ID - 4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered - Bryan Kohberger Arrested - Moscow # 70

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IMO DM's description of the person she saw is widely vague BUT at the same time a decent piece of circumstantial evidence at the very least. She didn't say it was a 5'2" female, or a 6'8" elderly Asian man, or a set of conjoined triplets attached at the hips. She saw a single man with the very basics of Kohberger's build.

I'm also a little bit curious about the mask she witnessed the suspect wearing. It's quoted in the PCA as "a mask that covered the person's mouth and nose". That certainly doesn't exclude very many types of masks, but that may not be the only description of the mask she provided to LE. For all we know, which is nothing, she could have told LE that the mask is a fabric Covid mask that is blue with black polka dots and has yellow bands that attach the mask over the wearer's ears and she recognized the mask immediately because she's seen it for sale at Target. That's a complete hypothetical but what I'm getting at is there's a possibility, especially if the mask was a Covid-type, that a description of the mask has at least a possibility to further tie Kohberger to the crime. Covid masks were required in many public places over the last few years. Kohberger's classmates would likely be able to describe at least a "type" of mask he may have frequently worn, and perhaps he even always wore the same one (disposable or washable). Again, if DM described that same mask that Kohberger's classmates could describe, that's more circumstantial evidence with ascending or descending importance based on "uniqueness" of the description.

Just MO but it seems likely that the mask would be a Covid-type because that's the least likely of all masks to draw attention anywhere, even while driving in the car. But of course it could be a Donald Trump or a Baby Yoda Halloween mask for all we know. But again, a distinct Halloween mask would offer yet another chance to tie Kohberger via description if he ever wore it anywhere previously on Halloween...
I think the mask was probably coloured black, or at least it would make sense for him to wear a black mask to match his clothing and I think he did plan on that level at least. I like your points about covid masks and their commonality. MOO
 
Everyone is talking like he is some criminal mastermind, psych expert, planning a mass murder.

He lasted one semester under pressure. ONE.

Bundy? One semester. ONE. Another psycho.

It is useless to try to rationalize irrational behavior. Normal people will never "get it" anyway, because it is abnormal and abhorrent.

<modsnip>

JMHO
 
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I think that's the kind of thing that the defense will be looking for in the Discovery Documents.
MOO, I would have thought she would have provided an unsolicited formal witness statement to police (post interview/s) on Nov 13th or the immediate days following. In the PCA, either LE summarised or quoted from that statement, IMO. I feel the writer would have taken care in the PCA not to use words that the witness herself hadn't used in her statement/s and or recorded interviews with LE. MOO
 
Impeaching Own Witness?

snipped for focus @Orange Tabby
Briefly, nope. Why? ID Rule of Evidence 607* is same as Fed rule 607:**
"Any party, including the party that called the witness, may attack the witness’s credibility."

Not so briefly. Why? This explanation re fed rule:
"Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules
"The traditional rule against impeaching one's own witness is abandoned as based on false premises. A party does not hold out his witnesses as worthy of belief, since he rarely has a free choice in selecting them. Denial of the right leaves the party at the mercy of the witness and the adversary. If the impeachment is by a prior statement, it is free from hearsay dangers and is excluded from the category of hearsay under Rule 801(d)(1)...."
" The substantial inroads into the old rule made over the years by decisions, rules, and statutes are evidence of doubts as to its basic soundness and workability...."

Hope this helps.
ETA: @wary
______________________________
*" Idaho Rules of Evidence Rule 607. Who May Impeach a Witness.
"Any party, including the party that called the witness, may attack the witness’s credibility."

** "Rule 607. Who May Impeach a Witness
"Any party, including the party that called the witness, may attack the witness’s credibility."

© 2015-2022 The National Court Rules Committee
Thank you. That certainly clears up that question, IMO.
 
FERPA law protects the privacy and confidentiality of a student's work, so LE would need a search warrant to try to get this information from DeSales University. HIs professors would know that they can't release any of this material, and the university's General Counsel's office would work as the go-between between a faculty member and a warrant to ensure that FERPA and other laws and policies are applied.
Right. Your post got me wondering about privacy rights of student. You are correct with a couple exceptions. Research rat that I am I did a deep dive into Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Never want to do that again; however, basically the student's work can be released to LE with a subpoena and without prior consent if the subpoena asks for contents not to be disclosed. I learned something today because of you @Sundog Thanks.

