Bryan Kohberger appears in court as lawyers seek relocation after potential jurors threatened to ‘burn courthouse down’ if he’s acquitted

Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger appeared in court Thursday as his lawyers argued to relocate his trial — after it was revealed that potential jurors threatened to “burn courthouse down” if he was found not guilty.

Kohberger sat at the defense table inside a Moscow, Idaho courtroom — wearing a blue shirt and black jacket — as his lawyers called witnesses in a bid to get his trial moved from Latah County where the brutal murders took place to Ada County over 300 miles away.

Kohberger’s defense attorneys said there’s no way their client could get a fair trial in the sparsely populated county after they carried out a survey of residents there who said they would riot and “burn the courthouse down” if he wasn’t convicted in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students in 2022 .

Bryan Kohberger’s defense warns jurors would ‘burn the courthouse down’ if trial remains in Idaho community where student slaughter took place

The first three expert witnesses called by the defense included a media monitoring analyst, a psychology professor and a trial consultant who testified about how the sheer volume of media reports and the close proximity to where slayings were carried out would make it difficult to choose impartial jurors.

James Todd Murphy — who is the president of a media monitoring and analysis service — said because of the relatively small population of 25,000 potential jurors in Latah County there is a higher likelihood they’ve been exposed to the vast quantity of reports by local media outlets than compared to the much larger 300,000 population of potential jurors in Ada County.

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Dr. Amani El-Alayli — a psychology professor at Eastern Washington University — testified that people who are exposed to publicity about a case are more likely to convict even if they claim they can be impartial.

She said that because of the fact Moscow is a small community that was rocked by the killings it would be “hard” if not “arguably impossible” to select jurors from Latah who could be objective.

A third witness, Dr. Brian Edelman — a trial consultant of nearly 30 years — conducted a survey of 400 residents in Latah about what they know about the case and their opinions on it, finding that 60 percent already believe Kohberger is guilty.

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Another 52% said they thought he should get the death penalty if convicted and others responded if he was acquitted they’d kill Kohberger, riot or burn the courthouse down, Edelman testified.

But prosecutors have argued the relocation of the trial hundreds of miles away isn’t necessary and is inconvenient.

They claimed the defense’s data is biased and flawed and potential jurors in Ada County would also have had a very high exposure to press coverage of the case.

Judge John Judge has said even if he grants the request to move the trial to Ada County, the parties would have to be prepared to go forward with the current June 2025 trial date.

Kohberger is accused of killing Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022 while they were inside the rental home near the Moscow college campus.

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