Ex-U.S. attorney joins team prosecuting Kohberger

BOISE, Idaho — Idaho’s recently departed U.S. attorney has joined the prosecution team in the case against Bryan Kohberger, the man charged in the killings of four University of Idaho students in 2022.

Joshua Hurwit will be a special deputy prosecuting attorney for the state in the murder trial scheduled for August, court documents filed last week show. Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson is leading the prosecution team.

Hurwit was a former U.S. attorney for the District of Idaho, nominated by President Joe Biden, from June 2022 until February. He joined the office in 2012 as an assistant U.S. attorney. He stepped down in February before the White House dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies.

Kohberger, 30, is charged with four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, students who were killed in the early morning of Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home near their campus in Moscow, Idaho.

Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked.

Kohberger, who was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks later. Investigators said they found his DNA at the scene.