Murder In Moscow: Judge Hippler Shoots Down Kohberger's Alternate Perp Theory

Judge Steven Hippler rejected Bryan Kohberger’s effort to present four unnamed people as possible alternate perpetrators in the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. Three of the individuals had social connections to one or more of the victims, had interacted with them shortly before the killings, lived within walking distance of the King Road house and had previously been inside it. A fourth person had only a passing connection to one victim after seeing her at a store weeks before the murders. Hippler ruled that those facts were nowhere near enough under Idaho law to let the defense suggest to a jury that any of them might have committed the killings. He wrote that there was “not a scintilla of competent evidence” tying them to the crime, noting that they had cooperated with investigators, provided DNA and fingerprints, and had not been connected to the crime-scene samples.

Hippler said allowing the defense to build an alternate-perpetrator theory from those facts would invite “rank speculation” and risk sending jurors down irrelevant paths. He found no meaningful evidence that any of the four had a motive, the means to commit the murders or any actual connection to the crime scene, and rejected the defense’s argument that mere opportunity was enough. At the same time, he did not completely shut down scrutiny of the investigation. Kohberger’s attorneys were still allowed to question law-enforcement witnesses about whether investigators followed up on plausible leads and whether the investigation was thorough, but they could not accuse a specific person of being the killer without first showing the court admissible evidence directly connecting that person to the murders.



to contact me:


bobbycapucci@protonmail.com







Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-moscow-murders-and-more--5852883/support.