Arguments were heard at Ada County District Court on Jan. 23 and 24 regarding the quadruple homicide that took place in Moscow in 2022. On Thursday, defense attorney Anne Taylor cast doubt on the testimony of the deceased’s roommate who survived the attack. Taylor shared information regarding law enforcement’s interview with said roommate.
Taylor relays that the roommate had told police she’d been drinking, which had not been disclosed to the judge at the time.
“There are two references to not remembering. And a couple of days later in the third interview, there are references to not remembering being drunk,” Taylor stated. “A statement, ‘I don’t know any of it, like half this stuff I don’t know if it was a dream or if it’s real.’ And credibility is really, really important when this person was relied on in the investigation.”
On Friday, Bryan Kohberger’s team argued that search warrants in the King Road homicides were too broad, and that evidence discovered under said warrants should be suppressed.
Kohberger’s defense team also argued for the suppression of DNA evidence, cell phone data, Amazon and Apple accounts and other evidence acquired at Kohberger’s parents’ Pennsylvania home where he was arrested in December of 2022 before being extradited to Idaho.
Elisa Massoth, one of Kohberger’s defense attorneys, stated that said warrants were nonspecific and broad, and should not be considered valid in these proceedings. She argued that a warrant must be specific enough so as to leave nothing to the executing officer’s judgement.
She also claimed that accessing Kohberger’s electronics was a violation of privacy, a claim that was refuted by Latah County Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings, who said the warrants were indeed specific to the crime and location and that the warrant regarding Kohberger’s cell phone detailed what types of data could be searched by investigating officers.
Kohberger’s team also challenged the nature of the search warrant itself, with attorney Jay Logsdon arguing that the raid on the Kohberger’s Pennsylvania home was unlawfully carried out without a local warrant, and that it was performed as a no-knock warrant in which police did not announce their presence prior to breaking down the door.
Bill Thompson, a Latah County Prosecutor, countered this claim and asserted that there had been three valid local warrants proceeding the search. Judge Steven Hippler further noted that police not knocking and announcing their presence is not atypical and is often done for their own safety and to avoid suspects destroying evidence.