ID - 4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered - Bryan Kohberger Arrested - Moscow # 64

[acutename]

does anyone think that the defense is going to review the existing DNA evidence and then look for more DNA samples from the house and maybe look for more Elantras?

 

[acutename]

He had a target. Everyone else was collateral damage getting out.

also do not think that he broke into any locks, that we know of.... IMO

 

[Nila Aella]

Normally when a death penalty defendant pleads guilty their death penalty qualified attorney works with prosecutors to get a plea deal where the DP is dropped in exchange for LWOP.

In RARE Cases a death penalty defendant will plead guilty but the prosecution still refuses to drop the DP Specifications.

So then these defendants skip the first trial which is the Guilt Phase Trial and then go to the second trial which is the Penalty Phase Trial.

Your example is a good one - the Parkland shooter - and another poster had a good one - Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper.

Rolling pled guilty to avoid the shame of people finding out what he did. The state did not let him get away with that and detailed everything during the trial.
MOO

The Trial — Danny Rolling, the Gainesville Ripper — Crime Library

Danny Rolling, Daniel Rolling, Gainesville Ripper killed four women and two men in one weekend of horror in the University town of Gainesville.

www.crimelibrary.org

 

[gliving]

I found this video on Twitter. It shows a solitary confinement cell at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. The arrows on upper left of the video allow one to pan while watching - look up, down and all around. Video is by the Idaho Press.

About

www.idahopress.com

Idaho Maximum Security Institution (IMSI) | Idaho Department of Correction

www.idoc.idaho.gov

 

[r3d-ros3]

I've gotten plenty of traffic tickets. Never been asked for a phone number. LE doesn't need a way to contact you. You need a way to contact the court to handle the ticket.

This (meaning BK being asked to give the cop his phone number in a routine traffic stop), along with the body cam footage from noise complaints at 1122 King road, lead me to believe that the city of Moscow had some kind of unusual (or at least unique) relationship between LE and students in Moscow / Pullman.

The cop tells Xana that even though she isn't getting a citation, she will have to have a "conversation with the dean [presumably, of students]" because of the incident. The dean of students comes up repeatedly in recorded interactions between students and LE in Moscow, which leads me to make this assumption. All IMO.

 

[TL4S]

does anyone think that the defense is going to review the existing DNA evidence and then look for more DNA samples from the house and maybe look for more Elantras?

It might depend on other evidence, like what they found in BK's Elantra. If there was victims' DNA in his car, it might not be worth the defense's time to try to insert another car, another phone, other DNA, etc. I'm admittedly no expert on trials, so I'm guessing here, but I'm leaning toward the idea that this case will be an attempt at taking the death penalty off and putting LWOP in its place, vs. SODDI. JMO.

ETA: If the tapatalk truly was BK, then I have to ask myself if, in the end, BK might not put up much fight about a death penalty sentence. JMO.

 

[WildWest]

Normally when a death penalty defendant pleads guilty their death penalty qualified attorney works with prosecutors to get a plea deal where the DP is dropped in exchange for LWOP.

Regarding BK's no seat belt ticket, I was pulled over at age 16 for going 38 in a 35 mph. I was able to negotiate down to something weird like defective vehicle. I wonder if that's how BK go his?

 

[Walela]

I actually did that on a jury in Florida. While the witness was on the stand we could write a question and hand it to the baliff who would give it to the judge. The attorneys would then discuss the question with the judge (without us in the room) to determine if it would be asked and answered. JMO

Thanks so much for your first hand input!
So if there are some very perceptive jurors with inquisitive minds, they could perhaps ask questions either side's attorney maybe hadn't planned on asking. I guess those questions might not be "approved" for ask and answer. Very interesting concept in a trial.

moo

 

[Wishbone]

Is DM an accuser though? She's a witness, not the plaintiff.

Regardless the below article states DM is expected to testify at the prelim hearing in June, hope she does!

Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger trades intensity for fear in 2nd court appearance: body language expert

University of Idaho quadruple murder suspect Bryan Kohberger's body language in court is analyzed by Susan Constantine, a behavioral analyst who specializes in body language and detecting deception.

www.foxnews.com

Maybe we will find out if she was visible to him from her doorway and if he saw her.(did she peek thru a crack in the door or was it mostly open. Was her room completely dark and was the hall where she saw him dark as well) If she saw his bushy eyebrows then did she have a head on view of the masked man.

 

[maskedwoman]

Literally reams have been written and studied concerning prosecutorial misconduct that involves withholding evidence that could benefit the accused.

