The attorneys for Monroe County native Bryan Kohberger, charged in connection with murdering four University of Idaho students last year, are pulling out all of the stops in trying to form a defense for the 29-year-old suspect who graduated from Pleasant Valley High School and DeSales University in Center Valley, Lehigh County. He was a graduate student and teaching assistant at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, at the time of his arrest last December. Pullman is about a 10-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho, where the killings occurred.

Kohberger has been charged with the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, all of whom were awarded bachelor degrees posthumously at the university’s commencement exercises in Moscow a few months ago. In addition to the murder indictments, the Latah County grand jury also handed up a true bill charging Kohberger with one count of burglary.

Kohberger, who “stood silent,” meaning that he did not enter a plea when he was arraigned, automatically was accorded a “not guilty” plea by the presiding jurist, John C. Judge. He is being held without bail pending his trial. Prosecutors have indicated that they will seek the death penalty.

He could become the first to be executed under Idaho’s recently passed firing squad law. House Bill 186 was signed into law by Republican Gov. Brad Little and took effect on July 1. The firing squad alternative would be used when the drugs for a lethal injection are not available, an ongoing problem for the many states which use this method of execution. This alternate method could also be used in the event lethal injections are found to be unconstitutional.

Kohberger was taken into custody at his parents’ home in the Indian Mountain Lakes development near the Carbon-Monroe border last Dec. 30 during his university’s semester break and voluntarily agreed to be extradited to Idaho.

In the latest maneuver from Kohberger’s attorneys, they maintain that he has an alibi for the time that the four students were killed, but he has no corroborating witnesses or evidence, and on its surface the alibi seems to be beyond flimsy.

Defense attorney Anne Taylor claims that Kohberger was driving alone late that night, something he did often. Although the defendant cannot come up with proof, he insists that he was nowhere near the off-campus residence where the students were killed.

Originally, the attorneys indicated to the court that Kohberger had an alibi but provided no details. The prosecution cried “foul” and petitioned the court to be made aware of the alleged alibi, prompting the disclosure of the late-night drives.

In the court filing, Taylor writes, “Mr. Kohberger has long had a habit of going for drives alone. Often he would go for drives at night. He did so late on Nov. 12 and into Nov. 13, 2022.”

According to court documents, statements by a surviving witness and other evidence leads investigators to believe the killings occurred between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. on Nov. 13.

Attorneys who serve as my sources have been following the Kohberger case closely and agree that the alibi in this case not only is flimsy because of its lack of specifics and no corroboration, they referred to it as a “Hail Mary” along with other legal maneuvers to either delay or move the trial from Latah County. Another recent such attempt was the petition by his attorneys to drop all charges. Of course, this will fail. Another “Hail Mary.”

The presiding judge has already postponed the original trial date by 37 days to the current Oct. 2, but I predict with more efforts on the part of Kohberger’s attorneys to throw up roadblocks in the prosecution’s case, the trial may not start until sometime in 2024. An early indication is that Kohberger wants to testify on his own behalf, which my legal sources say is a “terrible idea” in a capital crime case.

The Kohberger case has been the subject of two Dateline NBC investigations. Each two hours long, they were dominated by speculation by criminology experts who have been following the case. There was also the disclosure that Kohberger had ordered an online purchase of a knife and sheath, not unlike the sheath that was found at the murder scene, and documentation of the numerous times that Kohberger’s car had been seen on camera footage in the vicinity of the residence where the students were killed. Since then, investigators say they have matched Kohberger’s DNA to that found at the scene of the murders.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI| tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.