Bryan Kohberger renews effort to present alibi, other suspects at Idaho murder trial

Kevin Fixler and Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman on Mar 19, 2025

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BOISE, Idaho — Attorneys for defendant Bryan Kohberger want to reserve their ability to point to other possible suspects during his forthcoming murder trial, as part of assertions that their client was elsewhere at the time of the University of Idaho student homicides.

Pushing back against prosecutors, his attorneys said in their latest court filings that restrictions on how they present the prospect of other perpetrators shouldn’t apply in his trial this summer. The prosecution has asked Ada County Judge Steven Hippler to limit such arguments to jurors.

“Mr. Kohberger has a right to present a full and complete defense for the crimes of which he is accused,” his attorneys wrote. “This case is full of alternative perpetrators. The state has chosen to focus on Mr. Kohberger, at its own peril.”

Kohberger’s attorneys also filed a response to prosecutors’ attempt to force Kohberger to take the stand to testify, if he wants to offer up that he was never inside the home where the four college students were found fatally stabbed in November 2022. Prosecutors argued his alibi lacks sufficient support or any witnesses who can corroborate his whereabouts.

In prior alibi filings, Kohberger’s defense said he was out driving alone in southeast Washington, about 30 miles from Moscow. Kohberger’s attorneys said in the response filing Wednesday that a cellphone expert would offer“partial corroboration” that their client wasn’t near the crime scene at the time of the homicides.

“Mr. Kohberger further advised the state of his intention to cross-examine any state expert in that field,” lead defense attorney Anne Taylor wrote.

Kohberger, 30, is a former graduate student of criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, and prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if a jury finds him guilty.

The four victims were Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The three women lived in the Moscow home with two other young women who went physically unharmed; Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and stayed over for the night.

Defense wants‘complete picture’ at trial

Kohberger’s attorneys Wednesday also asked Hippler to deny the prosecution’s request to admit some of the surviving roommates’ phone calls and text messages — which were partly revealed this month.

Instead, Taylor requested the entire record of phone calls and text messages be released, according to an objection filed Monday. She urged Hipper to view the prosecution’s request with “consideration of the complete picture,” the filing read.

The prosecution “has asked the court to look at a timeline and Mr. Kohberger urges the court to look at everything that occurred during the timeline,” Taylor wrote.

Taylor also requested that the court block the 911 call from being admitted during the trial. The audio was released last week after a transcript of the call was disclosed in a court filing the week prior.

The texts between the female roommates, whom the Idaho Statesman is not identifying by name, revealed in the prosecution’s filing that the second-floor roommate saw someone in their home wearing all black and a ski mask or covering over his head and mouth, and texted the first-floor roommate between 4:22 and 4:24 a.m.

“I’m not kidding. (I) am so freaked out,” she wrote.

“So am I,” the other responded, urging the roommate who lived on the second floor to come down to her room.

The women spent the night together downstairs and before falling asleep called their other roommates several times. All their calls went unanswered.

The next text messages disclosed by the prosecution began around 10:20 a.m. when one of the surviving roommates started texting Goncalves and Mogen to see if they were awake. But the defense argues that the prosecution’s claim that the roommate “woke up and realized her roommates had not responded” is “wrong.”

Records disclosed by the defense showed the other roommate, who lived downstairs, made several phone calls starting at 7:30 a.m., while the second-floor roommate was using Instagram on her phone by 8 a.m.

“The state is looking at the messages with the benefit of hindsight,” Taylor wrote.

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