Lawyers for the man accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students are urging a judge to move his murder trial away from the county, arguing the intense media coverage and public interest in the case make it impossible for him to get a fair trial. The request marked the latest legal turn more than 20 months after the quadruple murder case made international headlines.
“The prolific media coverage, in Latah County, is not a mere passing story,” Anne Taylor, a public defender for Bryan Kohberger, said in a change-of-venue motion made public Tuesday. “The content is not benign, rather, it is inflammatory, emotion evoking and often misleading, false, and poorly sourced. There is no reasonable belief that media coverage will slow, regardless of how long the case takes to prepare for trial.”
In order to protect Kohberger’s constitutional right to a fair trial, it should be moved to Boise, she said.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson has said he opposes moving the trial. He has argued that the case has received national and international attention so taking it away out of the county would not affect a potential jurors’ familiarity with the case.
The two sides are scheduled to argue their positions at an Aug. 29 hearing.
Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University in nearby Pullman, Washington, is charged with fatally stabbing four students – Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, sometime in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022.
Kaylee’s father, Steve Goncalves, told “48 Hours” last year that “there’s evidence to show that she awakened and tried to get out of that situation,” saying “she was trapped” based on the way the bed was set up.
Police arrested Kohberger six weeks later at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was spending winter break. Investigators said they linked Kohberger to the crime using DNA found on a knife sheath at the scene, surveillance videos and cellphone data.
Kohberger has maintained his innocence. His defense lawyers have said in court documents that he was out driving alone the night of the killings, something he did often.
His trial is tentatively set for June 2025.
It will be up to Judge John C. Judge to decide whether it remains in Moscow, with a population of 41,000, or moves 296 miles south to Boise, with a population of 236,634.
“Latah County, Idaho is a small, tightly knit community; based on survey results it is a community with a prejudgment for conviction and death sentence,” Taylor wrote. “Some of the major employers in the community are people connected to law enforcement and the University of Idaho.”
Earlier this year, Taylor argued in court that prosecutors were withholding information from the defense team, claiming that Latah County prosecutors have not provided a full video that allegedly shows Kohberger’s vehicle by the residence where the four students were killed. Taylor said that the defense has only “received parts of” the video, which is described in the probable cause affidavit that was used to arrest Kohberger, and said that the video did not have sound.
Goncalves’ family said in the spring that they were frustrated by how long it has taken the case to progress through the judicial system.
“This banter has been going on for 17 months. Then once you get a hearing, you have a hearing about the decision that was made at that hearing before the last hearing and there needs to be another hearing,” the family said in a statement. “This case is turning into a hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and delayed decisions.”
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