Prosecutors amassed a mountain of damning evidence and key legal victories against Bryan Kohberger in the weeks before they offered him a plea deal for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students.
Kohberger’s defense pushed for delays, tried to block most of the evidence against him, and even suggested a list of “alternate perpetrators” who they claimed could have committed the killings.
But the judge denied most of their motions, allowing a tidal wave of evidence to be presented against the 30-year-old criminology Ph.D. student at his trial, which was scheduled for next month.
The families of victims Kaylee Gonclaves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, slammed the decision to spare Kohberger a trial — and the chance of death by firing squad.
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The mother of Ethan Chapin, 20, has said they support the plea deal, while Madison Mogen’s family has not publicly weighed in.
Here are the few of the biggest pieces of evidence prosecutors would have used at Kohberger’s trial.
A man with “bushy eyebrows”
One of the two survivors of the Moscow, Idaho attack reported spotting a masked man with “bushy eyebrows” prowling around the house around 4 a.m., when the stabbings occurred.
The description was bad news for Kohberger, whose own brows are replete with wool.
His defense asked Judge Steven Hippler to bar testimony and evidence related to “bushy eyebrows,” calling the witness’s description irrelevant and unreliable.
Hippler denied that motion, as well as a motion to block the survivors’ initial 911 call in which one mentions seeing a strange man in the house.
A white Hyundai
Security camera footage showed a white Hyundai Elantra circling the area around the victims’ house in the early morning hours on the day of the murders and finally speeding away just after 4 a.m.
Police began looking into local Hyundai Elantra drivers and landed on Kohberger, a PhD criminology student at the nearby Washington State University.
