University of Idaho Killings Suspect Bryan Kohberger Has Finally Revealed His Alibi

Following the tragic events of Nov. 13, 2022, in Moscow, Idaho, a murder investigation began for what the Idaho Statesman and other news outlets call the "University of Idaho killings." Police arrested doctoral student Bryan Kohberger just over a month later for the crime, and he has since been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

Kohberger has a pretrial hearing scheduled for June 27, 2024, to address a change of venue request. In the meantime, Kohberger has submitted his alibi to the court. Here's what we know.

According to CNN, Kohberger "was out driving west of Moscow, Idaho, the night of the slayings, his attorney says, and the defense plans to offer a cell phone tower and radio frequency expert to partially corroborate this account." His attorney stated that Kohberger is an avid hiker and runner who frequently does both at night in order to stargaze.

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told PEOPLE that this is a "weak alibi defense, but Kohberger's team needs to come up with some argument to get around the cell phone evidence."

The cell phone evidence in question is the 12 hits from Kohberger's phone to a cell phone tower near the house where the four students were killed. This occurred over several days leading up to the murders. "All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days," per an affidavit.

Due to the overwhelming information that Kohberger's attorney needs to sort through, she has requested a trial date for sometime in the summer of 2025, per COURT TV. Anne Taylor, a lawyer for Kohberger, told the judge that "there is no possible way I can even read or watch everything I have now or react to things that are still coming in if we’re to have a deadline in time for a summer 2024 trial."

To put this in perspective, in January 2024 she received a discovery that had over 9,000 tips obtained by police. She does need time to review everything and build her defense.

There is also "more than 50 terabytes of evidence that had previously been given to them in discovery, explaining that more than 500 hours of HD video can be contained in a single terabyte." The prosecution agreed with Taylor and understands how difficult this is. As such, they have made every possible effort to hand over evidence as quickly as they can.

The judge took this into consideration but had issues with drawing this process out for so long. "When you’re talking about a date so long in the future, potentially, maybe we can get to a point where we can move it more quickly," they said. If convicted, Kohberger could receive the death penalty.