Bryan Kohberger's Defense Team to Argue DNA Evidence Was Planted at Crime Scene

Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the murders of four University of Idaho students, is planning to argue that the DNA evidence against him was planted at the crime scene by the real killer. This claim was made by prosecutors in a new court filing.

Kohberger is accused of fatally stabbing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022. His trial is scheduled to begin in August, and he faces the death penalty if convicted.

The key piece of evidence in the case is the DNA recovered from the button of a knife sheath found near one of the victims. This DNA ultimately led authorities to Kohberger in the weeks following the murders.

In a motion filed this week, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson stated that Kohberger's defense team will attempt to pin the slayings on someone else.

"Instead of challenging the conclusion that the DNA on the knife sheath belonged to Defendant, the defense's expert disclosures reveal that the defense plans to argue the DNA on the knife sheath does not prove Defendant was ever at the crime scene and the knife sheath itself could have been planted by the real perpetrator," Thompson wrote.

Many of the court documents detailing both sides' plans for expert witnesses have been sealed, so it is not currently possible to compare Thompson's characterization of the defense plans against the defense team's own court filings.

Prosecutors have said that the use of investigative genetic genealogy has matched DNA from the knife sheath to Kohberger's DNA. However, Kohberger's lead attorney, Anne Taylor, has fought to have the IGG thrown out. Her request was denied last month.

Still, prosecutors say they do not intend to refer to the IGG evidence during the trial and will instead tell jurors that a "tip" led them to Kohberger as a suspect.

The latest filing on the defense's potential strategy comes a week after a slew of motions were filed by Kohberger's team. These motions included one to take the death penalty off the table, citing Kohberger's autism spectrum disorder, and another to exclude the terms "psychopath" or "sociopath" from the trial.

Court documents were also released that revealed what the two surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, texted each other on the night of the murders after Mortensen thought she saw a masked man in the house.

The two texted that they were "freaking out" when they couldn't get in touch with the other four roommates in the house. They ended up in the same bedroom and fell asleep until the next day when their roommates' slain bodies were found. A transcript of the 911 call was also included in the documents.

Both surviving roommates are expected to testify at Kohberger's trial, which is scheduled to begin on August 11 and is expected to last more than three months.