Potential jurors in the Byran Kohberger murder trial were asked if they knew that university students "lived in fear" until Kohberger was arrested, according to a transcript of a secretly recorded phone call.
Bryan Kohberger's defense team asked nine "reckless" and "outrageous" questions to 400 people in the Idaho county where four students were murdered, according to prosecutors.
A concerned member of the public recorded one of the phone calls and contacted the local district attorney's office to make a complaint, a prosecutor revealed in court.
Kohberger, 29, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in connection with the fatal stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. The bodies of the four University of Idaho students were found in an off-campus residence on November 13, 2022.
Kohberger has maintained his innocence in the case, previously standing silent during his arraignment. Judge John Judge, who is overseeing the case, entered "not guilty" pleas for each of the charges against him in response.
Kohberger's defense team had hired a polling company to assess if people in Latah County, Idaho, had a negative opinion of Kohberger, who has been charged with the murders.
The defense team was hoping that the calls would prove that local people were prejudiced against their client and that the trial should, therefore, be moved to another county.
In asking the questions, they have planted negative opinions of Kohberger in potential jurors' minds, according to prosecutors.
A transcript of the recorded phone call reveals that pollsters asked nine questions about the case to potential jurors.
They include:
- Have you read, seen or heard if Bryan Kohberger was arrested at his parent's home in Pennsylvania?
- Have you read, seen or heard if police found a knife sheath on the bed next to one of the victims.?
- Have you read, seen or heard that DNA found on the knife sheath was later matched to Bryan Kohberger?
- Have you read, seen or heard if Bryan Kohberger owned the same type of car reported seen driving in the neighborhood where the killings occurred?
- Have you read, seen or heard if the cell phone tower data showed that Bryan Kohberger made several trips near the victims' home in the month before the killing?
- Have you read, seen or heard if the university students in Moscow and their parents lived in fear until Bryan Kohberger was arrested for the murders?
- Have you read, seen or heard If Bryan Kohberger said that he was out driving alone on the night of the murders?
- Have you read, seen or heard that Bryan Kohberger stalked one of the victims?
- Have you read, seen or heard that Byran Kohberger had followed one of the victims on social media?
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson told Judge at a hearing last Thursday that the highly prejudicial questions have now been "embedded" with 400 potential jurors. He said that some of the information in the questions is "not even true" and some of it is not admissible in court.
Thompson said that the potential jurors are now "saturated" with that information.
"It's reckless conduct and it's outrageous," he said.
Thompson said he is not accusing Kohberger's lawyer, Anne Taylor, of "drafting these questions verbatim and then saying: 'go out and give these to the public.'" He said Taylor instructed the polling company, who then drafted the questions.
Newsweek reached out to Taylor's office via email for comment on Monday.
Last month, Judge issued an order barring both sides in the case from communicating with potential jurors in the homicide case.
At Thursday's hearing, Judge said the polling "was a total shock" to him.
"Because this is a big deal, and I take it very, very seriously. And I was surprised, OK, that this was happening behind our backs—my back," he said.
He said that the jury may now have been contaminated by the questions.
The judge is due to hear a further hearing to decide how to remedy the jury contamination problem.
Correction 04/17/24 05:48 a.m ET: This article was corrected to show that the eight question potential jurors were asked was whether they had read, seen or heard that Kohberger had stalked, rather than stopped, one of the victims.
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Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
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