I get it that LE and prosecutors (not necessarily in this case) badly want to catch the perps and lock them up. We all want that. No one wants a guilty defendant to go free. MOO

In some states, defendants can file a Brady Motion to try and get evidence the prosecution is withholding.

But, it's absolutely a game. And, when it comes to a trial--it also involves theatrics. MOO

I understand what's happening and why. I just think it's too bad that sort of stuff goes on. It might not go on everywhere, but it's common enough that innocent people have been wrongly convicted.

Perhaps if the punishments for playing these games were steeper, we'd see fewer of them. Again, I'm not saying that's happening in this specific case.

But, even if it's rare -- it's too frequent. MOO

So what is your recommendation? That the prosecution just chuck all their evidence into the public domain and we take a public poll to decide what to do with him? That's really no different than a lynch mob. No process is perfect but, at least with a trial, the defendant has a judge administering the trial, excluding prejudicial evidence or witnesses, trying to keep the scales of justice balanced.

 

[r3d-ros3]

Grad students in their first year do not get free tuition at WSU. All people who TA get a "tuition reduction" but tuition is still there. I figure he had to pay half. Note in the quote below that in the first, it is a 50% reduction for the OOS (out of state) tuition. OOS tuition is around $28K. Half of that brings it closer to in state tuition. If he were to have qualified for in-state tuition by Year 2, I believe he will would have had to pay *some* tuition because I believe they do not give 20 hour teaching appointments while students are still doing coursework. He would have gotten 50% off of the $12,400 in state tuition pricing in his second year. Still has to pay $6,200 somehow. For me, that's not chicken feed.

In order to get a greater discount, all of the OOS grad students are required to show that they are following the steps to become tax-paying WA residents (such as registering their car in WA - which BK did do).

//Graduate assistants who maintain at least a half-time (20 hrs. /wk.) appointment are eligible for full tuition waivers. Students appointed a quarter time assistantship (10 hrs./wk.) are eligible for half tuition waivers. To qualify for a tuition waiver, students must reside within the state of Washington. Non-resident graduate students on assistantship appointments are eligible for a non-resident waiver for the out-of-state portion of tuition during the first year they are on assistantship appointment at WSU. During that first year, students are responsible for taking all necessary steps to establish legal residency in the state of Washington. If residency is not established, non-resident graduate students will be responsible for non-resident tuition after their first academic year. International students are provided an out-of-state tuition waiver with their assistantship appointment throughout their academic career.//

Typically, first year grad students do not get 20 hours of TA time. That usually happens once one has advanced to candidacy (aka ABD) in the third or fourth year. There are good reasons for that, and of course, professors definitely prefer the older doctoral students whom they have gotten to know and who are much better at being TA's.

It sounds to me is if BK was TAing for just one class, only one class has ever been mentioned. Full load would be 4 classes at WSU, and the full tuition waiver comes with doing 2 classes, not just 1. That's so that the candidates who have completed everything but their dissertation can spend more time on their research, but also hone their teaching skills in readiness for the job market.

I'm sorry to repeatedly challenge this, but first year PhD students -- at WSU and elsewhere -- absolutely do receive tuition remission (i.e., they do not have to pay for tuition as long as they have a TA, RA, or GA job). PhD students, not just candidates, receive this benefit. More info from WSU. If you read this page carefully, you'll see that out of state tuition is covered in the first year of a PhD student's time at WSU as long as they attain in state residency.

Also, it is very common for PhD students (and candidates) to only TA a single class to receive these benefits. This is all based on my experience as a PhD student and candidate in the US, and I'm around BK's age (although graduated).

 

[sripey]

Hmm. Well, according to a news article about the locating of the Elantra, it was two WSU campus police who, after receiving word early on (Day 2 or 3, just after the early video was looked at by Moscow PD) located all the Elantras at WSU (one of which was from PA and would not have had a front license plate and belonged to...a criminology student, which must have caught their eye).

The white sedan: How police found the man accused of slaying four Idaho students

The white sedan cruised past the gray, three-story rental home on a dead-end street in Moscow, Idaho. Then again. And again.

komonews.com

And the article continues:



At that point, they did have BK's own Elantra on their radar. I think as the video continued to come in, they were more and more sure it was BK's ELantra, registered to his name at WSU.

Of course they needed the genetic genealogy as well (whatever sort they used), but I now understand the twinkle in Chief Fry's eye when their suspect grad student appeared as a match.

The fact that this criminology grad student (yesterday's article by the criminology prof explains why) had just changed plates must have made him suspicious. At any rate I believe they had him under surveillance since about Nov 29.



