Bryan Kohberger’s lawyers want to force victims’ roommate to testify

Lawyers for Bryan Kohberger, the suspect in the Idaho murders case, have filed new court documents seeking to have a roommate of the victims’ testify at his upcoming preliminary hearing.

Over the weekend, Kohberger’s defense team filed a court document seeking to have Bethany Funke, one of the roommates of the four murdered University of Idaho students, testify. Funke, along with Dylan Mortensen, was one of the surviving roommates who found Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, fatally stabbed in the off-campus residence at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022.

The killings prompted a widespread investigation for a suspect. On December 30, Kohberger, 28, was arrested at his parent’s residence in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania. He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. Kohberger was attending Washington State University at the time of the murders, with his former lawyer in Pennsylvania saying that his client was “eager to be exonerated.”

The New York Times obtained the court documents filed by Kohberger’s legal team this weekend, which included a section from Richard Bitonti, a criminal investigator hired by the defense. In the document, Bitonti states that during the course of his investigation, he learned that Funke has information related to the charges filed against Kohberger.

“Portions of information Ms. Funke has is exculpatory to the defendant,” the document said. “Ms. Funke’s information is unique to her experiences and cannot be provided by another witness. Bethany Funk [sic] resides in the State of Nevada and it is necessary to subpoena this witness because the witness’ testimony is material and necessary to this case.”

Newsweek reached out to the Kootenai County Public Defender’s office via email for comment.

In response, attorneys for Funke filed a motion disputing many of the claims made by Kohberger’s legal team, saying, “There is no authority for an Idaho criminal defendant to summon a Nevada witness to Idaho for a preliminary hearing.”

“There is also no authority for an Idaho criminal defendant to summon a Nevada witness to an Idaho matter without a hearing and there is no authority to summon a Nevada witness to an Idaho matter without a Nevada Judge making a finding of materiality, necessity and the lack of undue hardship,” the document, obtained by The New York Times, added.

Newsweek also reached out to Funke’s lawyer for comment via email.

In the probable cause affidavit for Kohberger’s arrest, police included information following interviews with Mortensen who said she saw an unknown figure in the home on the night of the murders, which police matched to Kohberger’s description.

The judge in the case previously set a date for Kohberger’s preliminary hearing on June 26.

Jennifer Coffindaffer, a former FBI agent, told Newsweek on Monday that the court document filed by Kohberger’s legal team may show that the criminal investigator they hired “has uncovered something…interviewing lots of different witnesses that were in and around that house.”

Coffindaffer, who is not involved in the case, explained that during a preliminary hearing, the police officers who wrote the probable cause affidavit would normally testify, instead of calling a witness to the stand. The officer would testify on everything that they were told by the witnesses.

According to Coffindaffer, the defense team is likely going to be looking for Funke’s testimony to “offset” what was already revealed by Mortensen, such as the sounds she heard on the night of the murders and the figure she saw walking through the home.