearing, Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler pushed back on the defense.
When Mr. Kohberger’s DNA matches that on the sheath, how does it, even if revealed, prevent a judgment of probable cause? He questioned Taylor. Every day and again on Sunday, isn’t that the likely cause?
According to Taylor, “probable cause shouldn’t be considered in a vacuum.” According to her, the ruling in Hippler had wider ramifications for the criminal justice system as a whole.
Taylor remarked of the magistrate judge, “I can understand why she would find probable cause if that’s all she’s told.” The context surrounding it is created by these other things that are kept hidden. When there is another context that is important, should we wish to have only one thing with no context?
At what is known as a Franks hearing, Kohberger’s defense aims to contest a number of search warrants and the evidence that was gathered using them. Legal experts told the Idaho Statesman that the request is similar to appealing the magistrate judge’s finding of probable cause and rarely succeeds. Hippler has not yet rendered a decision after the prosecution raised objections to the hearing’s granting.
The November 2022 college student killings at the off-campus residence on King Road in Moscow, close beyond the Idaho state line, are allegedly the work of Kohberger, 30, a former graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He faces one burglary charge and four first-degree murder charges.
Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d Alene; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington, were the four victims. Along with two other women who were physically unhurt in the early-morning attack, the three ladies shared the rented house at 1122 King Road. Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, spent the night there.
Kohberger was charged on all five felony charges after a Moscow grand jury unanimously determined that there was probable cause. When Kohberger refused to speak during his arraignment in May 2023, a Moscow judge filed a not guilty plea on his behalf. Since then, the well-known case has been relocated to Boise, where a trial is set for this summer.
Taylor told the court last month that the police’s discovery of unidentified male blood DNA samples inside and outside the King Road residence raises significant concerns regarding the investigation. She claimed that the judge was purposefully kept in the dark about the information, which she claimed was substantial and exculpatory—that is, it supported Kohberger’s claim of innocence—prior to her client’s detention.
Hippler retorted that the material does not definitely absolve Kohberger. “If you assume that that blood was related to the victims and not some earlier event in the house, it could suggest the possibility that other suspects were involved,” he said.
“It’s likely that Kohberger’s attorneys will use the unidentified blood DNA from the crime scene to try to muddy the waters at trial to create reasonable doubt,” Edwina Elcox, a criminal defense attorney from Boise, told the Statesman over the phone, regardless of whether the defense is successful in persuading Hipper to grant a Franks hearing or to suppress other state evidence.
Elcox, who briefly represented Lori Vallow Daybell in her murder case in Idaho, stated that the evidence might potentially be anything or a multitude of meaningless items. It’s better than having no defense at all, and there is at least something to be gained from it.
Explaining before jurors why a knife sheath, which the state claims had the defendant’s DNA, was discovered inside the house where the victims were fatally stabbed will be the main task for the defense in Kohberger’s capital murder case, according to Elcox.
According to her, that’s what firmly places him there. It is impossible to overstate how important such evidence is to the state’s case.
Kohberger is innocent of the charges, according to multiple statements from his public defense team. Taylor reaffirmed that there are no ties between her client and the victims during the hearing last month.
Kohberger’s student flat was searched by police, who looked for a range of evidence. All DNA evidence was included in this, including objects containing blood, body fluids, human tissue, skin cells, and hair. Records revealed that preliminary investigation of presumptive chemical tests on a stained mattress cover and pillow removed from Kohberger’s apartment revealed the presence of blood.
According to Moscow Police Sgt. Dustin Blaker’s sworn statement supporting the warrants, “The King Road residence contained a significant amount of blood from the victims, including splatter and castoff (blood stain pattern resulting from blood drops released from an object due to its motion). Based on my training, I believe this evidence was transferred to Kohberger’s person, clothing, or shoes.”
However, Kohberger’s lawyers claim that nothing found in the confiscation had anything to do with the four victims. Taylor stated at the court last month that police had uncovered no connection whatsoever between their client and anyone from 1122 King during the search of their client’s flat and three searches of his white Hyundai Elantra.
She also mentioned that there was no blood in his car. He had nothing to do with that house or its occupants.
According to Taylor, police disassembled parts of Kohberger’s vehicle during their court-authorized search, including the gear shift, brake, and key fob remote. She added that there was nothing on Kohberger’s steering wheel that would link him to the murders.
The probable cause affidavit states that when Moscow police arrived at the homicide scene, they discovered the dog that victim Kaylee Goncalves and her ex-boyfriend owned in her third-floor bedroom. During the hearing, Taylor informed the court that both her bedroom and Mogen’s bedroom on the third floor, where Goncalves and Mogen were discovered dead, had an open door.
She said that this dog had not found any blood. A day later, the dog was sitting in an open room with absolutely no blood on it.
Following the brutal knife attack, police assume Kohberger went back to his Pullman flat.
Blood or other trace evidence, such as skin cells or hair from the victims or Goncalves’ dog, was probably still on his person, clothes, or shoes at the time, Blaker stated. Contact with the objects worn during the incident most likely resulted in the transmission of some trace evidence to different parts of his dwelling.
Ten potential hair strands—one of which may have come from an animal—and three more potential hairs are among the two dozen things that police recovered from Kohberger’s residence as part of a search warrant return. On a list of more than 50 exhibits the defense team submitted to the court in support of a Franks hearing, they included two FBI lab reports for hair fibers, each noting: no connection.
It is unclear if the two FBI reports the defense submitted relate to the possible hairs police located during the search of Kohberger s apartment.
Hippler told Taylor last month that a direct DNA comparison between the defendant and the knife sheath at the location of a quadruple homicide would seem to close the book on the matter of probable cause. The question jurors will have to weigh for a possible conviction is the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard, he said.
There may be, as you say, other people that creates concern or issues about that need to be investigated further, Hippler said. But I m not sure that that diminishes the probable cause for Mr. Kohberger if his DNA is found on a knife sheath found on or near the victim who was stabbed with said alleged knife, that would have been in said alleged sheath.
So how did a sheath for a fixed-blade knife get there, and how did Bryan Kohberger s skin cells allegedly wind up on it if he was not involved? Taylor acknowledged that is the most significant issue ahead at trial.
I mean, that s the ultimate question that will be before a jury, Taylor said. What does a knife sheath at a scene mean?
Hippler shot back: If you re killed with a knife, that probably means a lot.
It might, she said.
— The Idaho Statesman
