Comment on this story
Comment
The man charged with killing four University of Idaho students plans to allow himself to be extradited to Idaho from Pennsylvania to face the accusations, the public defender representing him said Saturday.
After being arrested in Pennsylvania, Bryan Kohberger, 28, plans to waive his right to an extradition hearing in court on Tuesday, public defender Jason LaBar of Monroe County, Pa., told The Washington Post. If he follows through, it will speed up his removal to Idaho and accelerate the release of information that police say implicates him in the case.
“He’s willing to waive because he’s looking forward to being exonerated. Those were his words,” LaBar said by phone Saturday, about an hour after speaking to Kohberger. “Whether that means he’s innocent or not, it’s implicit in saying he wants to be exonerated that he’s innocent. He didn’t use the word ‘innocent.’”
The arrest of Kohberger, a Washington State University doctoral student, was announced Friday. He is being held in jail in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he is from.
In a case marked by weeks of uncertainty, Kohberger’s location outside Idaho prolongs the public’s wait for information. Though he has been arrested, no details of authorities’ case against him have been made public because Idaho state law prevents the release of the affidavit of probable cause until Kohberger has appeared in court there, local authorities have said.
“The sealed court documents will only become open to the public once Kohberger has been seen in an Idaho court,” Moscow police spokesman Capt. Anthony Dahlinger told The Post by email. “We do not have a timeline right now on when that may occur.”
Those court documents will probably sketch a picture of what police believe happened the night of the killings. They could also provide long-awaited theories about what police believe are the suspect’s motive, plans or connection to the victims — 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle and 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.
Man charged with murder in stabbing deaths of 4 Idaho students
For now, whether Kohberger had any connection to the four victims is unknown. Moscow Police Chief James Fry on Saturday told Fox News that police were still “putting pieces together” and collecting tips, saying information about whether the victims were targeted would come out later.
Kohberger’s arrest comes after seven weeks of investigation with little publicly seen progress. The case gripped the nation’s attention, particularly as questions swirled with little information from authorities in the days after the attack and then as weeks went on without breakthroughs. Some University of Idaho students left campus after the killings and never returned, as professors allowed students to complete classes online. It deeply shook Moscow, a small town that hadn’t seen a murder since 2015.
LaBar, the public defender, said he believed it was probable that Kohberger would be in Idaho within 72 hours of Tuesday’s court proceeding, though authorities have 10 days to transport him under the law. LaBar has notified the district attorney that Kohberger is likely to waive his extradition hearing, and he said it would be standard procedure for Idaho authorities to be ready to transport him to that state after the court appearance.
LaBar, who is assigned to represent Kohberger only in the Pennsylvania extradition proceeding, said he spoke to Kohberger for 20 minutes by phone Saturday afternoon and met with him for an hour in person Friday night. He said he did not discuss the details of the case with Kohberger because no one has seen the criminal affidavit.
Dahlinger, of the Moscow police, said he could not provide information about when Kohberger traveled from Idaho to Pennsylvania or whether he had a connection to any of the victims, saying the information was either contained in the sealed court documents or part of the active investigation.
Idaho students were killed by sharp weapon in targeted attack, police say
The stabbings occurred in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, when the four victims, all asleep in bed, were attacked by someone with a knife. Kernodle, Mogen and Goncalves were roommates in their off-campus house, and Chapin was dating Kernodle.
The investigation went on for weeks as Moscow police asked the public for tips, videos and photos. The FBI became involved, and state police officers increased patrols around the university campus. By Thursday, more than 19,600 tips had poured in.
On Dec. 7, Moscow police asked the public for help locating a 2011-2013 white Hyundai Elantra that had been seen near the house around the time of the killings. On Friday, Kohberger’s arrest was announced, and investigators seized a 2015 car matching the description, Dahlinger said.
Hundreds gathered for a vigil on Nov. 30 for four University of Idaho students killed earlier in the month. (Video: Reuters)
Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, Fry said at a Friday news conference. Some family members of the victims said they felt a measure of relief upon the arrest.
Kohberger completed his first semester in the criminal justice doctoral program at Washington State this month, school officials said in an email Friday. He lives on the university’s campus in Pullman, an eastern Washington town only about a 15 minute drive from Moscow.
His apartment and university office were searched Friday by Idaho authorities, WSU officials said.
A Pennsylvania native, he finished a master’s degree in criminal justice at DeSales University there in June, meaning he had been at WSU for less than a semester at the time of the killings.
Annie Gowen and Marisa Iati contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/12/31/idaho-murder-suspect-stabbing-pa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_national