Lawyers for Bryan Kohberger — the man accused of stabbing to death four Idaho college students in November 2022 — plan to use analysis of cellphone tower data to show he was not at the home where the killings occurred at the time police believe the crime happened, according to a new court filing.
Kohberger, a one-time Ph.D. student charged in the murders, plans to challenge the prosecutor’s case with expert analysis of cellphone tower data, his lawyers said in a court filing made public Wednesday.
His lawyers argue their analysis shows Kohberger was not only not at the King Road home where four students were found stabbed to death in Nov. 2022 but that he was driving elsewhere.
“Mr. Kohberger was out driving in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, as he often did to hike and run and/or see the moon and stars. He drove throughout the area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho,” Kohberger’s lead attorney, Anne Taylor, said in the filing.
Prosecutors have alleged that in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger broke into an off-campus home and stabbed four University of Idaho students to death: Ethan Chapin, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
Kohberger, who at the time was a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, was indicted in May 2023 and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
