The man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students will be back in court on Wednesday.
Bryan Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of murder and one count of burglary in connection with the deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. The students were found fatally stabbed in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022.
At the time of the slayings, Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University in nearby Pullman. He was arrested at his parents' home in Pennsylvania in December 2022 after investigators pieced together DNA evidence, cellphone data and surveillance video that they say linked him to the crime.
The judge entered not-guilty pleas on Kohberger's behalf last year. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.
The Latah County Prosecuting Attorney's Office has asked a judge to schedule a jury trial for this summer. A date has yet to be set, but Kohberger's attorney Anne Taylor has asked to move the trial out of Latah County.
A hearing to discuss the motion for change of venue is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Wednesday.
In an order earlier this month, Judge John Judge wrote that the hearing will also cover a discovery cutoff deadline, expert disclosure deadlines as well as deadlines for filing any pre-trial motions. Dates for a trial will also be discussed, the order said.
The hearing will be open to the public and also live-streamed on the court's YouTube channel.
In the motion seeking to change the trial venue, Taylor argued that a fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County due to the "extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Kohberger to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges."
She wrote in the motion that enlarging the jury pool "will not do anything to overcome that pervasive prejudicial publicity because Latah County does not have a large enough population center to avoid the bias in the community."
Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson responded in his own motion that the request is "premature and without sufficient basis."
The defense "has not provided the court with adequate information to conclude that a Latah County jury could not fairly and impartially decide defendant's case," Thompson wrote in his motion.
Meanwhile, KHQ Local News reported that the case against Kohberger has already cost Idaho taxpayers at least $960,000.
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