Accused killer Bryan Kohberger has insisted he has “no connection” to the four murdered University of Idaho students and claims DNA from three other unidentified men was also found at the grisly crime scene.
Court documents filed last week by lawyers for the 28-year-old graduate student say DNA from two other men was also found in the off-campus dorm in Moscow, Idaho.
DNA of a third unidentified man was also found on a glove found outside the property on November 20 – a week after the killings, the documents say.
“By December 17, 2022, laboratory analysts were aware that two more male DNAs were found in the house where the deceased were staying and that on November 20, 2022, another unknown male DNA was found on a glove outside the house.” , writes Jay Logsdon, Mr Kohberger’s attorney, in the filing.
“To this day, the defense is unaware of what type of testing, if any, was performed on these samples other than STR DNA profiles.
“Furthermore, these three separate and distinct male DNA profiles were not identified by CODIS, leading to the conclusion that the profiles do not belong to Mr. Kohberger.”
Mr. Kohberger’s defense is fighting the state’s use of genetic genealogy to link him to the brutal murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.
According to prosecutors, the killer left a military knife sheath at the scene of the November 13 stabbing. The pod was found next to Mogen’s body in her bed on the third floor of the college dorm.
The DNA found on the case was later linked to Mr. Kohberger after the FBI matched the sample to genetic genealogy databases and gave local authorities a “lead”.
After picking up rubbish from the suspect’s parents’ home in the Poconos Mountains, a family match – from Mr Kohberger’s father – to the knife sheath was made, according to the affidavit.
Following Mr Kohberger’s arrest on December 30, DNA samples were taken directly from the suspect and returned as a “statistical match,” prosecutors said.
Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom June 9 for a motion hearing regarding a gag order
(AP)
In the most recent court filing, the accused killer’s legal department accused prosecutors of “hiding their entire case from the accused” by trying to keep their method of “genetic genealogy testing” a secret.
“There is no connection between Mr. Kohberger and the victims,” says the file, titled “Objection to State Application for Protection Order.”
“There is no explanation for the total lack of DNA evidence from the victims in Mr. Kohberger’s apartment, office, home or vehicle.”
The filing came in response to the state’s request for a protective order over the methods used to match his DNA to the crime scene.
The defense argues that prosecutors should provide all of this information to Mr. Kohberger and that he has a right to know what prompted investigators to suspect him in the first place.
“Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Kohberger does not accept that his defense does not require this information,” his attorneys argue.
They claim that authorities don’t want the suspect to see “how many other people the FBI has ignored in its investigations,” nor do they want the public to be discouraged from sharing their genetics on such websites, “if they would notice. The government is watching”.
Judge John Judge has yet to rule on the matter.
Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle
(Jazzmin Kernodle)
A separate motion to compel discovery found that Mr. Kohberger’s defense is asking the state to release the DNA profiles of the three other men whose DNA was found at the crime scene.
Mr. Kohberger’s attorneys recently hired two DNA counselors – Bicka Barlow and Stephen B. Mercer – for his defense case.
Last week the judge ruled to keep the silence order in the case – but narrowed its scope and agreed with a media coalition and lawyers for Goncalves’ family that the original order was too broad. He also ruled that cameras would still be allowed in the courtroom, but that this could change as the trial progressed.
Mr. Kohberger is due to appear in court on October 2 for the murders of Goncalves, 21, Mogen, 21, Kernodle, 20, and Chapin, 20, after being indicted by a grand jury on quadruple first-degree murder and one count of burglary became charge.
Mr Kohberger is accused of breaking into an off-campus student residence on King Road in the early hours of November 13 and stabbing the four students with a large military knife.
Two other housemates lived with the three women on the property and were home at the time of the massacre but survived.
Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves pictured together
(instagram)
One of the survivors – Dylan Mortensen – faced the masked killer, who was dressed head-to-toe in black and had bushy eyebrows, as he exited the home after the killings, according to the offender’s affidavit.
For more than six weeks, fear reigned in the university city of Moscow as the accused killer remained at large with no arrests and no suspects were named.
Then, on December 30, law enforcement suddenly raided the home of Mr. Kohberger’s family in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania and arrested him for the quadruple murders.
The motive remains unknown, and it’s still unclear what connection the WSU graduate student had to the University of Idaho students (if any) prior to the murders. The murder weapon – a fixed-blade knife – has still not been found.
A graduate student in criminal law at WSU, Mr. Kohberger lived just 15 minutes from the victims, across the Idaho-Washington border in Pullman.
He had moved there from Pennsylvania and began his college studies there over the summer, having just completed his freshman semester prior to his arrest.
He previously studied criminology at DeSales University – first as an undergraduate and then completed his graduate studies in June 2022.
There he studied with renowned forensic psychologist Katherine Ramsland, who interviewed the BTK serial killer and co-wrote the book Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer with him.
He also conducted a research project “to understand how emotions and psychological characteristics influence decision-making when committing a crime”.
He faces life imprisonment or the death penalty for the murders that have rocked the small university town of Moscow and made headlines around the world.