Bryan Kohberger’s alibi in Idaho killings to hinge on phone location

Kohberger had already indicated his alibi in court documents — that he was out driving at the time of the 4 a.m. killings. The Wednesday filing by Kohberger’s attorney, Anne Taylor, suggests that he will attempt to prove it through testimony from a cell-tower expert who will claim that Kohberger’s cellphone was in the wrong location to connect him to the killings.

That testimony would contradict prosecutors’ allegation that cellphone data placed Kohberger on a highway driving away from the town where the killings occurred that night.

Kohberger, 29, is accused of fatally stabbing 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle and 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves in their off-campus home in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Authorities searched for the killer for nearly seven weeks, a drawn-out hunt that captured national attention and set the neighboring college towns of Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Wash., on edge.

Authorities arrested Kohberger, a criminal justice student at Washington State University in Pullman, at his family’s home in Pennsylvania at the end of December. He was later indicted by a grand jury.

Kohberger has maintained his innocence. He pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder and one count of burglary in May. Attorneys are barred from speaking about most aspects of the case under a judge’s order.

Kohberger was accused of the crime after being linked to DNA on a button snap of a knife sheath left at the scene, according to court records. Prosecutors also seized other items from Kohberger’s home and car and alleged that his physical attributes matched a rough description of the intruder given by a surviving roommate.

In addition, authorities said cellphone records showed that Kohberger had been near the victims’ off-campus house at least 12 times in the months preceding the killings. On the night of the killings, Kohberger’s phone was tracked leaving his residence just before 3 a.m. before it stopped reporting to the network, authorities alleged in the criminal affidavit.

A car matching Kohberger’s was seen on surveillance footage passing the victims’ house four times, and was seen speeding away about 15 minutes after its last arrival at the house. Less than half an hour later, Kohberger’s phone began reporting to the cell network again, placing him on a highway traveling from Moscow back to Pullman, according to the affidavit.

The testimony from the defense expert Kohberger plans to bring in will show, the new filing by his defense attorney said, that his mobile device did not travel on that highway. Instead, he will claim Kohberger “was south of Pullman, Washington and west of Moscow, Idaho on November 13, 2022.”

Taylor said in the filing that Kohberger frequently went for nighttime drives after starting graduate school to hike, run or “see the moon and stars” and was doing so that night.

The next hearing in the case is set for May 14. A trial date has not been set.