BRYAN Kohberger's legal team has slammed a lack of DNA evidence linking him to the crime amid two major rulings by a judge.
Kohberger's legal team claimed that no DNA belonging to the four victims was found in the suspect's room in a new filing released on Friday.
6
6
6
Kohberger is fighting four murder charges in the deaths of four University of Idaho students who were found brutally stabbed inside their off-campus home last November.
He maintains his innocence and is in custody preparing to fight the state of Idaho later this year.
Little is known about pre-trial happenings in the case as the judge placed proceedings under a tight gag order that limits information available to the public.
But the judge just filed a new ruling to loosen the gag order and has allowed cameras to remain in court for now, according to recent filings.
read more news stories
Meanwhile, the defense is pushing back on the DNA methodology that linked their client to the horrific crime, new court filings reveal.
DNA was recovered from the sheath of a military-grade knife found near the victims' bodies at the murder scene.
It was on the sheath that officials recovered a sample that was a "statistical match" to Kohberger, court documents allege.
The defense now claims in its Friday filing that no DNA belonging to victims Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, or Ethan Chapin, 20, has been found in Kohberger's apartment, home, office, or car.
Most read in The US Sun
Kohberger's lawyers argue that the state targeted their client without having sufficient evidence to do so.
"Rather than seeing it as some sort of complex tree building that led to him, it appears far more like a lineup where the government was already aware of who they wanted to target," the docs read.
"Rather than have the investigation done by someone blind to that face, the FBI chose to do it themselves.
"This is akin to the police pulling in Mr. Kohberger and five of his cousins off the street and then pointing at him."
Prosecutors said the FBI used genealogy sites and discovered Kohberger's family tree.
“The FBI went to work building family trees of the genetic relatives to the suspect DNA left at the crime scene in an attempt to identify the contributor of the unknown DNA,” state attorneys wrote in their own court filings.
The FBI requested to investigate Kohberger and recovered a piece of trash from his family's home in Pennsylvania.
By comparing the two profiles on the sheath and from the trash, investigators "identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father of Suspect knife Profile," documents state.
“At least 99.9998% of the male population would be expected to be excluded from the possibility of being the suspect’s biological father.”
Read More on The US Sun
The 28-year-old maintains his innocence and declined to submit a plea at a hearing in May, which resulted in the judge entering a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Kohberger's trial is set for October 2.
6
6
6
