Idaho Murders
Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial days after his lawyers said they needed more time to prepare. No new date has been set
Bryan Kohberger — the main suspect in the deaths of four University of Idaho students — will have to wait a bit longer to see his day in court. The 28-year-old waived his right to a speedy trial during court on Wednesday, allowing more time for his legal team to prepare. The trial had been scheduled to begin on October 2 but will now be postponed indefinitely. No new date has been set.
Kohberger, a former criminology graduate student at Washington State University, is accused of stabbing University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, to death in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. It took police six weeks to find and arrest a suspect, during which extended silence from authorities drove public interest and speculation about the case. A grand jury indicted Kohberger on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary for illegally entering a home with the intention of murdering people.
The trial delay comes after prosecutors announced in June that they would seek the death penalty — and Kohberger’s legal team asked for more time to prepare. It also marks just another step in what has already been a winding trial. In May, thanks to an allowance in the Idaho court system, Kohberger and his attorney took the rarely used option of “standing silent” rather than entering a plea, causing the judge to enter a “not guilty” plea on his behalf. In August, for the first time since Kohberger’s May arraignment, his attorneys finally gave a potential alibi for his whereabouts the night of the murders, saying Kohberger was allegedly alone on a late night drive that happened to be the same night Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Chapin died.
“Mr. Kohberger is not claiming to be at a specific location at a specific time; at this time there is not a specific witness to say precisely where Mr. Kohberger was at each moment of the hours between late night November 12, 2022, and early morning November 13, 2022,” his attorney Anne Taylor wrote. “He was out, driving during the late night and early morning hours of November 12-13, 2022.”