[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
New evidence has been revealed in the case against alleged killer Bryan Kohberger. He’s accused of slaughtering four University of Idaho students in an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho. The evidence against him seems staggering… but this may give room for reasonable doubt!
During a bombshell pre-trial hearing, according to the US Sun, Kohberger’s defense team revealed for the first time on the record that detectives found blood at the crime scene that doesn’t belong to any of the victims — nor to Kohberger! WHOA! Huh??
Specifically, Kohberger’s attorney Anne Taylor revealed in court that one unknown person’s blood was found by investigators on a handrail inside the home when it was searched right after the killings. Then investigators found a second unidentified blood sample on a glove left just outside the house.
Related: HUGE Idaho Murder Trial Update — Bryan Kohberger’s Defense Scores Big Win!
DNA hits didn’t come back on either sample when cops ran ’em, so they still don’t know to whom the blood belonged. They just know that it isn’t from the four people murdered at the University of Idaho off-campus home on that fateful night in November of 2022 — slain students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin (all pictured above during happier times). And it doesn’t belong to Kohberger, either.
Kohberger, a 30-year-old former graduate student in criminology at nearby Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks after the murders and accused of committing the atrocities. But now, his lawyer is going into overdrive to try to get him off of the murder charges at his forthcoming trial that will take place in August.
See, it’s not just about giving alternate ideas to the jury — it’s about the whole case stemming from the blood!
Per the news outlet, Taylor argued in court that the original arrest warrant against Kohberger from December of 2022 ought to be thrown out due to the new blood evidence. The accused killer’s case, in a nutshell, is that the two sets of mystery DNA suggest Kohberger may not have committed the crime at all, since someone else must have been there. Therefore the arrest warrant was thus based on bad info! Huh.
Prosecutors didn’t dispute the blood findings during the pre-trial hearing, either. That’s a big deal, because it means the defense could very well bring it up again during the trial! You know, “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and all that…
But in the end, a judge turned down Taylor’s request to throw out Kohberger’s original arrest warrant, instead determining that the probable cause for cops securing the warrant in the first place was tied to other pieces of evidence found at the scene — specifically Kohberger’s confirmed DNA present on the sheath of a knife left at the house.
During a back-and-forth about that, when Taylor tried to claim the court should toss the arrest warrant and thus grind the entire case to a halt, Ada County District Court Judge Steven Hippler challenged her by pointing out that the DNA on the sheath would seem to tie Kohberger to the scene regardless of the other mystery blood.
Per the Idaho Statesman, Judge Hippler said:
“How does that [the mystery blood], even if disclosed, preclude a finding of probable cause when there’s a DNA match between the DNA on the sheath and Mr. Kohberger? Isn’t that probable cause every day and twice on Sunday?”
To that, Taylor responded that Kohberger had “absolutely no connection” to any of the victims. (Well, except that he seemed to be stalking them on social media AND in real life, right?) But also, because there was no blood of his elsewhere in the area around him when cops searched — like, in his car — he allegedly wasn’t involved. She argued:
“There’s no blood in his car. He wasn’t connected to that house, to the people in the house.”
Still, after Judge Hippler pointed out that the presence of the knife sheath in the house is kind of a big deal, Taylor relented:
“I mean, that’s the ultimate question that will be before a jury: what does a knife sheath at a scene mean?”
And to that, Judge Hippler fired right back:
“If you’re killed with a knife, that probably means a lot.”
And with that, Kohberger’s side lost their pre-trial motion trying to toss out the original arrest warrant. Welp!
HOWEVER!!! This mystery blood could end up proving to be a serious impediment to the prosecutor’s case come August if Taylor is able to plant seeds of reasonable doubt in the minds of jury members. In that way, in due time, this could truly turn out to be the biggest bombshell of them all if it goes how the defense wants it to go…
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[Image via Kaylee Goncalves/Instagram/Ada County Sheriff’s Office]
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