Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death as they slept in a brutal murder that captured international headlines, waived his right to a speedy trial on Wednesday—postponing the start of his trial indefinitely.
Kohberger’s trial had been slated to begin Oct. 2 in Moscow, Idaho, the same city where cops say Kohberger broke into a home and massacred Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin as they slept.
Before Kohberger’s hearing, Goncalves’ loved ones posted to Facebook that they’re “afraid” Kohberger will now be able to skirt justice for years.
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“We want to get this trial over,” the family wrote to a joint Facebook account, the Idaho Statesman reported. “Just thinking it could be years absolutely kills me.”
There’d been chatter about Kohberger possibly waiving his right to a speedy trial since last week when his attorney, the public defender Anne Taylor, requested an in-person hearing. She was joined in the Latah County courtroom on Wednesday by Kohberger, who wore a white shirt and gray tie.
Evidence has been stacking up against Kohberger this year. DNA was collected from a knife sheath found at the murder scene and returned as a match to Kohberger in June. Kohberger claims the DNA was planted by cops.
Earlier this month, Kohberger provided his much-anticipated alibi for the night of the slayings, and it was was far from airtight. He claimed he was out late the night of the grisly slayings, just driving around in his white Hyundai Elantra that was captured on camera near the near the murder scene in the wee hours of the morning.
Outside the courtroom, disturbing details about Kohberger’s past have continued to surface. Old high school classmates spoke of how he went from being a chubbier kid to being pencil thin before his senior year—turning into one of the school’s biggest bullies in the process.
An old administrator at Kohberger’s high school in Pennsylvania said this week that he was removed from the school’s law enforcement program after a group of girls made a “pretty severe” complaint about him. That administrator, Tanya Carmella-Beers, said the grisly murder accusations against Kohberger “makes sense” now that she looks back at his past.
There’s been more recent accounts of Kohberger’s creepiness, too. A friend claimed he broke into her apartment and moved stuff around to “manipulate” her and to spy on her. His students at Washington State University—where he was a doctoral candidate in criminology—said he was “disheveled” the rest of the semester after the Nov. 13 murders, and his old classmates recalled him bulldozing over women in seminars.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30 at his parent’s home in Pennsylvania. The arresting officers wrote in a report that he was going through his family’s trash with gloves as they burst through the door. Ever since, he’s pleaded his innocence through Taylor, but has remained mostly mum in court. That included him standing silent instead of pleading not guilty at his arraignment in May.
