Prosecution’s expert witnesses for Bryan Kohberger murder trial kept from public view
State attorneys prosecuting the case against the man charged with murder in the deaths of four University of Idaho students have settled on their group of expert witnesses for next summer’s trial in Boise.
Led by Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, the prosecution met a court-imposed deadline to submit a list of those experts and their credentials last week. But the identities of those included among the group the state intends to call as witnesses in the case against defendant Bryan Kohberger is being kept from the public.
Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler pushed back several deadlines, including the trial start date, after he took over the high-profile capital murder case when it moved out of Moscow to Boise at the defense’s request. Hippler gave prosecutors an extra two weeks to settle on their group of experts before they had to turn over the list to the defense.
Under an agreement to seal between the defense and the prosecution, the state’s expert list was filed through the legal process known as discovery on Dec. 18, according to a publicly available summary of filings in the case. Hippler’s case scheduling order did not require that the expert list be filed under seal, but he also has not unsealed the filing for public consumption.
On Friday, Kohberger’s defense attorneys filed a motion with the court to compel the prosecution to provide written summaries for the testimony of its expert witnesses, the case summary showed. The filing also includes a request for court sanctions.
Late next month, the defense must provide the state with its own group of experts for the trial scheduled to start in August 2025. Deadlines also are in place into the spring for both sides to disclose their witnesses during the case’s rebuttal and possible sentencing phase if Kohberger is found guilty.
In late April next year, the defense and prosecution must each file with the court the names of people they separately plan to call as nonexpert, lay witnesses, which are those people who can testify to facts from their personal experiences. Hippler ordered those lists to be sealed.
Kohberger, 30, is accused in the November 2022 fatal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students at an off-campus home on King Road in Moscow. The victims were Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington.
After a manhunt that lasted nearly seven weeks, Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania in late December 2022. He is charged with five felonies: four counts of murder and one count of burglary. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if a jury convicts Kohberger.
Detectives expected to testify at trial
Through an attorney, the Goncalves and Kernodle families previously raised concerns about the amount of information in the closely watched case that remains out of the public eye leading up to Kohberger’s trial. They cited the importance of keeping proceedings and filings open and available to ensure a fair trial.
“This case is surrounded by secrecy. Everything is either sealed or redacted,” the two families said in a shared statement released in September 2023. “It is important to the victims’ family, relatives, community members and the public that the veil of secrecy be lifted at trial. This not only ensures accountability for all the parties involved, but also helps the public maintain its faith in the justice system!”
Members of the Moscow Police Department were assisted in their sprawling homicide investigation by detectives from both the Idaho State Police and FBI. It is common practice for law enforcement investigators to be among the group of expert witnesses called by prosecutors to testify to their findings at trial.
Included in that group in the Kohberger case is likely to be Moscow Police Cpl. Brett Payne, who wrote the affidavit that identified various pieces of evidence used to justify Kohberger’s arrest based on probable cause. Forensic Detective Lawrence Mowery, also from the city’s police force, filed the majority of the search warrants in the investigation, and is another expert witness the state may call.
Former Moscow Police Chief James Fry, who oversaw the investigation and retired in May, also could be expected to testify. In an interview with the Idaho Statesman shortly after his retirement, he downplayed his potential importance during the trial, however.
“There may be some questions they ask me on decisions that were made,” Fry said, noting that he wasn’t the case’s lead investigator. “You know what you do to support the program and to get things done, and that’s what my role was as chief.”
For the defense, Sy Ray, a cell tower data expert and former police officer in Arizona, is anticipated to be a witness at trial to challenge cellphone evidence that allegedly links Kohberger to the area around the time of the early-morning knife attack. His attorneys already had Ray testify at a pretrial hearing in May.
Lay witnesses at trial are expected to include two roommates at the King Road home who went physically unharmed in the November 2022 homicides. Each sat for numerous interviews with police, according to the affidavit, and helped investigators establish the four victims’ whereabouts during the night of their deaths, with one of them providing eyewitness details about a masked man with bushy eyebrows in the home around the suspected time of the four students’ deaths.