These are events that were unfolding in real time, isolating BK as a promising POI, so they already had him on their radar before he left town.

Right, they had his Elantra after the WSU officer reported it in November, but at the time it did not stand out from the dozens or hundreds of other Elantras that LE was looking into, according to Dateline. It was not until the genetic genealogy hit that BK's Elantra rose to the front. I am only relaying what Dateline reported on.

At the end of the episode, the on-the-scene NBC Dateline reporter opined that if not for the genetic genealogy hit, BK's Elantra would still be somewhere in the huge pile of Elantra files that LE were looking into.

 

[FlamingoLady]

This (meaning BK being asked to give the cop his phone number in a routine traffic stop), along with the body cam footage from noise complaints at 1122 King road, lead me to believe that the city of Moscow had some kind of unusual (or at least unique) relationship between LE and students in Moscow / Pullman.

The cop tells Xana that even though she isn't getting a citation, she will have to have a "conversation with the dean [presumably, of students]" because of the incident. The dean of students comes up repeatedly in recorded interactions between students and LE in Moscow, which leads me to make this assumption. All IMO.

But the traffic stop in question happened in Indiana.

 

[acutename]

So, that says he pays 50% of in-state tuition in that program. The WA state residents get a full waiver (he's not one, and likely never will be at this point). He did get to pay In-state tuition (half of it, which is about $6200 and I think that's a significant amount of money for a 28 year old to come up with).

No free housing, but low cost housing, as I understand it. No word on how much a TA is paid, but I suspect I can find it somewhere in WSU's various documents (board of trustees budget preparation, but I'm feeling too lazy to find out). I'm guessing it's $800 a month or thereabouts - probably just about enough to cover the housing, but not car and food expenses.

lived in these apts:

Idaho suspect Bryan Kohberger kept low profile living at WSU housing complex: report

The man suspected of slaughtering four University of Idaho students reportedly kept a low profile at his Washington State University apartment complex with some neighbors not even realizing the acc…

nypost.com

rent estimator:

Family/Graduate Apartment | at WSU

housing.wsu.edu

avrg TA salary:
$2,711. The estimated total pay for a Teaching Assistant at Washington State University is $2,711 per month. This number represents the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based on salaries collected from our users.Nov 29, 2022

Washington State University Teaching Assistant Monthly Pay​

 

[r3d-ros3]

But the traffic stop in question happened in Indiana.

Yes! I was referencing the stops in Moscow / Pullman where he gave LE his phone number. He did not give either Indiana cop his phone number.

 

[eloquence]

I'm not understanding how the 911 call is still a part of the active investigatory records and could interfere with enforcement proceedings? It was my understanding that everyone at the house during that call was cleared.

“I think it’ll be released when the prosecution believes that we can release that,” Mr Fry said in an interview with ABC affiliate KREM-TV. “That may be at trial ... That may be before then.”

Mr Fry declined to comment on whether what was discussed in the call could lead to any arrests.

The 911 call was made at 11.58am on 13 November - while the students are thought to have been killed between 3 and 4am.

“The surviving roommates summoned friends to the residence because they believed one of the second-floor victims had passed out and was not waking up,” a statement by Moscow Police early on in the investigation read.

“Multiple people talked with the 911 dispatcher before a Moscow Police officer arrived at the location. Officers entered the residence and found the four victims on the second and third floors.”

It is unclear whether the “unconscious individual” wording is attributed to the caller or the dispatcher.

When pressed by The Independent on why the call could not be released, the department said: “The contents are exempt from public disclosure because the records are active investigatory records which, if released, would interfere with enforcement proceedings...”

Moscow police chief hints at possible release of Idaho murders 911 call

Moscow police chief James Fry offered some insight as to when the 911 call could potentially be made public

www.independent.co.uk

IMO there is something significant to the case on the call - perhaps they go upstairs and find KG/MM seriously injured and describe injuries... maybe they talk about bloody footprints all over the house, or DM says more about her encounter than is in the PCA

I don't think they are holding it back for no reason

 

[Cindizzi]

I actually did that on a jury in Florida. While the witness was on the stand we could write a question and hand it to the baliff who would give it to the judge. The attorneys would then discuss the question with the judge (without us in the room) to determine if it would be asked and answered. JMO

I learned that my state of Colorado also allows jury questions during trial by closely following the Redwine trial.

After the verdict ( guilty -hallelujah), the actual handwritten forms were uploaded to the Court website along with all other documents for public viewing.

