Bryan Kohberger has an alibi.
That’s what lawyers for the accused quadruple murderer said in a court filing Wednesday, claiming he was “out driving” in order to “see the moon and stars” on the night four University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death at a house near the school’s Moscow, Idaho campus in 2022.
They plan to use cellphone tower data to argue that Kohberger was not at the home in question on the night of the murders, and was instead driving down a nearby road at the time.
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Kohberger, his lawyers wrote, was a nature lover and avid hiker who had recently stopped partaking in those activities due to his busy school schedule—though he relieved stress in a similar manner by going on periodic nighttime drives.
“This is supported by data from Mr. Kohberger’s phone showing him in the countryside late at night and/or in the early morning on several occasions,” Kohberger’s lead attorney, Anne Taylor, wrote in the filing. “The phone data includes numerous photographs taken on several different late evenings and early mornings, including in November, depicting the night sky.”
She added: “Mr. Kohberger was out driving in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022; as he often did to hike and run and/or see the moon and stars. He drove throughout the area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho including Wawawai Park.”
Prosecutors, however, have a different story to tell.
They allege Kohberger, a criminology student pursuing his Ph.D. at Washington State University, broke into the Moscow home on Nov. 13, 2022 and stabbed to death four college students: Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21.
The 28-year-old faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, crimes which, if he is convicted, could carry the death penalty.
