The Idaho murder suspect is making a mockery of our justice system.
And the system itself is playing along.
How can this be happening? Will anyone think of the families? The survivors who live in a suspended state of anguish?
Fourteen months after Bryan Kohberger was arrested for the savage murders of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus home, his trial has been delayed yet again — until March 2025 and, perhaps, even later.
This is outrageous. Clearly Kohberger’s public defender is seeking to delay by any means necessary.
But why is the prosecution going along? And why is the judge allowing this?
At yet another preliminary hearing on Wednesday, prosecutor Bill Thompson did not push back as Kohberger’s lawyer Anne Taylor requested that the trial start next year — despite stating that the prosecution has gone through 95% of the evidence.
Fourteen months after Bryan Kohberger was arrested for the savage murders of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus home, his trial has been delayed yet again — until March 2025 and, perhaps, even later.
How can this be happening? Will anyone think of the families? The survivors who live in a suspended state of anguish? (Above) Victims; Kaylee Goncalves (second from left), Ethan Chapin (center), Xana Kernodle (center, right) and Madison Mogen (on shoulders). Survivors; Dylan Mortensen (left) and Bethany Funke (right)
Taylor told Judge John Judge that she wasn’t even sure she could be ready by summer 2025.
‘I have a ways to go’, she said, telling the judge she needed time to interview witnesses and experts and to go over the evidence that the prosecution has already turned over.
Taylor has been Kohberger’s lawyer from the beginning. What has she been doing all this time? How hard could it be to locate witnesses in the biggest murder trial of this young century?
Taylor has also asked for a venue change, complaining that the local jury pool has been tainted by ‘extensive, inflammatory’ publicity.
Know who didn’t get a venue change, despite a similar argument? Harvey Weinstein.
Yet Taylor’s request will be considered, and it requires yet another hearing, this one scheduled for May 14.
Delay, delay, delay.
Perhaps this trial should be moved. Judge Judge — now that’s a name for a kangaroo court — seems unwilling or unable to push this trial along in the muscular, determined, and timely manner it deserves.
This latest pushback is yet another act of sadism, one that the 29-year-old Kohberger is doubtless relishing.
On Friday, families of two of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle, issued a blistering statement.
‘We want to start healing, we do’, they said. ‘We want to find justice and try to move on from this horrible tragedy so please, please start making some decisions, get to work and quit playing the delay game’.
It’s inconceivable that these families have been reduced to begging — for months now. Consider that OJ Simpson, the accused in one of America’s most high-profile homicide cases, went to trial just six months after his arrest.
On Friday, families of two of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle, issued a blistering statement. ‘We want to start healing, we do’, they said. (Above) The family of Kaylee Goncalves leaves Latah County Court on November 13, 2022
Perhaps this trial should be moved. Judge Judge (above) — now that’s a name for a kangaroo court — seems unwilling or unable to push this trial along in the muscular, determined, and timely manner it deserves.
At yet another preliminary hearing on Wednesday, prosecutor Bill Thompson did not push back as Kohberger’s lawyer Anne Taylor (above) requested that the trial start next year — despite stating that the prosecution has gone through 95% of the evidence.
‘It’s gut-wrenching how slow everything has to go’, Kaylee’s mother Kristi told KHQ in November. ‘Why does this have to be so drawn out? . . . I can’t believe this is how it works’.
Neither can we. This case may be the greatest example, writ large, of an upside-down America: The victimized are further made to suffer as the defendant — swiftly indicted by a grand jury, a mountain of evidence against him — gets the white-glove treatment by a cowed criminal justice system.
To wit: The families begged for the off-campus house, the crime scene, to remain intact until after the trial.
The defense argued it should be torn down. So did the prosecution. The home’s owner gave it to the University of Idaho after the murders, but university president C. Scott Green — whose family owned the house from 1967 through 1973 — ordered it demolished in December 2023, thirteen months after the murders.
Talk about callous disregard for the victims and their families. In the most smug and supercilious manner, Green overrode the families’ wishes to say, simply, that he knew best.
‘While we appreciate the emotional connection some family members of the victims may have to this house’ he said, ‘it is time . . . to allow the collective healing of our community to continue’.
