A set of Pennsylvania locals is expected in court for hearings regarding their obligation to travel to Idaho for Bryan Kohberger’s forthcoming quadruple murder trial.
The 30-year-old, once a Ph.D. candidate in criminology, originally hails from the Pocono Mountains and had journeyed home from Washington State University in the time following the murder of four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022, and leading up to his arrest on Dec. 30 of that year.
As per court documents, seven individuals from Pennsylvania have been called upon to provide testimony. Of these, at least five are being summoned as witnesses for the defense. Each witness will have the opportunity to present arguments to a Pennsylvania judge on why they should not be mandated to travel before being compelled to testify.
Initially, DeSales University professor Marie Bolger had also been summoned to court, but her name was removed from a later filing. In a 2023 interview with the Daily Mail, Bolger said Kohberger was one of her brightest students and one of only two she had recommended for Ph.D. programs in a decade as a criminology professor.
University of Idaho students, from left, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. All four were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. (Jazzmin Kernodle via AP/Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)
Bolger told the outlet she had never met Kohberger in person and had only taught him over email and Zoom during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She helped him work on his graduate thesis, which centered on “how and why criminals commit their crime,” she said.
Kohberger obtained a master’s degree from DeSales before moving on to Washington State University, about 10 miles from the off-campus home where he is accused of killing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
