Idaho prosecutors want to use Kohberger college paper on crime scenes at murder trial

Sally Krutzig, The Idaho Statesman on Mar 27, 2025

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BOISE, Idaho — New court documents reveal that a college assignment written by the man accused of murder in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students could be used as evidence against him at his trial in Boise this summer.

The document filed Monday by the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office shows that the prosecution is seeking to include a paper written by Bryan Kohberger during his time at DeSales University titled “Crime-scene Scenario Final” as evidence.

The paper, which was included in the court filing, “would be introduced to show Defendant’s knowledge of crime scenes,” the prosecutor’s office wrote.

Kohberger, 30, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the killing of four University of Idaho students at an off-campus home in Moscow in November 2022. He is also charged with one count of felony burglary. The victims were Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, and Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21.

Kohberger holds criminal justice degree

At the time of the killings, Kohberger was studying criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University and had recently completed his first semester as a Ph.D. student.

Before attending WSU in Pullman, about 9 miles west of Moscow, Kohberger graduated from DeSales University in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with a master’s in criminal justice in May 2022, according to Carolyn Steigleman, associate vice president of marketing and communications.

The assignment included by prosecutors was submitted to a DeSales professor on May 5, 2020, as part of an upper-level criminal justice class, according to the document. In his assignment, Kohberger spent 12 pages describing how he would properly process a crime scene if he were a member of law enforcement.

Kohberger discussed a specific case involving a 35-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in a trailer park. It is unclear whether the case was real or fictional.

The professor to whom Kohberger submitted the paper did not immediately respond to the Idaho Statesman’s request for comment.

Pages of Kohberger’s paper included subsections pertaining to entering the home for documentation; the crime scene sketch; using the so-called strip-search method as the most comprehensive way to examine the scene; collecting items of evidence, and packaging evidence for a forensic laboratory; chain of custody; inventory receipts; outreach to other agencies; and writing reports.

The prosecutor’s office said it would use the paper to show Kohberger’s knowledge of crime scenes. Prosecutors indicated they might point to some aspects of the case described by Kohberger that are similar to the University of Idaho case, including the use of a knife, collection of DNA and use of surveillance videos.

“Does she have defense wounds, are there hesitation marks on her related to the knife, or are there multiple stab wounds?” Kohberger wrote about the weapon. “... The knife should be examined for latent fingerprints to be logged separately; same with the coat hanger, doorknobs around the house, upended furniture, cell phone, and virtually any physical evidence big enough to grab.”

Previous Kohberger assignment studied emotions during crime

It’s not the first time one of Kohberger’s DeSales assignments has been made public following the crimes.

Shortly after his arrest, a now-deleted Reddit post indicated that a user who said he was Kohberger invited people who had committed crimes to answer questions as part of a university research project.

User Criminology_Student posted on Reddit in 2022, identifying himself as DeSales student Bryan Kohberger and saying he was seeking participants in the study “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime.”

“In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” the post said.

The user said the study had been approved by the DeSales Institutional Review Board and provided real DeSales email addresses, including those of two criminal justice professors, for those with questions about the research. It then listed email addresses for the research team, which included Kohberger, identified as “student investigator,” and two principal investigators, both of whom are current faculty members.

Murder trial in Boise

Kohberger’s capital murder trial is scheduled to begin this summer at the Ada County Courthouse, with jury selection beginning July 30.

Attorneys for both the defense and prosecution are scheduled to argue over a litany of motions that have been filed in recent weeks, looking to exclude or introduce specific evidence at Kohberger’s next hearing. He’s scheduled to appear before 4th District Judge Steven Hipper at 9 a.m. on April 9.

Starting next month, Kohberger’s hearing will be livestreamed on the court’s website: coi.isc.idaho.gov/docs/Stream/District-4/District-4.html. The hearings will no longer be streamed on YouTube.

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