A lawyer for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four Idaho college students in 2022, wants to move his upcoming capital murder trial out of the county where it occurred last November — as well as have an outside jury pool.
“A fair and impartial jury cannot be found in Latah County owing to the extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity, allegations made about Mr. Kohberger to the public by media that will be inadmissible at his trial, the small size of the community, the salacious nature of the alleged crimes, and the severity of the charges Mr. Kohberger faces,” his lawyer wrote in a new court filing just publicly posted.
Kohberger’s lawyer says enlarging the jury pool within Latah County “will not do anything to overcome that pervasive prejudicial publicity” since the local population is too small and close-knit “to avoid the bias in the community” towards their client, and so they need a jury from elsewhere, too.
In this June 27, 2023, file photo, Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom for a hearing at the Latah County Courthouse in Moscow, Idaho.
Pool/Getty Images. FILE
Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at nearby Washington State University, 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.
After a six-week hunt, police zeroed in on Kohberger as the suspect, arresting him at the end of December 2022 at his family’s home in Pennsylvania. He 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.
A trial date has not yet been set.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.