Years after Idaho students stabbed to death, judge eyes 2025 trial for suspect

It could be another year or more before a man accused of the 2022 stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students goes to trial.

A judge and lawyers discussed Thursday starting Bryan Kohberger's trial in June 2025, nearly three years after the killings shocked the small college town.

Judge John Judge of Idaho said he wanted to set aside two weeks for jury selection, two months for trial and two weeks at the end for sentencing and other matters if Kohberger is convicted .

“I think we're already about 13 months away from arraignment, and I think at this point … we're getting to a point of diminishing returns,” the judge said after sending a proposed timeline to attorneys last Friday .

Lawyers for both sides generally agreed with the schedule.

A motion to move the trial from Moscow, Idaho — the small college town where the students were killed — has been filed until August. Kohberger's lawyers fear the publicity will prevent a fair trial in Latah County.

Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University near Pullman, Wash., faces four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.

They were killed in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, in a rental home not far from the University of Idaho campus.

Police arrested Kohberger six weeks later at his parents' home in Pennsylvania, where he was spending the winter break.

Investigators said they linked Kohberger to the crime using DNA found on a knife sheath at the scene, surveillance video and cellphone data.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys have said in court documents that he was driving alone the night of the killings, something he did often. They also plan to call a witness using cellphone and cell tower data to show that on the night of the deaths he did not drive east of the main Pullman-Moscow highway.

Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted.

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Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.

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