Over two years after four students were fatally stabbed in Idaho, the defense strategy emerges

With a new attorney and a series of arguments in court, Bryan Kohberger’s defense team has signaled its plan to challenge the prosecution’s DNA evidence at his coming death penalty trial.

For more than two years since the fatal stabbings of four college students in Moscow, Idaho, a wide-ranging gag order has limited the public’s understanding of the case against Bryan Kohberger. But witness testimony revealed in a recently unsealed transcript of a court hearing and the hiring of a new attorney are the clearest clues yet as to the defense’s main focus: Challenging the DNA evidence. The prosecution’s most important piece of evidence is a DNA sample taken from a knife sheath left at the crime scene. Investigators then used investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG, a forensic field combining DNA analysis with genealogical research, to connect that sample to Kohberger’s family, according to prosecutors. Subsequent DNA testing found Kohberger was a “statistical match” to the sample, leading to his arrest, according to prosecutors. To combat that evidence, his defense team has repeatedly questioned the use, legality and accuracy of the DNA testing done in each step of the process. In a closed hearing last month, testimony from several witnesses raised questions about how investigators had used the DNA sample from the knife sheath to identify Kohberger as a suspect. Further, the defense added Bicka Barlow, an attorney specializing in forensic DNA evidence, to its legal team last week, bolstering their expertise on the topic. Barlow’s hiring was a reflection that the DNA evidence will be crucial, said Misty Marris, an attorney who has closely followed the Kohberger case.