MOSCOW, Idaho – Bryan Kohberger’s defense will seek to dismantle many parts of the probable cause affidavit police used to obtain his arrest warrant in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, according to a high-profile defense attorney.
Idaho police laid out their case in a 19-page affidavit released minutes before Kohberger’s initial court appearance last week, with allegations including that they found his DNA at the scene, saw his car and his phone circling around the victims’ home and discovering a blood-stained “Vans-like” footprint in the path of the alleged killer.
“In this case, what I noticed is that they have evidence and have tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together,” California-based Lara Yeretsian told Fox News Digital. “But each and every piece of the puzzle seems to have problems and weaknesses and places where a defense attorney can find holes.”
Yeretsian, whose previous clients include Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson, said relying on cell site data could be a miss if prosecutors don’t have something more tangible linking the suspect to the crime scene.
SCHEDULE OF MURDERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
Bryan Christopher Kohberger is seen for the first time since his arrest Friday outside the Monroe County Courthouse in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He is charged with the quadruple homicide in Moscow, Idaho.
(The direct image for Fox News Digital)
“For me, that’s never enough because you could be 10 miles away, 15 miles away, even sometimes depending on the radius you cover,” he said.
As Fox News Digital reported, Kohberger’s apartment is just 10 miles away from the six-bedroom rental house on King Road.
I was studying for a doctorate. at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, which is only about 7 miles from the University of Idaho, where Maddie Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were college students.
Yeretsian pointed to page 15 of the affidavit that says Kohberger’s phone rang at a cell tower in Moscow, but then says police don’t believe he actually entered the city on that date.
“So you’re telling me in an affidavit that that’s unreliable?” she said. “How could a judge trust this information?”
Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, along with the two other roommates of the women in Kaylee Goncalves’ latest Instagram post, shared the day before the murders.
(@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
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However, he added that if prosecutors can prove that Kohberger’s phone is registered to the victims’ Wi-Fi router, that would put him much closer to the scene.
Even so, he continued, due to the short distance between his house and theirs, proximity alone does not prove the allegations.
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Victims of the November 13 massacre at the University of Idaho.
(Instagram @xanakernodle / @maddiemogen / @kayleegoncalves)
“What if I had a friend in the area that I was going to visit?” she asked. “There may be a very innocent reason why he could have been in the area. I don’t know. You don’t know. For us, that’s not enough.”
As for the “Vans-like” footprint found inside the home, that’s a common shoe, he noted.
A woman answers the door at 1122 King Road wearing what appear to be Vans sneakers during a police visit in September over a noise complaint.
(Moscow Police Department)
Readers even pointed out that body cam video shows a woman answering the door in what looks like Vans sneakers when police showed up at the King Road home six weeks before the murders in response to a noise complaint.
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Pat Diaz, a private investigator and former Miami-Dade homicide detective, also disputed the reference to footwear.
“It could have been anyone walking out that door,” he told Fox News Digital, though the sneakers, like Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra, may not be the most practical for the mountain college town.
In addition to two surviving housemates, police also acknowledged that other students arrived at the house before police once the murders were discovered. It’s unclear if police recovered a match program after searching Kohberger’s apartment in Washington and his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested with the help of the FBI on December 30.
Brian Kohberger in a Latah County court for his initial appearance on January 5, 2023
(SWIMMING POOL)
Authorities did not publicly describe the size of the shoe that made the print or acknowledge whether they recovered the shoe.
Judge Megan Marshall issued a gag order on the case last week, barring investigators and attorneys for both sides from publicly commenting on many aspects of the case.
READ THE SWORN STATEMENT (USERS OF THE APPLICATION COME HERE):
However, the limited information made public in the probable cause affidavit, written by Moscow Cpl. Brett Payne will face intense scrutiny from Anne Taylor, the court-appointed Kootenai County public defender to represent Kohberger.
Taylor will likely remove those blocks and try to convince the court that it was insufficient to establish probable cause or that minor errors made the collection of some evidence inadequate, he said.
A surviving housemate, identified in the affidavit as “DM,” told police she saw a masked man with “bush eyebrows” walk past her as she was leaving the back door after hearing a series of alarming sounds. .
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“It’s circumstantial, they’re like building blocks,” Yeretsian said of the prosecution’s case. “No one really saw his face. ‘Buggy eyebrows?’ There are a lot of guys who have bushy eyebrows.”
Diaz also took issue with the description of “bush eyebrows” and the line about the suspect wearing a mask in a previous interview.
“What they had from the eyewitness, it could have been millions of men that fit that profile or that description,” Yeretsian said Tuesday. “It adds a bit, it needs to fit within that description, but it doesn’t really stand out.”
A yearbook photo of Bryan Kohberger in a high school law enforcement class doing push-ups.
(Stephanie Pagones/Fox News Digital)
DM told detectives that he thought he heard Goncalves “say something to the effect of ‘there’s someone here,'” according to the affidavit. He looked through the door, saw nothing and later told police that he thought he heard crying in Kernodle’s room.
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“DM later said that he heard a male voice say something to the effect of ‘okay, I’ll help you,'” the affidavit continues.
She opened the door again and saw “a figure dressed in black clothing and a mask covering the mouth and nose of the person walking towards her.”
She told investigators she saw a male, athletic but not muscular and about 5 feet 10 inches tall, Payne wrote in the affidavit.
“I’m thinking, okay, which one?” Yeretsian said. “I don’t understand”.
DNA found on a knife sheath police recovered from the crime scene is not “narrow enough,” he said, and police have not publicly disclosed a potential motive.
“It’s not one of those things 100%,” he said. “I don’t know how he got there. I don’t know if he ever visited these people. I don’t know if he knows these people.” people.”
Yeretsian said Kohberger’s defense team will likely consider the possibility that other suspects may have wanted to harm one or more of the victims.
“Have you talked to these people?” she asked. “Have you found out what his alibi is? Have you looked at his cell site information? I’m sure the defense is going to ask for all of that.”
Bryan Kohberger was taken into custody by Indiana police on December 15, 2022 before being identified as a suspect in the murders of 4 University of Idaho students.
(Hancock County Police Department)
On the other hand, it is likely that the police have a store of additional evidence that has not been made public. Prosecutors will use it in court against Kohberger, who could face the death penalty if he is convicted of just one of four counts of first-degree murder. He is also charged with felony burglary for allegedly entering the home with the intent to kill.
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Even before the order, Moscow police maintained for more than two months that they would not release any information that could threaten the integrity of their investigation.
“The police don’t want to give everything to the media and the public, because they don’t want one person to know all the facts and then pretend to be a witness,” Yeretsian said. “But here we have large amounts of missing information, and we all know that this could not have been all.”
They will come out more in court.
Kohberger is due back before Judge Marshall on Thursday morning.