How disgusting. How condescending to state, publicly, that the parents and siblings of these four young students — Goncalves, Kernolde, Ethan Chapin, and Madison Mogen — were misguided by what Green minimized as mere sentimentality, their emotionality.
That house was evidence. It’s impossible not to imagine a jury wanting to walk through it.
‘My daughter was murdered in that house’, Kernodle’s mother said. ‘There is no way they should be destroying any evidence’.
The families begged for the off-campus house, the crime scene, to remain intact until after the trial. The defense argued it should be torn down. So did the prosecution. (Above) The King Road home was demolished on December 28, 2023
‘My daughter was murdered in that house’, Kernodle’s mother said. ‘There is no way they should be destroying any evidence’. (Above) Investigators from the Idaho State Police remove bloodied mattresses, bed frames and other possessions from the crime scene
Kernodle spearheaded a Change.org petition. The Goncalves family issued a lengthy Facebook post ‘to stop this madness’.
‘PLEASE STOP THE DEMOLITION OF THE KING’S ROAD HOME’! they wrote, adding that the multiple trial delays they had endured — and this was as of December — were intolerable.
‘The court in this matter has delayed long enough’, they wrote. ‘This case has to move forward’!
Indeed. If Kohberger has an alibi witness, as he claimed — where is he or she? Why, fourteen months later, has this person not materialized?
Why is it taking so long for the defense attorney to gather Kohberger’s cell phone records?
In high-profile murder cases such as these, it does not take long for search warrants to be executed, and cell phone providers almost always cooperate with law enforcement swiftly.
Here’s what we know:
Kohberger’s cell phone pinged in the vicinity of the house at least 12 times in the six months leading up to the murders.
His vehicle was captured on multiple surveillance videos in the area on that same night.
DNA found on a knife sheath at the crime scene links Kohberger to the murders.
He lived just miles from the crime scene.
His behavior, as a criminology major who worked as a teacher’s assistant, was disturbing enough to get him fired — days before he was arrested.
Dateline reported that Kohberger broke into the residence of a female student with whom he was friendly. He used that break-in as a pretext to install security cameras in her home — cameras he used to spy on her.
‘PLEASE STOP THE DEMOLITION OF THE KING’S ROAD HOME’! they wrote, adding that the multiple trial delays they had endured — and this was as of December — were inexcusable. (Above) 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho on December 27, 2023
On Instagram, he followed three of his victims – who he did not know, and who did not know him. Two weeks before the murders, he messaged one of the girls multiple times, to no avail.(Above) Madison Mogen (left) and Kaylee Goncalves (right)
If Kohberger has an alibi witness, as he claimed — where is he or she? Why, fourteen months later, has this person not materialized? (Above) Xana Kernodle with Ethan Chapin
After the murders, Kohberger’s own sister began to suspect he was the killer. Dateline reported that members of his family were so alarmed they searched Kohberger’s car, which he himself had cleaned with bleach.
After his arrest, police discovered Kohberger had several photos of one of the murder victims on his cell phone.
‘He had more than one picture of her’, a source told People. ‘It was clear that he was paying attention to her’.
On Instagram, he followed three of his victims – who he did not know, and who did not know him. Two weeks before the murders, he messaged one of the girls multiple times, to no avail.
Finally, Kohberger has displayed nothing but contempt in court, refusing to enter his own ‘not guilty’ pleas. The judge had to do that for him.
And this most dangerous suspect attends his hearings without handcuffs or law enforcement surrounding him.
It all adds up to a small-town court system that looks laughable, pathetic, cowed by this most hardened criminal.
And one, unforgivably, that ignores not just the surviving family members, but the two students who survived Kohberger’s home invasion that night.
What about justice for them? Who will advocate for their rights to a speedy trial — to make sure that witnesses can’t claim memory loss, or that evidence doesn’t go missing, or that public outrage subsides?
It’s long past time that the judge Judge take these factors into account.
If he can’t confidently preside over this most consequential trial, he should recuse himself, or allow it to be moved to a district that can administer true justice.
‘It’s like screaming into a void’, the Goncalves family said last November. They were speaking about the decision to tear down the crime scene, but they may as well have been speaking of their treatment throughout this entire farce.
‘Nobody is listening, and everybody tells you how sorry they are . . . but the families’ opinion isn’t a priority’.
If there is to be any justice, Judge Judge — and the prosecution — should take heed.
