Bryan Kohberger aimed to point the finger at four other individuals as the possible assassins who invaded a home and brutally killed four students during a horrifying night in November 2022.

The individuals in question included three acquaintances of the victims—Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, and Ethan Chapin—as well as a man who was captured on surveillance video briefly trailing one of the women out of a store weeks prior to the tragic event.

However, Kohberger’s defense encountered a setback when Judge Steven Hippler ruled against allowing him to introduce evidence of these potential alternate suspects to the jury at his trial.

In a damning court order, the judge slammed the defense’s evidence against the four unnamed individuals as ‘entirely irrelevant’ and ‘wild speculation’ – saying that the attorneys had not shown a ‘scintilla of competent evidence connecting them to the crime.’

‘Nothing links these individuals to the homicides or otherwise gives rise to reasonable inference that they committed the crime; indeed, it would take nothing short of rank speculation by the jury to make such a finding,’ the judge wrote.

Now, Kohberger can’t point the finger at these four individuals – who each cooperated with police and were all excluded as the source of DNA found at the scene – as he fights for his life at his capital murder trial in August.

But, according to a legal expert, this Hail Mary legal strategy isn’t over yet.

Criminal defense attorney David Seltzer told the Daily Mail that the judge has left the door open for the defense to still push its alternate suspects theory by picking holes in the police investigation and how law enforcement narrowed in on Kohberger as the alleged perpetrator. And he predicts that Kohberger’s team will use this at trial.

‘So it’s not that they can’t point to alternative suspects. It’s that they can’t admit evidence of an alternative suspect… unless they somehow establish it through cross… or something else that changes,’ Seltzer explained.

While the judge wrote in his order that the defense cannot present evidence of alternate suspects, he ruled that Kohberger’s team will be able to cross-examine law enforcement ‘regarding the reasonableness of its investigation and its follow-up on plausible leads.’

‘The court did grant [the defense] some leeway on cross examination to try and feather that in,’ Seltzer said.

‘It’s not that they can’t get [the alternate suspect theory in at all]… They could argue it during the cross-examination of the detectives and the officers to try to show that there were alternative suspects and to question why the detectives didn’t investigate other suspects.

‘This means the defense will try to ‘show that the detectives did a terrible job in investigating this case and didn’t focus on the right suspects.’

He added: ‘I’m sure they’re going to pound that into the ground.’

Based on this, Seltzer said he expects the defense will still focus its strategy on pushing the theory of alternate suspects while cross-examining witnesses, as well as trying to challenge the validity of the DNA evidence or offering alternate explanations for the DNA.

‘When you don’t have the person standing there with the knife in the kitchen and Colonel Sanders did it – that kind of proof that it was definitive with someone standing over the body – it’s always about looking for a suspect who did it,’ he said.

‘Now, [the defense is] trying to show they have a viable alternative theory other than the defendant.’

While the judge’s order isn’t welcome news to Kohberger’s defense, the trial is far from an open and shut case, Seltzer said.

Instead, he believes the trial verdict is still very much a ‘coin flip’ – and the defense team is likely already eyeing opportunities to appeal down the road.

‘There’s no smoking gun saying the defendant did this because they don’t have him standing over the body. All they have is circumstantial evidence of his DNA,’ he said.

‘It’s a difficult case for both sides to prove in my opinion, because it’s strictly based on DNA science. Juries don’t like DNA science. It’s boring.’

He added: ‘I never want to predict what a jury’s going to do. It’s just one of those things where you just don’t know, but I think this trial is probably easily a coin flip.’

Kohberger is facing the death penalty if convicted.

He is accused of stabbing the four University of Idaho students to death inside an off-campus student home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022.

For six weeks on from the slayings, no arrests were made and no suspects named.

Then, on December 30, 2022, officers swooped on Kohberger’s parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, and took him into custody.

The criminology PhD graduate was connected to the murders after his DNA was found on a Ka-Bar leather knife sheath found next to Mogen’s body at the scene.

