Definitely dna from the scene, possibly from the defense attempts, maybe he tried to clean up before leaving in the bathroom. I think they will easily find dna from the victims in the car. I thought that about the college too, it’s the whole economy of that area. But no way they take the chance of arresting, then having him walk. They must have a lot. nothng strange about driving back with him, except unless he was living under a rock, his known socially awkward son, is driving the saught after car, and residing 7 miles from the scene.
I was thinking that if dad didn't know for sure getting in the car with his son for 3 days was a good way to find out if something seemed funny.
Definitely a possibility. Maybe they suspected him, could even be that they helped tip the fbi. Heard an interview with a former friend that they were genuinely great people. His sister apparently is a mental health therapist.
He has two sisters both working as therapists. The mom is a school counsellor. The reports have said that he was a focus of the investigation from a day or two before Christmas and that the FBI actively tracked him as he was moving cross country from Washington to Pennsylvania. That he has a public defender representing him in the extradition case is also notable since often the parents hire a good lawyer. All of this said, the authorities still need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the guy. Weird people stand out and often get targeted for prosecution.
It’s crazy to think that they only had him on the radar this recently (apparently left wsu dec 16, they tracked his trip). I was convinced they had someone in mind most of the time. But then again, I also thought this was much more close and personal.
When did they first mention the white Elantra? My guess is his name came up as one of the few registered owners of such a car in proximity to the crime scene. Assuming they didn't have the plate number that fact is circumstantial but probably put him on the suspect list. Then the genealogical DNA cross-check further matched him. Again circumstantial since they didn't already have a sample of his DNA at that point. Finally they got his DNA in Pennsylvania out of the trash and presumably got a 99.999% match. The interesting question is what form of evidence provided the sample at the crime scene? It was a party house and if they manage to tie him to the house prior to that evening's events they better have blood matching his. A skin cell sample from a handprint or off of a bathroom doorknob isn't going to fulfill reasonable doubt if he was in the house recently at a party.
I think the Elantra was mentioned first week of December, he left dec 16. Going to be interesting, where they found the dna. Such a trafficked house, had to be something pretty solid. I don’t think we will hear about that until trial though.
The DNA evidence will be part of the discovery process. My guess is we will hear about it as soon as the defense gets their hands on it - this assuming that it is in some way challengable. This is such a high profile case that I wonder whether it will break some new ground on due process. The guy is getting tried already in the court of public opinion. It occurred to me that I cannot think of another case that has presented this much of a social media challenge to the authorities. The closest might be the Boston Marathon Bombing, which had a wide social media following pre-trial.
They are gonna get him back to Idaho, show him how fucked he is with all the evidence and he will plead down to avoid the death penalty. Just my thoughts. I kinda hope that happens because the trial would be brutal for the families and the jury
You'd think they have enough evidence already since they charged him with 1st degree murder. Except their actions afterwards are not totally congruent in my mind. For instance, why did the chief ask for tips to still come in etc. if they already have the evidence? Also, IDK if you heard that the car he drove back to PA with his dad was apparently stopped a couple times by cops--this seems like a hope that he would make a run for it but if they know he's guilty there's no need for that game. Also they have to explain how the girls were on the phone at like 2.30am and apparently his car is seen in a video at 3:45am--at least some people were asleep when killed so they have to fall asleep that fast, the guy has to get into the house or his already there and he's driving away at 3:45. Also, if there's no forensic evidence in that car, its a problem imo. I'm not a lawyer maybe one of the guys here is or knows somebody--here's my question: To what extent is it an issue if evidence collected after the indictment is used to convict a person? As a researcher myself its problematic to look for evidence afterwards to support a conclusion you've already made because you're no longer impartial--that is, at this point the cops will ignore exculpatory evidence and only collect evidence that supports their case. If I was a defense attorney I would explain this to the jury and put reasonable doubt on all post-indictment evidence. Not sure if I'm barking up a wrong legal tree though.
I'm not a lawyer either. I think the answer to your question though is the focus on the death penalty. They have the DNA evidence to convict him of the crime. But when it comes to sentencing the defense usually parades up a bunch of character witnesses saying what a nice boy he was and just made a mistake. They are looking for a counter to that. But idk just my guess there
It's definitely not a guaranteed conviction at this point unless the authorities have conclusive evidence from the house or get some from the car. There's all kinds of pressure on the local authorities to close the case and if the prosecution looks like a rushed job to do that the chance of failure goes way up. The venue will likely have to be moved because impartial jury out of a small college town will be close to impossible. So it will be distant jurors in play and it will be simpler to pick apart the investigation from the defense's standpoint. Here are the primary impediments to a conviction in my opinion: 1. The crime scene was a known party house and excluding the defendant from being lawfully in the house at some point recently will be hard if not impossible. 1a. If you can't exclude the defendant from lawful presence at the crime scene at some point in the recent past then the types of evidence collected at the scene that are incriminating narrows. 2. If the car is clean, absent of evidence related to the victims or crime scene, it will be nearly impossible to use the presence of the car near the crime scene as evidence against the defendant. This is because in a crime of this nature the odds on the car being completely clean after the fact are basically zero. If the prosecution wants to argue that the car is relevant they would also need to explain how a bloody defendant drove it away without creating an evidence chain. 2a. If the defendant had the car detailed the day afterwards or was seen buying cleaning materials specifically related to blood evidence that would be circumstantial evidence but would still suffer in the absence of actual evidence. 3. No murder weapon has been found. It may look like a strong case at this point but it's probably weaker than we see from an outside perspective.
all of that could be true but if they have defensive DNA indicators, like his DNA under the fingernails of multiple victims, hes cooked. You can't explain that away. The only hope would be the supreme court someday saying that you can't use DNA evidence processed against third-party websites but that's outside this trial obviously and they move slow as molasses
Ok, rethinking this a bit. If they had direct DNA then the process of looking for a suspect earlier on would have been more directed. They could have done the genealogical match and started narrowing suspects based on proximity to the crime. Effectively they'd have been looking for living relatives of the genealogical family tree. The white Elantra would have helped enormously in narrowing the search but they wouldn't have spent as much time asking for help after they found it because all the other pieces were in place.
Scary photos coming out of the court appearance in Pennsylvania. The guy is looking directly at the cameras, not head down and moving forward. That looks like somebody who wants the attention. I know better and I'm drawing inferences from essentially meaningless trivia. Imagine what the trial in the court of public opinion looks like right now.
If its a absolute hit then yeah, they got him. But supposedly they had DNA evidence from cousins or something in public databases--these can't be direct matches but probably rely on some percentage of common markers. If this is all they have without anything else I'm not sure that's enough.
Ya--I happen to think he's acting in ways that look guilty but that's not the name of the game in the courts and I wouldn't want it to be.
The pop-analysis of Kohberger is getting out of hand. Everybody is trying to sell ads off of him and the wilder the theory, diagnosis, etc the more clicks they're getting. I think the prosecution is going to have a very tough haul on this one unless they have rock-solid evidence.
