BOISE, Idaho — Police investigating the Moscow college student homicides did not obtain search warrants in their handling of DNA from the crime scene — the critical, and perhaps only, piece of evidence that ties suspect Bryan Kohberger to the victims — and efforts to block it from his trial hinge on the novel argument they were legally required.
The FBI also ignored internal federal policy in pursuit of the alleged killer when its agents submitted that DNA to a pair of public ancestry databases that law enforcement is restricted from accessing, it was revealed at a court hearing Thursday. Doing so amounts to a breach of private terms of service, and has led the defense in the case to allege constitutional rights violations over the advanced technique that prosecutors acknowledge initially put Kohberger on their radar.
Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s lead attorney, accused police at the pretrial hearing Thursday of intentionally and recklessly sidestepping protocols during their sprawling investigation, in their feverish hunt for the person responsible for violent crime that left four dead. In the process, they broke the law, she said, and also raised defining questions about modern-day policing.
“If society is not ready to support suppression of every bit of our DNA when the government does not have a warrant and searches it, there is no privacy right left,” Taylor told the court at Thursday’s all-day hearing.