Prosecution adds ex-US attorney to University of Idaho quadruple murder case

BOISE, Idaho. — Idaho’s recently departed U.S. attorney has joined the prosecution team in the case against Bryan Kohberger, the man charged in the killings of four University of Idaho students in 2022.

Joshua Hurwit will be a special deputy prosecuting attorney for the state in the murder trial scheduled for August, court documents filed this week show. Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson is leading the prosecution team.

Hurwit was a former President Joe Biden-nominated U.S. attorney for the District of Idaho from June 2022 until February. Hurwit joined the office in 2012 as an assistant U.S. attorney. He stepped down in February before the White House dismissed more than 50 U.S. attorneys and deputies.

Kohberger, 30, is charged with four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, students who were killed in the early morning of Nov. 13, 2022, at a rental home near their campus in Moscow, Idaho.

Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds, and each was stabbed multiple times.

Kohberger, who was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

A judge previously entered a not-guilty plea on Kohberger’s behalf. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

A hearing is set for April 9 to consider pretrial motions, including arguments over whether an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis would preclude Kohberger from being eligible for the death penalty if convicted, and over whether jurors should hear audio of a 911 call hours after the killings, as the callers realized one of their roommates wasn’t waking up.

Kohberger’s trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 11 and expected to last more than three months.