Bryan Kohberger’s defense questions detective about newly revealed phone records in Idaho murders

Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger appeared in a Latah County courtroom as part of his defense team’s efforts to force prosecutors to reveal more evidence they plan to use in of his next trial.

The 29-year-old criminology doctoral student is awaiting trial in the stabbing deaths of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, campus in Moscow. .

Mr. Kohberger’s defense team has claimed he was driving while looking at the stars at the time of the killings and says prosecutors have not turned over all the evidence for the defense to review, filing several motions to force since the arrest of Mr. Kohberger at the end of 2022.

As Mr. Kohberger looked on silently, his public defender Anne Taylor questioned Moscow police Detective Lawrence Mowery about a series of recordings linked to cellphone data that the police plan to use in this case .

Ms Taylor said her team had only reviewed the files. which captures police work from 2023 by analyzing telephone data, this Wednesday.

“Those were things that had been around for a while, weren’t they?” she asked, later adding, “I want to know every recording that you relied on, every email, every conversation that you relied on to produce this thing.” »

During his testimony, Detective Lawrence Mowery rebuffed the suggestion that police were hiding something.

He described how the records simply show that he was called in the spring of 2023 to analyze phone records using a data visualization program called CASTViz, information that was later presented to a grand jury.

The detective said that even if he did not save his work, the analysis could be quickly recreated.

“I haven’t deleted anything,” he said, adding, “I can open the software, drag in the CDRs (call detail records) and in a very short time they are generated.”

The hearing also covered police efforts to search for evidence on Idaho transit cameras and on windy.com, a weather site that temporarily displays images of the state’s transit feeds. The detective said that while police looked at those feeds as potential sources of evidence, they took nothing of value from the case.

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

The broader evidence at issue in the case reportedly includes dashcam footage, video and audio recordings from a white sedan at the crime scene and lab test results — information police used to arrest Kohberger seven weeks after the murders.

Kohberger’s lawyer said during a hearing earlier this month that prosecutors were withholding evidence that the defense team should know about.

“The state knows very well what it has and what it is hiding from us,” Ms. Taylor said during the hearing. “We don’t know what they’re going to show, but we know they exist.”

The prosecution argued that it was doing everything possible to share the evidence, but was being delayed in part by federal rules, given the FBI’s involvement in the underlying investigation.

“The assertion that we are deliberately withholding information to thwart the defense is completely absurd,” Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said at a hearing earlier this month.

“They (the FBI) ​​have been good partners, but they have their own rules to work with,” he added.

Kohberger has been linked to the murders that rocked the university town of Moscow through DNA evidence, cellphone data, eyewitness testimony and his white Hyundai Elantra.

But his team says their client was driving early the morning of the night of the murders and was in Pullman, which is about eight miles west of the house at 1122 King Road.

“Mr Kohberger was driving early on the morning of November 13, 2022; as he often did to walk and run and/or see the moon and stars,” Ms. Taylor, the defense attorney, wrote in court papers. “He covered the entire area south of Pullman, Washington, west of Moscow, Idaho, including Wawawai Park.”

In May 2023, Kohberger refused to enter a plea in the case, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea.

Earlier this year, the Idaho Supreme Court denied a request by Kohberger to have his grand jury indictment dismissed, citing a biased grand jury, inadmissible evidence and prosecutorial misconduct. But the judge denied the request.

Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

A trial date has not yet been set.