University of Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger looked scruffy in a new mugshot after being flown hundreds of miles in preparation for his trial.
Kohberger, 29, was flown Sunday to Idaho’s capital, Boise, after being granted a change of venue to take his trial away from Latah County, where he’s accused of brutally stabbing the four students in their rental home in Moscow.
Kohberger was seen arriving in Boise on a small plane and was transferred to a Black SUV in an orange jumpsuit and cuffs.
A new mugshot taken on his arrival at the Ada County Sheriff’s Office shows the murder suspect staring intently ahead with a stubbly face and unkempt hair.
District Judge John Judge ordered the transfer last Monday, citing several reasons to move the trial to a larger courthouse and remove him from the location of the crime — including fears people would want to “burn the courthouse down” if he was acquitted.
Kohberger’s defense alleged there would be unfair prejudice due to pre-trial publicity if the trial were to be held in the “tight-knit” Latah County where jurors were more likely to have an emotional response to the killings, court records show.
Ada County, home to Boise, was seen as more favorable to the defense due to its higher population and the likelihood that media consumption about Kohberger and the murders would be more “diluted” than in Latah, court papers said.
Kohberger is accused of butchering students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Madison Mogen in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022 inside their off-campus house.
Cell phone data suggesting Kohberger was in the vicinity of the off-campus house where the students were stabbed to death was one of the primary pieces of evidence that led to Kohberger being charged with the murders, officials have said.
Kohberger, a criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University, pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.
Judge John Judge did not say where the trial — tentatively set for June 2025 — would take place, leaving it to the state’s high court to decide.