Dozens of experts revealed for Kohberger murder trial — from forensic experts to Amazon worker

BOISE, Idaho — Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys are again pushing back against the prosecution for allegedly providing the defense with minimal expert witness disclosures, calling them, for the most part, “abysmal,” according to the latest drop of court filings in the 30-year-old’s capital murder case.

These filings build on months of arguments by the defense over allegations that the disclosures, or written summaries of experts’ expected testimony, are vague and in violation of the court’s discovery deadlines. The defense also argued the prosecution’s recent supplemental filings, expanding on their witnesses’ testimony, gave them an advantage to review and tailor their disclosures around Kohberger’s experts.

“The state cannot be allowed to benefit at the expense of Mr. Kohberger’s right to a fair trial, confrontation, due process and assistance of counsel,” lead attorney Anne Taylor wrote. “The state cannot be allowed to ignore Mr. Kohberger’s rights, shirk its duty and get a free pass on the rules.”

She continued in the Monday filing, published on the court’s website Wednesday, that the prosecution “must be held to the limits of its timely disclosures.” The prosecution disputed this and said it has complied with the court’s deadlines.

Kohberger is charged with the first-degree murder of four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in November 2022. The victims were: Madison Mogen, of Coeur d’Alene, and Kaylee Goncalves, of Rathdrum, both 21; and Xana Kernodle, of Post Falls, and Ethan Chapin, of Mount Vernon, Washington, both 20.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if he’s convicted.

Taylor added that the prosecution’s late-disclosed evidence — which she called “slow, disorganized and tedious” — should disqualify Kohberger from facing the death penalty, as the defense isn’t able to review the massive amount of evidence before the trial begins this summer.

The defense also asked 4th District Judge Steven Hippler, who will oversee the months-long capital murder trial, in its initial motion to exclude nearly two dozen of the prosecution’s expert witnesses.

Latah County Senior Deputy Prosecutor Ashley Jennings wrote in a late-December filing that the defense’s request for sanctions was “premature and without merit,” later adding in a March filing that the prosecution was following Hippler’s request to disclose additional information in order to err “on the side of over disclosure.”

Hippler didn’t set more deadlines, Jennings said, and the prosecution was allowed to submit supplemental disclosures within reason, according to the March filing. She said the prosecution contacted its experts to gather additional information, but filing those disclosures doesn’t “magically happen overnight.”

“To suggest that the state gambled with disclosure of expert testimony in order to reap a tactical advantage is unsupported and outrageous,” Jennings said, adding that the nearly five months the defense has to review disclosures is ample.

Prosecutors also seek to admit evidence showing Kohberger purchased a black balaclava ski mask from Dick’s Sporting Goods in Pennsylvania in January 2022, according to another Monday filing that was published Wednesday. It was the “same type of mask described” by one of the female victims’ surviving roommates, who saw an intruder, the prosecution alleged in its filing.

Meanwhile, another attorney from the state’s Attorney General’s Office is poised to join the prosecution. Deputy Attorney General Madison Allen will assist the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office with jury selection, according to a notice of appearance filed Monday.

Attorneys for the defense and prosecution are scheduled to argue a litany of motions, including requests to limit witnesses over alleged discovery violations, at Kohberger’s next hearing. He’s scheduled to appear at the Ada County Courthouse at 9 a.m. April 9.

Starting next month, Kohberger’s hearings will be livestreamed on the court’s website: coi.isc.idaho.gov/docs/Stream/District-4/District-4.html. The hearings will no longer be streamed on YouTube. His trial is set for this summer, with jury selection beginning July 30.

Dozens of expert witnesses identified in recent filings

This recent round of filings also partly released the dozens of expert witnesses the prosecution could ask to testify at the trial. Many of the state’s experts hadn’t been disclosed to the public, as the filing identifying them was sealed, but a separate filing published in January identified a handful of possible witnesses and the subject areas they could speak to, including DNA analysis, cellphone geolocation and crime scene reconstruction, according to previous Idaho Statesman reporting.

And as attorneys for both sides submit more filings, many other experts have been disclosed. Some documents fully publicized the witnesses’ names and occupations, while others only identified them by name or topic areas, leaving it unclear exactly who the prosecution might ask to testify. The Statesman confirmed the names of 25 of the state’s expert witnesses through several court filings. Three experts were only identifiable by last name.

Expected witnesses included various members of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies and nearly a dozen forensic scientists.

The filing also confirmed that Moscow Police Forensic Detective Lawrence Mowery, who has worked on the investigation since the beginning, and Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt, who oversaw the autopsies performed by the Spokane Medical Examiner’s Office, are some of the prosecution’s listed expert witnesses.

Dr. Veena Singh, the chief medical examiner for Spokane County, is another expected expert, as she performed the autopsies on the four students.

Potential experts: Police, FBI agents and an Amazon employee

It’s not uncommon for members of various law enforcement agencies to make up a large chunk of the witnesses called to testify. And Kohberger’s trial likely won’t be any different.