Found under under FERPA 99.31(a)(9)(I) and (II)

§99.31 Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?​

(a) An educational agency or institution may disclose personally identifiable information from an education record of a student without the consent required by §99.30 if the disclosure meets one or more of the following conditions:
(9)(i) The disclosure is to comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena.
(A) A Federal grand jury subpoena and the court has ordered that the existence or the contents of the subpoena or the information furnished in response to the subpoena not be disclosed;
(A) The student is an alleged perpetrator of a crime of violence or non-forcible sex offense;

 
It is was me, and LE asked me about someone's build, I wouldn't know where to start. If they said "muscular or athletic," that, to me, would be a leading question. "Anything on his face stand out?" Oh yeah, "bushy eyebrows."

Some examples, just speculating, but I assume this would be in the records of LE's interview with DM that will be shared with the defense in discovery.

Edited to extend final thought/sentence.
Couldn't they just get a sketch artist? Let her direct the convo. Example: "tell me about his hair".
 
It’s not about having the murder weapon. Presumably only BK knows what happened to that knife; if he can accurately tell LE where it is, the families can rest knowing the right guy is locked up forever. MOO

And you don't think a conviction will accomplish that?

I respectfully disagree.

A plea bargain would avoid the decades of (mandatory) appeals that attend most capital cases, but it would also be a political liability for the DA, who will have to face the voters eventually:


The DA won't want his next opponent to run on the slogan, "I'll be a prosecutor who doesn't coddle killers!"

Were I BK or his attorney, I would not rely on getting a deal AFTER a jury has convicted him of a capital crime. (Of course, at this point we don't know what the eventual charge or penalty will be, nor do we know the eventual verdict.)
 
There is a lot we don't know and likely won't for a long time. There was mention in the PCA about phone records from the surviving roommates and I would be interested in text messages between roommates and if they shed greater light on how the household noises were interpreted and possible discussion about the intruder.

In my opinion, there is something that occurred in that moment that caused the roommate to freeze in fear that may come out with her testimony or text messages. Did she see the knife or did he speak to her or threaten her in some way she found terrifying?

To be clear I was not criticizing DM or the other survivor in any way! As you so rightly point out, we have no idea what was going on during the delay in calling.

I was merely speculating--while we are waiting for the next court action--as to potential defense strategies. We've all seen how so many people reacted on social media to the delay in calling 911. Some of jurors may have the same skepticism. And, of course, it only takes one...

Were I BK's attorney and DM told an eerie tale about the events on the night of the murder, I would try to deflate the mood she created by pointing out that she wasn't alarmed enough to call for professional help for over 7 hours.
 
Everyone is talking like he is some criminal mastermind, psych expert, planning a mass murder.

He lasted one semester under pressure. ONE.

Bundy? One semester. ONE. Another psycho.

It is useless to try to rationalize irrational behavior. Normal people will never "get it" anyway, because it is abnormal and abhorrent.

<modsnip>

JMHO
Yep. Just another crazy. If he said it was a crime of passion that is probably what the motive. End of story. Nothing but another pathetic delusional monster.
 
MOO it’s very specific.

Thrre is a mystery person behind a curtain, describe that person, the task is to describe their:

Gender
Height
Body build
Notable facial feature if visible

MOO
She was right on each count.

Yes, but gender narrows it down only to 50% of the people in the tri-state (WA, OR, ID) area. If she had said and it turned out to be a woman over 5'10", that would be significant; but with a man over that height, we're still in the 50% range.

I don't have data re body build, but I spent 10 years in college as a student and 15 as a teacher. "Athletic body build" would describe 90% of my students and a significant percentage of the faculty.

We're not really narrowing things down now. We're still at a description that could fit about a significant percentage of the people in the area.

I also have no data re eyebrows, but people "on the ground" there have described Moscow as "largely Caucasian". Bushy eyebrows are more common on people of that racial background.

A conservative formula for the 4 factors DM names--as far as our limited info can tell us--might go something like the following:

.5 x .5 x .75 x .25 = .047 of people in the Moscow/Pullman area, the combined population of which is roughly 60,000. (This is very conservative since the much larger cities of Spokane, Coeur d'Alene and even Boise are within driving distance if the killer were really determined.)

