Idaho student murders: Bryan Kohberger’s attorney accuses FBI of interfering with a witness
Rachel Schilke
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Legal counsel for murder suspect Bryan Kohberger is accusing the FBI of interfering with a witness.
Kohberger, 28, a criminology graduate student from Washington State University, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the deaths of four University of Idaho students in November 2022.
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University of Idaho seniors Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, junior Xana Kernodle, and freshman Ethan Chapin, both 20, were discovered stabbed to death in the girls’ off-campus home on Nov. 13, 2022. Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend, and Mogen and Gonclaves were best friends.
In a recent hearing, Kohberger’s main lawyer, Anne Taylor, said that witness Gabriella Vargas, a genetic genealogy expert, “was visited by two FBI agents and interrogated about her testimony.”
“That, in our view, impacts Mr. Kohberger’s due process right,” Taylor said, according to court network Law & Crime via Newsweek.
Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson responded to Taylor’s claims, saying that he “reached out to investigators and said, ‘Can you find out what’s going on?'”
Thompson added that FBI agents requested to speak with Vargas because she was possibly questioning parts of her testimony.
Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial on Aug. 23, delaying the trial start date. The trial was originally scheduled to begin on Oct. 2, but Kohberger’s waiver has postponed the trial indefinitely.
Prosecutors announced at the end of June that they will seek the death penalty for Kohberger. Several pieces of evidence led investigators to charge Kohberger with murder, including DNA evidence found on a knife sheath that matched Kohberger’s.
Kohberger’s attorneys called several DNA experts to the witness stand last month related to the DNA found at the murder scene. Vargas had testified about the opt-in and opt-out policies for law enforcement on different genealogy websites.
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When a person opts out, “I should not be able to see that you are a match to my unknown DNA contributor,” Vargas said, via Law & Crime. However, she added that there have been instances when law enforcement can see a person’s profile who opts out.
Vargas said a person who believes they are doing the right thing might use a “workaround” to view that information on GEDmatch.