Bryan Kohberger's defense team provided new evidence on a possible alibi this week which included new information on his movement on the night of the quadruple murders.
On Wednesday, Kohberger's defense team led by Anne Taylor, filed a document in court responding to the state's demand for alibi information. The alibi said that the defense team plan to call Sy Ray, a former police officer who specializes in analyzing cell phone data in criminal cases, to serve as a defense witness and dispute some aspects of the cellphone pings included in the probable cause affidavit.
Ray will testify that "Bryan Kohberger's mobile device was south of Pullman, Washington and west of Moscow, Idaho on November 13, 2022; that Bryan Kohberger's mobile device did not travel east on the Moscow-Pullman Highway in the early morning hours of November 13th, and thus could not be the vehicle captured on video along the Moscow-Pullman highway near Floyd's Cannabis shop," the document says.
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 four University of Idaho students were found dead in an off-campus home on November 13, 2022, located at 1122 King Road, Moscow, Idaho.
Floyd's Cannabis shop is an eight-minute drive, or 3.3 miles, from the house where the bodies were found, according to Google Maps.
Kohberger has maintained his innocence in the case and his legal team has continued to seek to have the trial moved out of Latah County.
The affidavit also states that on the day of the murders, Kohberger's cell pinged near his off-campus Washington State University apartment at 630 Northeast Valley Road at 2:42 a.m. At 2:44 a.m., Kohberger was seen on surveillance footage from Washington State University "traveling north on southeast Nevada Street at northeast Stadium Way."
However, in January 2023, Newsweek drove from the apartment to the street mentioned in the affidavit and the trip took just over seven minutes.
Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent, told Newsweek last January that "the defense is going to have a field day with ping information as well as video surveillance because there's going to be disparities [in] time frames."
"It's gonna come down to a battle of the experts on this point and the jury is gonna have to make a decision whether they believe the prosecution's point of view or the defense's point of view," Coffindaffer previously said.
Prior to the alibi information released this week, Kohberger's defense team released details of a survey they conducted of potential jurors and claimed that it showed the jury pool in Latah County was "biased."
However, the prosecution and Judge John Judge criticized the survey results. "This was a total shock to me," Judge told Taylor. "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."
Newsweek reached out to Taylor's office and Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson via email for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more
