The attorneys for Bryan Kohberger, the Pleasant Valley High School graduate charged with killing four University of Idaho students in the brutal knife slayings in November 2022, have filed paperwork in Latah County, seeking a change of venue.

Kohberger, 29, is charged with four counts of first degree murder in the killings of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, each 21, and Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, each 20, in the case that has drawn considerable attention from across the nation and world.

In a court filing made public last week, Kohberger’s public defenders argued Kohberger’s constitutional right to an impartial jury will be infringed upon without moving the trial out of Moscow, Latah County, where the crime occurred.

They are asking the court to move the trial to Ada County, the state’s largest county with more than 500,000 residents and home to the capital, Boise. The Idaho Statesman newspaper reported the public defenders said Ada County has “more than 10 times as many potential jurors than Latah County,” and gives Kohberger the best chance at an impartial jury, the filing read.

Prosecution opposes

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, who is leading the case against Kohberger, has said he opposes moving the trial out of Moscow. The defense’s claims about publicity of the high-profile case don’t support sending it elsewhere in the state, he previously said.

“I don’t think that a change of venue is going to solve any of these problems,” Thompson told the court at a hearing earlier this year. “The state’s position on venue is that the case should be held here. It’s a Latah County case. We believe that we can select an appropriate panel of jurors from Latah County.”

Judge John Judge, of Idaho’s 2nd Judicial District in Latah County, will ultimately determine whether to grant the requested venue change elsewhere in Idaho. He had set a Monday deadline for Kohberger’s defense to file its arguments ahead of a scheduled Aug. 29 hearing on the matter.

Last month, Judge set a start date for Kohberger’s capital murder trial of June 2025. The trial would be held in Latah County, where the crime took place, if the judge does not grant the defense’s request.

Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30, 2022, after being taken into custody at his parents’ home in Indian Mountain Lakes, Albrightsville.

Officials said that Pennsylvania State Police and Monroe County authorities worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigations officials for surveillance in the gated community.

They said they recovered trash from the parent’s home that lab tests later determined the DNA from the trash belonged to a male who could not be excluded from being the father of the suspect who left DNA on the knife sheath.

Kohberger, a criminology student at Washington State University at the time of the killings, graduated in 2018 from Northampton Community College with an associate degree in liberal arts, with a concentration in psychology; and from DeSales University in 2020 with a degree in psychology. He then earned a master’s degree in criminal justice in 2022 from DeSales.

Before moving to Washington, he was a security guard in the Pleasant Valley School District from 2018 until resigning in 2021.