Idaho roommate reaches deal with Kohberger defense team

BOISE, Idaho — A surviving roommate in the University of Idaho student killings will avoid traveling to Moscow for defendant Bryan Kohberger’s preliminary hearing this summer after agreeing to an interview in Nevada with Kohberger’s defense team.

The two sides struck a compromise Wednesday that eliminated the demand that Bethany Funke come to North Idaho from her home state, according to court records obtained by the Idaho Statesman. The deal vacated a subpoena served to her at the request of Kohberger’s attorneys earlier this month.

Kohberger’s defense asserted last month in a court filing that Funke, one of two roommates who went unharmed in the November knife attack, has information that could show he is not guilty. Their client is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the slayings at an off-campus rental home of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Kohberger could face the death penalty if convicted.

Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s public defender, sought Funke’s testimony at a pretrial hearing scheduled to start June 26. Second District Judge Megan Marshall, who is overseeing the case in Latah County, approved the legal demand.

Funke’s Reno-based attorney argued in a legal filing earlier this month that the witness subpoena was improper. Nevada’s law does not permit such an action from an out-of-state defendant, and a preliminary hearing is not the right setting for her client to testify, wrote attorney Kelli Anne Viloria.

“Funke, through her attorney, has agreed to an interview with Idaho defense counsel in Reno, Nev., in lieu of proceeding forward with the subpoena,” read Viloria’s filing Wednesday in 2nd Judicial District Court in Washoe County, Nev.