US University of Idaho student murders: Prosecutors seeking death penalty against man accused of slaying of 4 students

Bryan Kohberger is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022. Photo / AP

Prosecutors say they are seeking the death penalty against a man accused of stabbing four University of Idaho students to death late last year.

Bryan Kohberger, 28, is charged with four counts of murder in connection with the deaths at a rental house near the Moscow, Idaho, university campus last November. Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson filed the notice of his intent to seek the death penalty in court on Monday.

A not-guilty plea was entered in the case on Kohberger’s behalf earlier this year. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The bodies of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were found on November 13, 2022, at a rental home across the street from the University of Idaho campus. The slayings shocked the rural Idaho community and neighbouring Pullman, Washington, where Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminology at Washington State University.

From left, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen were found dead in University of Idaho off-campus housing. Young couple Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were also killed. Photo / Instagram

Police released few details about the investigation until after Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in eastern Pennsylvania early Dec. 30, 2022. Court documents detailed how police pieced together DNA evidence, cellphone data and surveillance video that they say links Kohberger to the slayings.

Investigators said traces of DNA found on a knife sheath inside the home where the students were killed matches Kohberger, and that a cellphone belonging to Kohberger was near the victims’ home on a dozen occasions before the killings. A white sedan allegedly matching one owned by Kohberger was caught on surveillance footage repeatedly cruising past the rental home around the time of the killings.

But defence attorneys have filed a motion asking the court to order prosecutors to turn over more evidence about the DNA found during the investigation, the searches of Kohberger’s phone and social media records, and the surveillance footage used to identify the make and model of the car. The motion is one of several that will be argued during the hearing Tuesday afternoon.

Idaho law requires prosecutors to notify the court of their intent to seek the death penalty within 60 days of a plea being entered. In his notice of intent, Thompson listed five “aggravating circumstances” that he said could qualify for the crime for capital punishment under state law; including that more than one murder was committed during the crime, that it was especially heinous or showed exceptional depravity, that it was committed in the perpetration of a burglary or other crime, and that the defendant showed “utter disregard for human life.”

If a defendant is convicted in a death penalty case, defence attorneys are also given the opportunity to show that mitigating factors exist that would make the death penalty unjust. Mitigating factors sometimes include evidence that a defendant has mental problems, that they have shown remorse, that they are very young or that they suffered childhood abuse.