Posting only for those curious about the form jurors fill out to ask a question of witnesses:

https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/06th_Judicial_District/La_Plata/Redwine/Jury%20questions%20-%20Duing%20Trial%20pt%202.pdf

Source:

Colorado Judicial Branch

www.courts.state.co.us

 

[sleuth.sloth]

But he's not schizophrenic. And schizophrenics very much appear to be having a conversation with the voices, not "talking to themselves." He is reassuring himself and narrating his life, not responding to voices that only he can hear.

We have to go with the facts of the case, but my source on schizophrenia is a decade of research on schizophrenics and doing 20 years of field diagnostics, mostly of schizophrenics. I did 2 years of fieldwork in inpatient wards for schizophrenics.

When a schizophrenic responds to voices, it very much sounds like someone being on the phone (although there's often a lot of unusual affect in the responses, as opposed to the flat affect otherwise seen in many schizophrenics). BK never mentions hearing voices in any of his TapATalk missives, which go on for a couple of years. We are allowed to use what he says there. He describes a specific auditory disturbance (which can be part of VSS) and another person responds that they have the same auditory disturbance, but it's not hearing voices.

This is self-soothing and I'm guessing that since childhood, his parents have used those words to soothe him, he has internalized the parental voice and is now soothing himself.

The narration-of-ongoing events is also seen in perfectly normal people. I've never witnessed a schizophrenic narrate their ongoing life events. I've seen schizophrenics pause conversation to listen to their voices, but never have I heard one report that the voices are soothing. The very fact of the existence of unseen people speaking in a room is anxiety producing, not soothing. I also know schizophrenics as colleagues (high functioning schizophrenics) and two of them have been helped by medication (to not hear voices) and the third has grown accustomed to them and ignores them (kind of the way VSS sufferers have to do with their snow).

So it's POSSIBLE that he could be hearing voices, but so far, I see no evidence of it and am going with what has been permitted to be discussed here, as it is the best guess (BK's own account is compelling).

you seem to be an expert on schizophrenia, and I want to clarify that I am not. At all.

That said, it is my understanding that schizophrenia often shows up later in life. So, would it be possible that his neurodivergence has only recently begun to present as schizophrenia? That could be why it was never mentioned in his TaT posts. Depending on what exactly was said while he was narrating events, coupled with “I’m here to help” (quoted from memory, not verbatim), I’d started to wonder about schizophrenia as well.

If it was “everything is fine, I’m going to be fine…” etc. then that sounds like regular self soothing talk.

If it was “hey this detective just walked into the room and he wants to ask you some questions” that sounds a bit more schizophrenic.

And “I’m here to help” could be taken as a creepy statement to Xana to try to disarm her or act like he was doing her a favor by ending her suffering. OR could it have been him talking to another voice within his own head?

Anyway, I’m going to self report, because I think we are crossing a line by diagnosing him without any medical expertise or insight into his psychological history. Just wanted to say that I’m not inclined to totally discount schizophrenia at this stage.

 

[10ofRods]

The death penalty has been given before with a guilty plea in Idaho. State vs. Wood.

Excerpt from appeal State vs. Wood: "This is an appeal of a death sentence imposed upon James Edward Wood on a plea of guilty for the murder of Jeralee Underwood, an eleven-year-old girl." Link to Case Text

I seriously doubt if BK will enter a guilty plea at the preliminary hearing. IDK about after the hearing though.

I did find something interesting when heading down a rabbit hole. Evidently in Idaho, jurors can ask written questions of the witnesses in the trial. I knew they could ask questions during their deliberations but didn't know they could submit questions during the trial. I don't quite know what to think about that. Idaho Criminal Rule 30.1. Jury Questioning of Witness

Woah. That's huge. I'm a closet procedural geek. (The part about the jury being able to ask questions during trial).

There's a WSer that has an avatar that looks so much like JE Wood! He's so creepy (the WSer is using an avatar from a reconstruction of a missing person from a dead body, I believe - maybe JE Wood looked dead before he actually was).

He didn't actually get the DP, though, he died of natural causes, as BK likely will, as well. Wood committed his murder in 1993 and died 11 years later, of natural causes, in his death row cell.

That part about the jury asking questions is totally new to me - I have never heard of that before. Would love to hear how that works in your jurisdiction, if you have that kind of rule.

 

[Which_pancake]

I don't know what reason the police might have for holding back the 911 call, but I really don't understand what is to be gained from public release. It may well be chaotic, difficult to understand, full of crying or screaming and contain the names of 3rd party bystanders who do not need to be publicly identified. I think it would reopen the tragedy for all involved and frankly it's none of my business. MOO