By Eric Levenson

(CNN) — The defense team of Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four students at the University of Idaho at their off-campus home in 2022, has requested to move the case out of town, saying in a recent memo that he cannot get a fair trial in Latah County because of “inflammatory” publicity.

But prosecutors rejected that argument in a filing Tuesday, saying the court could take other steps to ensure a fair trial.

The filings are the latest pretrial developments in Kohberger’s quadruple-murder trial, which is set to begin in June 2025.

It’s been a long and winding road since the four students — Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen — were fatally stabbed overnight on Nov. 13, 2022, in a home just off the school’s main campus in Moscow, Idaho. .

Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at Washington State University, was arrested in the murders on December 30, 2022 in his home state of Pennsylvania. A plea of ​​not guilty has been entered on his behalf in May 2023, and his lawyers have indicated that the 29-year-old intends to present an alibi as part of his defence. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty.

The progress of the case has been stalled by a series of motions and hearings that have frustrated the family of one of the victims as well as the judge overseeing the case.

The hearings pretty much fall into a few different buckets. One concerns defense attorneys’ access to evidence, particularly how the prosecution used exploratory genetic genealogy in building the case. A second set of hearings applies Kohberger’s proposed alibi for his innocence. Third, there have been a number of hearings related to a gag order that restricts what the parties can publicly say about the case.

Here’s a timeline of some of the notable developments and decisions of the trial so far:

June 9, 2023: A coalition of media organizations and the family of a murder victim went to court to challenge the gag order is placed on the parties in the case.

23 June 2023: Latah County Judge John Judge denied both requests but issued a revised gag order allowing the parties to discuss topics that do not have a “substantial likelihood of materially harming or otherwise affecting the outcome of the case.”

August 2, 2023: Kohberger’s lawyers said they would use an alibi defense but could not determine his client’s specific location on the night of the murders because he was “driving during the late night and early morning hours.”

“Mr. Kohberger does not claim to be in a specific place at a specific time; at this time, there is no specific witness who can say exactly where Kohberger was at each moment of the hours of the attacks,” his attorneys said in a court filing.

26 October 2023: The judge denied a motion to dismiss the prosecution after the defense argued there was an error in the jury instructions.

December 18, 2023: The judge denied a second motion to dismiss the indictment after the defense argued that prosecutors did not fully follow state rules on jury selection and the jury questionnaire.

February 28, 2024: Defense attorney Anne C. Taylor asked the court to allow three defense experts and others to see investigative genetic genealogy evidence, which has been sealed, to understand the full timeline of how police began focusing on Kohberger.

Genetic genealogy is a practice that blends DNA analysis in the lab with genealogy, such as tracing a person’s family tree. In this case, investigators found a single source of male DNA on the button of a leather knife sheath left at the crime scene, pursuant to an affidavit of probable cause. FBI investigators uploaded the DNA profile to public genealogy websites to search for a match and then sent a tip to investigate Kohberger, according to a prosecutor.

The judge initially declined to give defense investigators expanded access to the investigative genetic genealogy, saying he would rather the experts already approved to see the material justify digging deeper.

April 4, 2024: The judge criticized Kohberger’s defense attorney, saying she ordered phone surveys of potential jurors that could hinder Kohberger’s ability to get a fair trial. However, Taylor said the judge violated her client’s right to due process by ordering a halt to the anonymous investigation without first hearing the defense’s side.

Assess said in April he wants a “hearing at least every month”, noting the importance of “cleaning up” the legal processes.

April 17, 2024: Kohberger’s defense attorneys filed a court document saying they plan to offer a cellphone tower and a radio frequency expert to partially confirming his proposed alibi that he was out driving west of Moscow on the night of the murders.

April 19, 2024: The judge permitted examinations with potential jurors to continue “without modification” after pausing them temporarily.

April 29, 2024: The prosecution asked the court to deny Kohberger the opportunity to add his alibi and to prevent anyone other than the defendant from testifying about his whereabouts the night of the murders.

May 2, 2024: Kohberger’s defense had asked for an upcoming evidentiary hearing with witnesses be made publicwhile the prosecution requested that it be sealed. The judge ruled that it will be closed to the public.

After the hearing, the family of Goncalves, one of the victims, criticized the slow pace of the procedure. “This case is turning into a hamster wheel of motions, hearings and delayed decisions,” adding that they were “incredibly frustrated.”

May 23, 2024: Taylor, the defense attorney, questioned a Moscow detective about the preparation of cellphone visual logs and methods of searching certain videos. The testimony was related to two motions to compel prosecutors to share discovery with the defense, but the contents of the motions are sealed, so it was not clear what they were requesting.

May 30, 2024: The Moscow police detective leading the investigation and a defense expert on cellphone location data testified that the defense has not received any key evidence in the case.

Cpl. Brett Payne, the lead investigator on the case, testified that he and other investigators collected thousands of hours of video surveillance as they tried to find a white Hyundai Elantra linked to the suspect. The videos are saved on various thumb drives, but there is no central inventory of the videos, he testified. He also said investigators did not look at any of the videos of the Elantra heading south from Moscow toward Pullman, Wash., early the morning after the murders.

The probable cause affidavit used in the case alleges that Kohberger drove south toward Pullman after he committed the four murders.

Sy Ray, an expert on cell phone geolocation data, testified that he has not received the underlying AT&T source and the list of nearby cell towers used by detectives to create a map of Kohberger’s cell phone movements. Based on the information he had received, he believed certain statements in the records were not accurate, and he said the missing information could be helpful to the defense.

“Because of the fragmentation of the data, because of the missing data, because of the data that I’m reviewing that is incredibly flawed, anything that’s missing is absolutely beneficial to the defense right now,” he said.

June 7, 2024: After previously limiting who had access to investigative genetic genealogy evidence, the judge decided to allow unnamed “defense investigators” to see the material.

June 27, 2024: The parties enter a test date of June 2, 2025. The judge set aside about three months for the trial, including two weeks for jury selection, eight weeks for the trial and two weeks for potential post-conviction hearings and sentencing.

“This is a good step to set these deadlines and hearings so we can move through this,” he said.

22 July 2024: Kohberger’s defense team filed a memorandum in support of moving the case from Latah County, saying he cannot get a fair trial there “because of the extensive publicity that is ongoing and inflammatory.” The defense proposed moving the trial to Ada County, which includes Boise, about 300 miles to the south. A hearing to discuss the change of venue is set for August 29.

August 13, 2024: Prosecutors opposed the defense team’s motion to change venue, arguing the defense failed to prove Kohberger would not receive a fair trial in the county. “The court should deny the defendant’s motion and instead focus on designing remedies to ensure that a fair and impartial jury can be seated in Latah County,” the prosecutor argued.

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