Bryan Kohberger back in court for Idaho murders hearing with ‘surprise witness’: Live

The 29-year-old criminology PhD student is awaiting trial for the stabbing deaths of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, who were killed on November 13, 2022, at their off-campus house in Moscow.

Mr Kohberger’s defense team has claimed he was driving around looking at stars at the time of the murders and argue prosecutors have not handed all the evidence over for the defense to review, filing multiple motions to compel since Mr Kohberger’s arrest in late 2022.

As Mr Kohberger looked on in silence, his public defender Anne Taylor grilled Moscow Police Detective Lawrence Mowery about a series of records related to cell phone data police plan to use in the case.

The hearing also concerned police efforts to look for evidence on Idaho transit cameras and windy.com, a weather site that temporary displays shots from state transit feeds. The detective said that while police consulted these feeds as potential sources of evidence, they didn’t retain anything of value in the case.

Thursday’s hearing ended without a ruling on the motion to compel, and further proceedings are scheduled for 30 May, which will feature testimony from Leah Larkin and Bicka Barlow, two DNA experts called by the defense.

Moscow Police Detective Lawrence Mowery faced tough questioning on Thursday about records suggesting he didn’t save a file as he was analyzing cell phone data related to Bryan Kohberger’s location during the 2022 murders.

The defense this could mean key pieces of evidence may have been deleted or made inaccessible, but the detective pushed back against this framing.

“I didn’t delete anything,” he said.

Rather, he said during his testimony, he briefly used a police system called CASTViz to make a data analysis of Mr Kohberger’s phone records to be presented to a grand jury in the case in 2023.

Even though he didn’t save his work on the analysis he eventually presented to the grand jury, he continued, all the underlying evidence records were still being retained, meaning the purported evidence agianst Mr Kohberger could be fed back into the program and re-analyzed at any time.

Bryan Kohberger‘s defense team extensively questioned Moscow Police Detective Lawrence Mowery on Thursday as part of their effort to scrutinize cell phone evidence police believe ties the student to the location of the 2022 murders.

In one exchange, one of Mr Kohberger’s lawyers asked Detective Mowery about documentation related to the findings from two search warrants for the defendant’s cell phone information, one covering a 48-hour period and another for a longer sequence of time.

The detective revealed that he had come across the documentation about this information yesterday, as he prepared for today’s hearing.

The defense is hoping to make the case there’s additional evidence it should have access to, and paint prosecutors as being witholding of key information.

Moscow Police Det. Lawrence Mowery is on the stand at Bryan Kohberger’s pre-trial hearing.

The defense is attempting to get the prosecution to turn over more evidence related to DNA and cell phone tower data that they believe supports their clients alibi.

The hearing in Bryan Koberger’s case is set to begin shortly.

Kohberger’s defense will present witnesses to testify about the cell phone data they believe will corroborate with their client’s alibi.

Audio is expected to be available on Judge John Judge’s YouTube page.

It will begin at 2:30pm PT/ 5:30pm ET.

Kohberger’s defense is asking the state to hand over evidence they believe will support their client’s alibi that he was driving around and stargazing on the night of the murders.

The evidence reportedly includes dashcam footage, video and audio recordings of a white sedan at the crime scene, and lab testing results – information police used to arrest Kohberger seven weeks after the murders.

On November 2022, four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death at a rental house in Moscow, in a case that shocked the small college town and drew media attention from across the world.

For nearly seven weeks there appeared to be no suspect in the case. Then, on 30 December 2022, Bryan Kohberger – a PhD student in criminology at Washington State University (WSU) – was arrested and charged with their murders.

In August, Mr Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial, postponing the proceedings indefinitely.

Here’s a timeline of the case so far:

Bryan Kohberger became a household name across America when police swooped on his parents’ home in December and arrested him for the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students.

The former PhD criminology student at Washington State University is accused of stabbing to death Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in an off-campus student rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on 13 November.

With the 29-year-old now facing the death penalty in the case, The Independent asks: Who really is Bryan Kohberger?