Murder suspect in brutal slaying of Idaho college students wins venue change

Idaho's Chief Justice Richard Bevan signed the order putting District Judge Steven Hippler in charge of the case. Latah County District Judge John Judge agreed with the defense’s request to move the trial because a larger courthouse might be required for the throngs of journalists and spectators expected to attend.

The defense contends that "extensive, inflammatory pretrial publicity” has tainted local opinion. The attorney for the murder suspect, accused of killing four students at the University of Idaho in 2022, had already attempted to have all charges against Kohbeger dismissed in 2023 on "grounds that the Grand Jury was misled as to the standard of proof required for an indictment."

Prosecutors did not want the trial moved, preferring the courthouse in Moscow that sits adjacent to the jail cell where Kohberger has sat without bail since police arrested him at his parents’ Pennsylvania house.

Kohberger is accused of killing four students who were renting off-campus housing in Moscow, Idaho. He allegedly went to the dwelling at 4 am on Nov. 13, 2022, and proceeded to stab to death 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves as well as 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

Kohberger was a PhD student in criminology at Washington State University at the time of the murder. If convicted, he could be sentenced to death.

Goncalves' family has opposed the change in venue but are approving of a new judge.

"What was the point of the non-dissemination order, private meetings, closed door tactics, allowing the Defendant to be dressed in a suit for every televised hearing etc … if not to keep the trial in Latah County?" the family said in a statement last week after the judge ordered the change in venue.

"As victims' families you are left to just watch like everyone else and really you have little rights or say in the process and at the same time you are the most invested in the outcome."