Throughout the nearly eight-week-long investigation that spanned multiple states before Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania, local and federal agencies rushed to aid the Moscow Police Department, which hadn’t seen a homicide since 2015. More than 100 law enforcement personnel assisted the local police force, including the Idaho State Police, the FBI and the Latah County Sheriff’s Office.

“I believe that the third phone call was to the state police, activating them for aid,” Moscow Police Capt. Anthony Dahlinger told the Statesman in 2022. “Our agencies throughout the state, we work really well together.”

Now, roughly two-and-a-half years later, attorneys are ramping up for Kohberger’s upcoming trial, which is expected to last three months. Of the 28 expert witnesses disclosed by the prosecution, 18 work for a law enforcement agency. This includes FBI Special Agents Nick Ballance and Tony Imel, who were identified by the prosecution as potential experts earlier this year.

The defense wants Ballance excluded from testifying.

Ballance, a member of the FBI’s cellular analysis survey team, will speak to the location of Kohberger’s cellphone before and after the quadruple homicides and Imel, a video identification expert, will testify about how he landed on a white Hyundai Elantra — like the one Kohberger owned — as the suspect’s vehicle.

Three other members of the FBI might join Ballance and Imel. Filings identified Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Tanzola, a digital forensics expert based in Pennsylvania; Michael Douglass, a forensic accountant; and Special Agent Rob Hille as possible witnesses.

This wouldn’t be Douglass and Ballance’s first trial in Idaho, as they both testified in the high-profile criminal cases of husband and wife Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell. Over 60 witnesses were called in each of the Daybells’ trials, though many of them overlapped.

Prosecutors allege Kohberger ordered a Ka-Bar knife with a sheath and sharpener from Amazon in a filing last week. Detectives found a Ka-Bar leather knife sheath next to one of the victims at the crime scene in Moscow.

The defense also wants Hippler to exclude Cox from taking the witness stand, arguing that his testimony will be used to show a “very narrow” set of records that don’t provide the full picture of Kohberger’s account or how Amazon works.

Jennings pushed back, arguing Kohberger purchasing a Ka-Bar knife before the homicides and searches on the account for a replacement after the killings makes the evidence “clearly relevant.”

“What is clear from the defendant’s filing, is that the defendant doesn’t like this piece of the state’s evidence and therefore would like to keep this piece of evidence from the jury,” she wrote.

The initial disclosure about Cox’s testimony was a “list of topics,” Taylor said, arguing that specific areas of testimony weren’t disclosed until March and critical information is still lacking.

“These prosecutors blow past deadlines and respond after it is brought to the Court’s attention and after they have the benefit of having Mr. Kohberger’s expert opinions,” defense attorney Elisa Massoth wrote in another filing published Wednesday. “The state’s expert disclosure is three months past its deadline, with trial looming in less than five months.”

Defense wants detective, pharmacologist excluded from expert witness list

Idaho State Police Detective Darren Gilbertson was disclosed as a rebuttal witness by the prosecution, after the defense submitted its own expert who will allege there wasn’t enough time for the killings to have been committed by a single suspect.

To see if one person could have committed four killings in roughly 13 minutes, investigators conducted time runs at the house, the prosecution wrote in a filing last week. Gilbertson will testify that the time runs done by investigators confirmed one person could have carried out the homicides alone.

Taylor, in a motion asking to exclude Gilbertson, called the relevance of his testimony “minimal, at best,” adding that there is a serious risk he’ll confuse the jury. She said that a detective walking through a house that he’s “intimately familiar with in the middle of broad daylight” more than a week after the house had been vacated is a “far, far cry” from what prosecutors believe occurred.

But Jennings cited inequity in the defense asking to offer testimony that one person couldn’t have committed the stabbings in the proposed timeframe, while trying to prevent the state from presenting a rebuttal witness.

“This flies in the face of fairness,” she wrote.

Another expert witness, Boise-based Dr. Gary Dawson, will also challenge the defense’s claims about multiple assailants. He’s expected to testify that the victims’ intoxication levels would have impaired their ability to resist, and for some of the victims, it would have prevented them entirely from fighting back, making it easier for someone to commit the homicides, according to the prosecution’s filing.

Prosecutors previously acknowledged in January that nearly a dozen experts employed by Idaho State Police Forensic Services could be asked to testify to specific lab reports, but the employees themselves weren’t named. Recently published filings identified the 11 forensic scientists of varying experience levels as: Tina Walthall, Stephanie Wilt, Hailey Youngling, Taylor Maichak, Tara Martinez, Jade Miller, Anne Nord, Eric Seat, Rylene Nowlin, Katherine White and Jennie Ayers.

Several experts from outside laboratories were also identified. Two experts are from the National Medical Services, now known as NMS Labs, a clinical and forensic toxicology laboratory with locations in Texas and Pennsylvania. The experts, only identified by last name, ran toxicology panels on the victims.

The defense and prosecution have submitted their expert witnesses, but they have until late April to disclose any nonexpert witnesses who can testify to their personal experiences, typically referred to as lay witnesses. This could include the female victims’ surviving roommates, the two young women who weren’t physically harmed during the homicides.