It has come to light that the suspect in the stabbing killings of four University of Idaho students may have had access to a “crime lab” containing security camera live streams and videos from police bodycams.
The violent killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Ethan Chapin on November 13 are allegedly the work of Bryan Kohberger, a student at Washington State University pursuing a PhD in criminology.
A “Complex Social Interaction (CSI) Lab” is maintained by the program Kohberger is enrolled in, giving students access to live feeds from security cameras and crime scene material gathered by police departments.
The lab works with law enforcement organizations to enable the analysis of evidence used in investigations using software technologies.
The University has denied that Kohberger had access to the materials because students must apply in order to use them. However, a source close to the situation indicated that people would enter the building without following the usual procedure.
A killer having access to such information would be like “allowing a wolf in the henhouse,” the unnamed person, who purportedly works for the university, told Fox News, denouncing the worth of the resource created at the lab.
“I don’t think that any amount of the promising science that has come out of this department is worth the dangers of putting a wolf in the henhouse,” they declared.
They are all preoccupied with crime and criminals, as anyone with a Ph.D. in criminology would have to admit, but occasionally this preoccupation goes too far and draws this type of crazy.
Prosecutors will attempt to convince the judge at Kohberger’s preliminary hearing in late June that they have sufficient evidence to support the criminal accusations.
During a status conference on Thursday morning, Bryan Kohberger gave his consent to relinquish his right to a prompt preliminary hearing. Indicted on four counts of first-degree murder and burglary, the 28-year-old graduate student at Washington State University has not yet entered a plea and is awaiting word on whether the high-profile case will result in the death penalty.
He came in court wearing an orange t-shirt and slacks and responded to the judge’s question about whether he understood his rights during the about five-minute session with succinct one-word responses.
Kohberger was willing to give up his right to a prompt preliminary hearing, which would have required that it take place within two weeks, according to Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s attorney, who spoke to Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall. According to Taylor, the hearing itself will probably last four or five days.
Taylor said to the judge, “He’s willing to waive timeliness to enable us time to get discovery in the case and be ready.
The preliminary hearing might be postponed until June or perhaps July, according to Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson.
Marshall anticipated the preliminary hearing would run five days and set it for June 26 at 9 a.m.
Nearly half of the university’s students fled Moscow, Idaho, for the supposedly safer environment of online classes as a result of the killings, which left the small town inconsolable and terrified.
After several weeks passed with no recognized suspect and scant information being shared, Kohberger, a graduate student studying criminology at the university only 10 miles (16 km) away, was apprehended at his parents’ house in eastern Pennsylvania on December 30. Last week, Kohberger was returned to Idaho.
The prosecutor will be required to present sufficient evidence before the magistrate judge during the preliminary hearing to support the felony charges, and the defense will attempt to expose weaknesses in the prosecutor’s case to argue that the charges should be withdrawn.
A district judge will preside over the case if the magistrate judge determines that there is sufficient evidence to support the accusations. If so, the case will be “bound over” into Idaho’s 2nd District Court.
After that, Kohberger will be given the chance to make a plea. He will be moving the case closer to a trial if he enters a not guilty plea. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled if he enters a guilty plea.
After Kohberger enters a plea, Thompson has 60 days to decide whether or not to seek the death sentence.