Prosecutors also found cell phone records placing him outside the student home multiple times prior to the murders, as well as surveillance footage showing a vehicle matching his white Hyundai Elantra speeding away from the crime scene.

One of the surviving roommates – Dylan Mortensen – also saw a masked white man, dressed in all black and with ‘bushy eyebrows’ inside the home that fateful night.

More than two years on from his arrest and just weeks away from the trial start date, Kohberger’s team made the bombshell announcement that they had identified alternate suspects in the killings.

In a hearing earlier this month, the defense presented its evidence to the judge as the team sought to be able to present the theory to the jury at his trial.

The hearing was sealed – meaning only the defense, prosecution and the judge could attend.

Seltzer said ‘it’s a little bit of a surprise’ that the judge denied the defense’s motion.

But, based on the judge’s comments in the order, he says it’s clear the defense did not ‘have the evidence to meet the standard in Idaho to prove that they have alternative suspects.’

And, even the defense admitted this.

‘Defendant conceded at oral argument that, at this point, his proffer is not sufficient to pursue an alternate perpetrator theory at the outset of trial,’ the judge wrote in the order.

Based on this, Seltzer believes it’s likely the defense attorneys knew they wouldn’t be successful but were ‘fishing’ and ‘throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.’

‘I’ve got to believe that they knew going in that they were going to lose that motion… if they acknowledged in an oral argument that they knew they couldn’t meet the standard, they were just throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks because they were trying to see if they could get it past the court,’ he said.

‘They were really just fishing to try and get something in, but they didn’t have the evidence to do it,’ he added.

Besides the alternate suspect argument, the defense has – unsuccessfully – thrown several other things at the wall as they try to save their client from death row.

Among the failed efforts, the defense tried to get the death penalty taken off the table because of Kohberger’s recent autism diagnosis.

The team also tried to throw out evidence, including Amazon shopping records which show Kohberger bought a knife and sheath matching the murder weapon before the murders.

And, most recently, the defense tried to delay the trial, citing the need for more time to investigate the suspect’s ‘life story’ and publicity from a recent Dateline show – which indicates there may have been an evidence leak.

Despite the series of losses, Seltzer explained that – in a case like this – the defense is likel, in part, filing these legal motions with its eyes on an appeal down the line, in the eventuality that Kohberger is convicted and sentenced to death.

‘On a case like this, you always have to [be looking beyond a possible conviction to the appeal stage]… in a criminal case, you always plan, you always preserve your objections, you always look at the possibilities for an appeal down the road. So it’s something that you have to be cognizant of as a defense attorney,’ he said.

Death penalty verdicts in particular are typically subject to years-long appeals before an inmate can face execution, meaning that – even a conviction – would not mean the end of Kohberger’s legal options.

And so, in this case, all of the judge’s rulings before and during the trial could be open to scrutiny during an appeal process, Seltzer explained.

For example, Judge Hippler’s order on the alternate suspects theory could become a focus of an appeal down the line if an appeals court disagrees with his decision.

‘Every ruling the judge makes is another issue that the defense has to appeal this case,’ he said.

But Seltzer feels the defense ‘misstepped [by] acknowledging it didn’t have the evidence to meet that verdict.’

‘I would have rather they just let the court rule on it without making their own admissions. Then they would have preserved the issue better for appeal,’ he said.

As far as Seltzer is concerned, one possible opportunity for an appeal could come from the judge’s denial of the defense’s motion to delay the trial – based on their argument that they have not had enough time to prepare the case.

‘It’s a very serious issue, and while the court tries to dictate that they had sufficient time to do it, and they’ve done what they needed to do, I think that’s something that could bite the court and come back on appeal,’ he said.

‘It’s not necessarily about the time. It’s the work that’s been done.’

He added: ‘There are lots of different moving factors here that the court is aware of, all parties are aware of. 

‘The criminal case, if he is convicted, doesn’t end his legal issues.’