60,000 x .047 = 2,820 males. That's a lot of men DM might have seen at 4:20 a.m. on the morning of the murders.

Hardly what anyone could call a "match". Compare, for example, 2,820 men to the number of jilted ex-boyfriends: 1 or 2. (No former boyfriend is considered a POI, nor should they be. But that doesn't insure a defense attorney won't raise them as possible alternatives.)

Of course, if DM testifies, the prosecutor will want a jury to consider DM's description only in association with other evidence.

But the number of people who turned their cell phones off during the murder, say, actually gives us a smaller number of potential suspects than her eyewitness testimony. The same may be said--again, I am speculating--of the number of cars caught on security cameras in the area of the murder house.

I'm not quarreling with those who believe BK is guilty; I think so myself. I'm just trying to offer a rough approximation of how some of the evidence will be treated by the defense.
 
MOO Her interview with police detectives would have been almost immediate.
Of course, Boxer, you are right. However we were talking about a hypothetical identification of BK: "Yes, BK's the man I saw in our house on the night of the murder."

None of us knows DM has made such an ID, only that she described four characteristics of the intruder she saw.

My point is that if she goes further and actually IDs BK as the one and only man she saw, the defense will make much of her exposure to other images of BK, depending on when she went from 4 factors to an actual ID.
 
I'm not sure posters are being critical per se of DM's description. I take it as fact, that that is what she saw. MOO. For me, at least, I've just been speculating on how the defense might try to discredit the witness if she is called to give evidence about this. I also think the witness description was useful in that it supported evidence LE were finding re BK (per PCA), but LE would have found BK even without the witness statement. MOO

100% agree. In fact, I applaud DM for saying only what she could see and not trying to "embellish helpfully"!
 
In PCA. DM's Description of Intruder's Eyebrows?

snipped for focus @Sister Golden Hair
LE has waaay more evd than set forth in PCA,* written to show basis for ARRESTING the suspect, not as comprehensive, all-encompassing evd. for CONVICTING.

Yes, the bushy EYEBROW issue is subjective to some extent and agreeing that BCK don't "measure up" to the ones you mentioned.

But, a parallel: when a witness --- 5 feet or 5'3 (IDK DM's exact height) --- describes someone as "tall" and the accused is "just" 6 feet, do we dismiss her description as inaccurate, because the accused is not professional basketball height? Or not even 7 feet tall?

BCK may not be nominated for the Bushy Eyebrow Club, but some or many would agree that his eyebrows are bushier than AVERAGE (esp'ly for his age) and would say DM's description is not inaccurate. imo

BTW, ^ post omitted one of the founding members of the Bushy Eyebrow Club: the late Andy Rooney, resident curmudgeon of CBS "60 Minutes" weekly news magazine. Image at link.
imo
__________________________________
FYI, not state-specific to ID:
I hope you're right. and you missed my point. I was not dismissing her description. I was pointing out that it's not that compelling. things like confirmation bias and other faulty logic get in our way. I like to think of things from the defense side. I'm not here to be BK's stalwart supporter. I'm just picking apart what we know and looking for weaknesses.
 
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<modsnip>

She was not identifying anyone, that doesn't apply.

Of course her reaction was spontaneous. She was in shock and did her police interview likely that same day or close to it because LE would be interviewing everyone in that house. No one would be leaving, place would be a locked down crime scene.

There is no evidence she was drunk, no evidence she will see photos and change her story as has been previously asserted.a

She gave her statement and the prosecution and defense have it. Period. If she changes her statement at trial the defense and/or the prosecution will have her read her statement on the stand and address any discrepancies in front of the Jury.

This just happened in a murder trial. A witness on the stand was sometimes saying different things from their police statements and the prosecution had them read their original statement and then address the discrepency. Happens all the time.

People forget exactly what they said and saw, time goes by, memories fade etc....This is why we have official witness statements WRITTEN and even VIDEO RECORDED with the police at the time crimes are discovered.
<modsnip> We're merely speculating on ways the defense might try to undercut her testimony, based only on what we know from the PCA.

EVERYONE agrees there are many things we don't know at this point, including what all DM may have said in her interview with investigators. But EVERYONE here at WS seems to take the account of her evidence in the PCA at face value. We agree she said what she believes she saw; but BK's defense will want to counter what she saw in some way.

