Bryan Kohberger’s defense grill leads Moscow PD detective in Idaho student murders

Two days of hearings on defense motions in the quadruple murder case against University of Idaho student suspect Bryan Kohberger ended with no official decisions but revealed new details ahead of his highly anticipated trial later this year.

The defense appeared to confirm early reports that Kohberger was discovered wearing rubber gloves in his parents’ kitchen when tactical officers burst in to arrest him. A key eyewitness was accused of having memory problems, drinking and telling a contradictory story.

The defense confirmed that Kohberger arrived at the school in Pullman, Washington in June 2022. The judge gave both sides a stern warning about what he expects from their expert disclosures.

Judge Steven Hippler said he would hear the arguments in deliberation and issue his rulings later. Here are some key developments from the two-day hearing.

Bryan Kohberger wants to avoid the death penalty with a page from ‘Cult Mom’ Lori Vallow’s playbook

Bryan Kohberger arrives at the Monroe County Courthouse in Pennsylvania before an extradition hearing. (The image directly for Fox News Digital)

Is there an expectation of privacy regarding DNA at a crime scene?

Kohberger’s defense wants investigative genetic genealogy evidence suppressed. However, their arguments did not seem to move the judge.

“I struggle with the idea that DNA has gone to a crime scene, that there is an expectation of privacy,” Judge Steven Hippler told Kohberger’s lead attorney, Anne Taylor.

Later, when she tried to attack other elements of a probable cause affidavit, he returned to DNA as the obvious deciding factor.

Hippler questioned whether DNA even on a knife sheath beneath a victim’s body might not be enough to support probable cause on its own.

Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and two other roommates in Goncalves’ final Instagram post shared the day before the four students were stabbed. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)

Idaho murders: Bryan Kohberger defense strikes credibility of eyewitnesses, memory problems

“Isn’t that every day and twice on Sunday the probable cause?” he asked.

She said not in this case, but experts say the DNA evidence is likely Kohberger’s biggest threat.

“The cell phone records certainly make him look bad, although the fact that the phone was turned off at the time of the murders helps him,” said Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago attorney who prosecuted the case. “But I think the DNA sinks his Bismarck.”

Problems with the eyewitness?

Taylor questioned the credibility of an eyewitness, a surviving roommate who police said saw a masked man after hearing the sounds of a struggle.

Bryan Kohberger’s defense wants a prosecution punished for delays

Attorney Anne Taylor, center, visits the crime scene on King Road with defense investigators on January 3, 2023. (Derek shook for Fox News Digital)

Despite the massacre, she went to bed. Police were not contacted until hours later, when a friend called 911 late that morning from one of the survivors’ phones.

In one of her statements to police, as Taylor read in court, she said the following:

“I don’t know if that was real or if it was just my mind playing with me,” Taylor said. “But from what I think someone was crying in the bathroom.”

Get real-time updates directly on the True crime man

The witness also said she heard a particular victim running up and down the stairs. But according to Taylor, she couldn’t have it because that victim was killed in an upstairs bed.

And a footprint outside the witness’s bedroom door, Taylor said, was not repeated anywhere else in the house. She wondered why it was even included in the police affidavit.

Latah County Assistant Prosecutor Ashley Jennings defended the eyewitness, telling the court that the most important thing that came from her in the probable cause affidavit was her description of the suspect as a white male, slim and tall. And that part of her story has never changed.

DNA from two unknown men

Taylor told forensic police that two others recovered DNA samples from unknown men, one on a handrail and one on a glove outside.

With the source of the DNA in question, she said that Kohberger was not at all related to the crime.

Follow the Fox True Crime team on x

Hippler seemed unconvinced when Taylor tried to invalidate the probable cause used to arrest her client.

Bryan Kohberger enters a courtroom for a hearing at the Latah County Courthouse on June 27, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. (August Frank/Pool/Getty Images)

“His DNA, however, is still on the knife’s edge. That’s the problem, lawyer,” he said.

Countdown to Kohberger’s arrest

Before Kohberger’s arrest at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, the FBI arranged for a local trash collector to grab his family’s trash and deliver it to them for inspection, the court heard.

At the time, the lead detectives in the case were in Pennsylvania but watched as local authorities conducted the tactical raid via a video feed from a drone, Payne testified.

Sign up to get True Crime Newsletter

Jay Logsdon, one of Kohberger’s defense attorneys, questioned the legitimacy of a SWAT raid on the house, saying that police were “sniping” Kohberger around the house. He brought up the arrest of white supremacist mass shooter Dylann Dach, but Hippler cut him off before he could illustrate a point.

“As they stated in their own affidavit, they were essentially watching Mr. Kohberger as he moved around his home via snipers,” Logsdon said. “They were pretty safe, and there was just no reason to slam the doors for a moment after they let out their bear scream.”

Brian Kohberger’s former home at Washington State University pictured on May 21, 2023. It is located approximately 10 miles from the crime scene. (Derek shook for Fox News Digital)

“There are two problems,” Judge Hippler interjected. “There’s officer safety. There’s also evidence concerns.”

Logsdon downplayed concerns that law enforcement believed Kohberger had destroyed evidence.

“The only thing they knew is that he goes room to room and that he has kitchen gloves,” Logsdon said.

“That’s not all they knew,” Hippler said, adding he wouldn’t go into more detail in the open court session.

The home at 1122 King Road where four University of Idaho students were killed on November 13, 2022 is located on December 27, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. (Derek shook for Fox News Digital)

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said it gave law enforcement additional details that were “pretty incriminating” and justified the quick entry.

“They had a no-knock warrant signed by a judge that allowed them to enter Kohberger’s residence, with which they were viewed to ensure both the integrity of evidence and the officer’s safety” exactly after the case .

“Whether they were watching him with snipers or not has no legal imposition. These appear to me as collateral, dilatory tactics by the defense.

“Keep going.”

Kohberger’s shopping list

The defense argued that investigators improperly obtained Kohberger’s Amazon story without a warrant. The prosecution countered that a business report with a third party is not protected by the expectation of privacy.

Logsdon called the U.S. a “Panopticon,” essentially a large prison with few guards and a surveillance state, and warned that privacy rights must be protected.

Bryan Kohberger’s defense attorney, Anne Taylor, left; Elisa Massoth, center; and Jay Logsdon arrive at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, Idaho, on June 27, 2023. (Derek shook for Fox News Digital)

Experts say Amazon is allowed to produce the records voluntarily under established case law.

“This is a step up for the defense,” Stoltmann told Fox News Digital.

The results

Hippler said he has not yet decided whether the defense will get a Franks hearing, but asked both sides to send him a list of available dates within the next three weeks.

Click here to get the Fox News app

Its decisions on most other applications are expected to be announced in the near future. Responding to a defense request that the court either order the prosecutor to turn over additional disclosures to the expert witness or face sanctions, Hippler said both sides should “overdiscuss.”

“A word of caution,” he said. “Sometimes there is dissonance between what an expert believes he or she will speak and what the attorney understands of that expert.”

The King Road house before its demolition. (Derek shook for Fox News Digital)

Kohberger is scheduled to go on trial later this year in the home invasion murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

At the time of the murders, Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminology nearby Washington State Universityapproximately 10 miles across the state line. The victims were all students at the University of Idaho.

Latah County Judge John Richter entered no guilty pleas on Kohberger’s behalf in his May 2023 arraignment. He could face the death penalty if convicted.