Family Of Slain Idaho Student Slams Bryan Kohberger's New Alibi Claim

The family of one of the University of Idaho students brutally stabbed in an off-campus rental house in 2022 slammed a new alibi statement from the accused killer in a scathing statement provided to HuffPost Thursday.

Bryan Kohberger, 29, claimed in a new court filing that he was on one of his customary nighttime drives “to hike and run and/or see the moon and stars” — miles away from the off-campus rental house where Xana Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were staying when they were killed on Nov. 13, 2022.

Kohberger’s attorney said a cellphone data expert will testify that her client’s “mobile device did not travel” where the four students were staying, and therefore it could not have been in the car captured on security video that authorities believe was driven by the killer.

There’s a major flaw in this argument, Goncalves’ family said: According to police records, Kohberger’s phone was turned off in the crucial hours before and after the killings.

The alibi is “in direct conflict” with thearrest affidavit, the family said, which states that Kohberger’s phone was turned off between 2:47 a.m. and 4:48 a.m. Investigators believe the killings took place between about 4:15 and 4:30 that morning.

“So if the Defendant was driving around and there is cell phone information that he was in a different place it would be either before or after the times of the murders. Hence not really an alibi,” the family wrote in the statement.

At the time of the killings, Kohberger was a Ph.D. student in criminology at Washington State University’s Pullman campus near the Idaho border, and lived just 10 miles from the victims’ house.

In a previousalibi statement — a document required by state statute in Idaho