Speaking for myself alone, none of our speculations proves that DM's memory of events will be dismissed or even successfully challenged.
 
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Yes, but gender narrows it down only to 50% of the people in the tri-state (WA, OR, ID) area. If she had said and it turned out to be a woman over 5'10", that would be significant; but with a man over that height, we're still in the 50% range.

I don't have data re body build, but I spent 10 years in college as a student and 15 as a teacher. "Athletic body build" would describe 90% of my students and a significant percentage of the faculty.

We're not really narrowing things down now. We're still at a description that could fit about a significant percentage of the people in the area.

I also have no data re eyebrows, but people "on the ground" there have described Moscow as "largely Caucasian". Bushy eyebrows are more common on people of that racial background.

A conservative formula for the 4 factors DM names--as far as our limited info can tell us--might go something like the following:

.5 x .5 x .75 x .25 = .047 of people in the Moscow/Pullman area, the combined population of which is roughly 60,000. (This is very conservative since the much larger cities of Spokane, Coeur d'Alene and even Boise are within driving distance if the killer were really determined.)

60,000 x .047 = 2,820 males. That's a lot of men DM might have seen at 4:20 a.m. on the morning of the murders.

Hardly what anyone could call a "match". Compare, for example, 2,820 men to the number of jilted ex-boyfriends: 1 or 2. (No former boyfriend is considered a POI, nor should they be. But that doesn't insure a defense attorney won't raise them as possible alternatives.)

Of course, if DM testifies, the prosecutor will want a jury to consider DM's description only in association with other evidence.

But the number of people who turned their cell phones off during the murder, say, actually gives us a smaller number of potential suspects than her eyewitness testimony. The same may be said--again, I am speculating--of the number of cars caught on security cameras in the area of the murder house.

I'm not quarreling with those who believe BK is guilty; I think so myself. I'm just trying to offer a rough approximation of how some of the evidence will be treated by the defense.

thank you for laying this out so logically.
 
Yes, but gender narrows it down only to 50% of the people in the tri-state (WA, OR, ID) area. If she had said and it turned out to be a woman over 5'10", that would be significant; but with a man over that height, we're still in the 50% range.

I don't have data re body build, but I spent 10 years in college as a student and 15 as a teacher. "Athletic body build" would describe 90% of my students and a significant percentage of the faculty.

We're not really narrowing things down now. We're still at a description that could fit about a significant percentage of the people in the area.

I also have no data re eyebrows, but people "on the ground" there have described Moscow as "largely Caucasian". Bushy eyebrows are more common on people of that racial background.

A conservative formula for the 4 factors DM names--as far as our limited info can tell us--might go something like the following:

.5 x .5 x .75 x .25 = .047 of people in the Moscow/Pullman area, the combined population of which is roughly 60,000. (This is very conservative since the much larger cities of Spokane, Coeur d'Alene and even Boise are within driving distance if the killer were really determined.)

60,000 x .047 = 2,820 males. That's a lot of men DM might have seen at 4:20 a.m. on the morning of the murders.

Hardly what anyone could call a "match". Compare, for example, 2,820 men to the number of jilted ex-boyfriends: 1 or 2. (No former boyfriend is considered a POI, nor should they be. But that doesn't insure a defense attorney won't raise them as possible alternatives.)

Of course, if DM testifies, the prosecutor will want a jury to consider DM's description only in association with other evidence.

But the number of people who turned their cell phones off during the murder, say, actually gives us a smaller number of potential suspects than her eyewitness testimony. The same may be said--again, I am speculating--of the number of cars caught on security cameras in the area of the murder house.

I'm not quarreling with those who believe BK is guilty; I think so myself. I'm just trying to offer a rough approximation of how some of the evidence will be treated by the defense.
Think what you are saying here kind of speaks to why some on previous threads speculated that the prosecution may consider not calling DM, just in terms of what her testimony (and this is only assuming that the gist of her statement is represented in the PCA) might add to the whole, vs the risk of being put into question on cross examination. MOO

But now we have learned from @al66pine that the defense can impeach DM even if the prosecution don't call her, so to my mind that means the prosecution will probably call her. MOO

ETA: BBM

 
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