Bryan Kohberger – updates: Idaho murders suspect may face firing squad as judge compares case to Lori Vallow

Bryan Kohberger appeared in court in Moscow, Idaho, on Tuesday as the Idaho murders case heads to trial

Bryan Kohberger arrives at court hearing

Bryan Kohberger is in a fight for his life as he may now face the firing squad if convicted of the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.

On Monday, prosecutors announced they plan to seek the death penalty against him. In Idaho, the use of firing squad as an alternative death sentence method to lethal injection will go into force on 1 July – ahead of his October trial.

Now, the 28-year-old’s attorneys are seeking a trove of evidence from prosecutors which they say is key to him being able to defend himself.

Arguments about some of this evidence were heard in a court hearing on Tuesday, where the judge compared the case to that of Lori Vallow.

Judge John Judge pointed to the equally high-profile Idaho murder case as he warned the media about the use of cameras in the courtroom, saying that if they continue to focus only on Mr Kohberger, cameras could be banned altogether.

It also emerged this week that Mr Kohberger was convicted of theft nine years before he allegedly brutally stabbed the four University of Idaho students to death in Moscow.

Key points

• Bryan Kohberger appears in court in suit
• Judge invokes Lori Vallow case in brief hearing
• Prosecutors seek death penalty against Bryan Kohberger
• Bryan Kohberger claims DNA from three other men found at scene of Idaho murders

[28 June 2023 22:35 · Andrea Blanco]

Cleaning company spotted at Idaho murders student home as Bryan Kohberger appears in court

A cleaning company is back at the crime scene where four University of Idaho students were murdered last year.

A large truck was seen on Tuesday (27 June) at the Moscow three-storey home where Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were murdered last November as the process continues to return their personal belongings to their loved ones.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp and Andrea Blanco report:

[29 June 2023 00:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Bryan Kohberger’s father called police on accused Idaho killer nine years before murders

Bryan Kohberger’s father called the police on his son nine years before his son allegedly murdered four University of Idaho students in a shocking knife attack that has horrified America.

Court records, newly obtained by ABC News, reveal that Mr Kohberger was arrested and charged with stealing one of his sister Melissa’s cellphones back in 2014.

The then-19-year-old had recently left rehab for drug addiction issues and had returned to the family home in Pennsylvania.

Then, on 8 February 2014, he stole the $400 iPhone and paid a friend $20 to pick him up and take him to a local mall where he then sold it for $200.

When confronted by his father Michael over the theft, Mr Kohberger chillingly warned him “not to do anything stupid”, according to the court records. His father reported the incident to the police.

Read more.

[29 June 2023 01:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Judge agrees to narrow but not lift gag order in University of Idaho student slayings case

An Idaho judge has denied a request from roughly two dozen news organizations to lift a gag order in the criminal case of a man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death. The judge did, however, significantly narrow the gag order in response to the news organizations’ concerns.

The ruling was handed on 23 June.

In it, 2nd District Judge John Judge said it was legally prudent to restrict attorneys from making some statements about the case in order to preserve Bryan Kohberger‘s right to a fair trial. Still, Judge also said the original gag order — which also barred law enforcement officers and other people tangentially related to the case from speaking to the press — was “arguably overbroad and vague in some areas.”

Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths in Moscow, Idaho. Prosecutors have yet to reveal if they intend to seek the death penalty.

The bodies of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found on Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home across the street from the University of Idaho campus. The slayings shocked the rural Idaho community and neighbouring Pullman, Washington, where Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University.

[29 June 2023 02:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Brutal stabbings, a white Hyundai Elantra and a criminology student: Timeline of the Idaho college murders

It’s now seven months since four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in Moscow. Here’s everything that’s happened so far.

The Independent’s Io Dodds reports

[29 June 2023 03:00 · Andrea Blanco]

WATCH: Bryan Kohberger arrives at Tuesday’s court hearing

[29 June 2023 04:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Who is Bryan Kohberger? The criminology graduate charged with the Idaho college murders

Bryan Kohberger became a household name across America when police swooped on his parents’ home in December and arrested him for the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students.

But who is the former PhD student?

[29 June 2023 05:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Idaho student murder victim’s mother explains why she won’t attend Bryan Kohberger’s trial

The mother of one of the four University of Idaho murder victims has revealed she will not attend Bryan Kohberger’s trial.

The 28-year-old suspect is charged with killing Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison “Maddie” Mogen, 21, in the early hours of 13 November.

“It does not change the outcome of our family, and it’s energy that we need to put into healing our kids and getting back to a new family dynamic and working on that,” Stacy Chapin said on TODAY.

[29 June 2023 06:00 · Andrea Blanco]

How did the murders unfold?

Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in the young women’s rental home on King Road in Moscow on 13 November. Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, was staying at the residence, which is just a few minutes walk from campus, on the night of the murders.

According to an affidavit for Mr Kohberger’s arrest, the killings are believed to have taken place around 4am.

Among the revelations in the 18-page document is that Mr Kohberger’s DNA was found on a knife sheath that the killer left behind at the crime scene. The tan leather Kabar sheath, which featured the United States Marine Corps symbol, was discovered on Mogen’s bed next to her butchered body.

At the time of the quadruple homicide, the two other roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortenson, were inside the home, but were left unharmed by the killer. The police report reveals that Ms Mortenson came face to face with the masked killer.

[29 June 2023 07:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Bryan Kohberger pictured at Margaret Atwood lecture on ‘misogyny’ years before the Idaho murders

A picture has resurfaced of alleged quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger attending a lecture led by famed novelist Margaret Atwood at his alma mater.

Mr Kohberger, 28, is currently awaiting trial over the 13 November murders of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. But long before he was charged with the stabbings, Mr Kohberger had devoted his professional career to studying the criminal mind.

At the time of the murders, he was pursuing his PhD in criminology at the Washington State University campus in Pullman, Washington, just 15 minutes from the victims’ home in Moscow, Idaho. And before that, he obtained his undergraduate and master’s degree at DeSales University, where he was taught by renowned forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland.

But his academic career began at Northampton Community College (NCC), where he obtained an associate arts degree in 2018. At the unassuming school in Bethelem, Pennsylvania, Mr Kohberger was also exposed to great minds who explored the depravity of the human psyche in their work.

In pictures unearthed by Fox News Digital on Wednesday, Mr Kohberger can be seen sitting front row at a 2018 lecture hosted by NCC and led by Ms Atwood, who is perhaps best known for her book The Handmaid’s Tale. The author spoke of her prominent writing career exploring issues of misogyny, patriarchy and feminism, according to an article archived on the school’s website.

(Northampton Community Colelge )

[29 June 2023 08:00 · Andrea Blanco]

Bryan Kohberger asks for more time to decide whether to give alibi for Idaho murders

Accused killer Bryan Kohberger has asked a judge for more time to decide whether to offer an alibi for the murders of four University of Idaho students.

The 28-year-old criminology PhD student filed a motion in Latah County Court on Friday saying that his legal team needs more time due to the wealth of evidence in the high-profile case.

The evidence so far handed over by state prosecutors “includes thousands of pages of discovery, thousands of photographs, hundreds of hours of recordings, further many gigabytes of electronic phone record and social media data,” the court documents state.

This “voluminous” discovery process is “still ongoing” so to decide whether or not to submit a formal alibi would be “at a minimum, premature as wading through the extensive information that makes up the case is incomplete”.

“The defense needs time to make this determination and consider evidentiary rules,” the filing states.