Bryan Kohberger’s defense team is going to “attack” the DNA evidence against him when he goes to trial in the grisly m*urder of four University of Idaho students — but it still might not save him from a guilty verdict, a trial expert told The Post.
“DNA on itself… it’s not everything,” Court TV anchor Ted Rowlands, who has covered high-profile trials for more than 20 years, said.
“People can leave their DNA on things they have never touched and in places they have been.”
Kohberger, who is 28 years old, is accused of ki*lling Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin in their home off campus on November 13, 2022.
The criminology student at Washington State University was named as a suspect because police say he left DNA on a knife sheath they found at the crime scene.
Rowlands said that he thinks Kohberger’s lawyers will try to get rid of the DNA evidence.
He said, “I think the defense will launch a major assault on the DNA because getting rid of that gives you a chance.”
But this isn’t just DNA. The DNA is supposedly linked to the mur*der weapon, the expert in the case said.
Still, Rowlands, 57, said there are too many other possible links between the accused murd*erer and the four ki*llings. For example, the accused mur*derer was seen driving a white Hyundai near the crime scene soon after the ki*llings.
Kohberger also didn’t have his cell phone on, so it was harder to find out exactly where he was at the time of the murd*ers in Moscow to give him an alibi.
“He thought he’d get away with it if he turned off his phone,” Rowlands said of the person who is thought to have kil*led her.
“They have some hurdles,” he said of the defense team.
When asked why he thought the knife sheath had been left behind at the scene of the bloody slaying, Rowlands said he believes it was a “complete accident.”
“I believe that Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves fought back and whoever was in there with the knife, that’s what [the girls] took. They grabbed it and that’s why it was there. I can’t believe any other scenario that makes sense,” he said.
Rowlands said, “Whoever did this, whether it was Kohberger or someone else, leaving behind his DNA would be the last thing that person would do in the world, especially if it was Kohberger, Mr. Criminology.”
Rowlands, who made a documentary about the famous case, also thinks that the teenager’s studies in criminology will be very important at trial.
He said, “It paints that picture of the ultimate scary boogie man that there’s no way to defend yourself against someone who’s supposedly studying the art of kil*ling.”
“I think that’s basically what they’ll say: that this guy did research on this and kept his word.”
Rowlands also theorized that if Kohberger is the murd*erer, he may have wanted to “test the system.”
“I think he wanted to test the system and act out on whatever internal impulses,” he said.
“I think if he got away with this, that this would have been just the beginning, assuming he actually did this.”
