Defense expert says investigators in Idaho college murder case missed key evidence
A man who was involved in Bryan Kohberger's 2025 trial claims prosecutors missed important smartphone data which ties the 31-year-old to the murders of four Idaho college students.
Convicted murderer Kohberger - who is currently serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20 - recently petitioned the court to withdraw his guilty plea and seek a new trial, after previously accepting a plea deal in order to avoid the death penalty.
However, one man who is confident that the criminology PhD student would be convicted in a new trial is Sy Ray, a digital forensics expert who was hired by Kohberger's legal team in the first investigation.
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In a new interview with journalist Brian Entin, alongside Kaylee's father and sister, Steve and Alivea Goncalves, Ray stated that data from Kohberger's smartphone is much more damning than originally presented.
"He's been in the house before. I think there's absolutely no doubt he was familiar with the basic layout of the house," Ray claimed. "I'm not saying he was intimately familiar with the entire house, but he had a working knowledge of the house.
"There's no doubt in my mind that there's prior knowledge."
Explaining why he believes that Kohberger had prior knowledge of 1122 King Road, Ray revealed that US cellphone provider AT&T has a Location Database of Record (LOCDBOR) report which provides estimated location data for handsets.
In regards to Kohberger's phone, Ray claims that evidence from the LOCDBOR proves that he had stalked the victims prior to the 13 November 2022 attack.
Despite errors with some of the latitude-longitude pings, Ray says there are 'five' pings which place Kohberger in or around the students' home.
"If you look at those precise measurements, there’s probably five that land directly on what would be the living room of the house," he claimed. "Like the latitude-longitude is the physical house itself, and if you put the house back on the map, and you map those, the hits are inside the house."
"So you're saying, based on the data you saw, the latitude-longitude for Bryan Kohberger’s Samsung was in the living room," Entin questioned, to which Ray replied by saying the AT&T data, which is accurate to 25 metres, was 'showing in the immediate area'.
"My personal opinion is when I look at those, and I map what's happening before and after and I'm looking at all the other evidence. I think these are accurate locations," he added.
It is not currently possible to independently verify the LOCDBOR reports which Ray references, as the documents have not been made available to the public.
Ray previously explained why the data was not included in Kohberger's 2025 trial, telling Fox News that he was not required to respond to the evidence because it was not included in the prosecution report.
"My summary of no evidence is based on that work product and the work product that the state had put together at that time," he told the outlet.
"I can't put in my defence report, 'Hey, if you guys would just go look at the LOCDBOR report here, you'll solve your case and have a really rock solid case.' But I can put, here are some follow-up items that I would expect you guys to do. And one of those things is you'll see repeated over and over, you have to map all the data. Please go map all the data."
A timeline of the Idaho murders
12 November 2022
Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, attend a party at Chapin’s fraternity Sigma Chi. Meanwhile, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21, go to sports bar the Corner Club.
13 November 2022
1.45am - Kernodle and Chapin return home to their house on King Road
1.56am - Goncalves and Mogen arrive home
2.44am - Kohberger’s Hyundai sedan is spotted by a CCTV camera at Washington State University. Shortly afterwards, the car is seen again heading towards a road that connects Pullman, Washington, to Moscow, Idaho, where the victims live.
4am - Bryan Kohberger is believed to have entered the property
4.17am - A security camera reveals the sound of a barking dog, voices and what sounds like a thud. At some point around this time, their housemate Dylan Mortensen is awoken and hears a male voice say: “It's OK, Kaylee, I'm here for you.” She later hears crying and sees a masked man in the property.
4.19am - Mortensen attempts to call Kernodle, Goncalves and Mogen, but all calls go unanswered. She started texting Bethany Funke, saying she’s ‘freaking out’ after seeing a man in a ‘ski mask’. Mortensen joins Funke in her room and they lock themselves in.
11.58am - After Mortensen calls her friend Emily Alandt, she and her boyfriend Hunter Johnson come over to the King Road property. Johnson discovers Chapin and Kernodle's bodies and calls 911.
17 November 2022
Preliminary autopsy results show all four victims were attacked with a large knife
7 December 2022
Police say they are looking to speak to any occupants of a white Hyundai Elantra from 2011-13.
30 December 2022
Kohberger is arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary. Police later reveal they used DNA on a knife sheath to link him to the crime scene, and tracked his car and phone across the area.
22 May 2023
Kohberger remains silent when asked to enter a plea during his arraignment. The judge enters a not guilty plea on his behalf.
26 June 2023
Prosecutors announce they will seek the death penalty.
28 December 2023
The King Road property where the murders took place is demolished to allow the community to heal.
17 April 2024
Kohberger’s defence team claims in court documents that phone mast data shows Kohberger was miles away from Moscow, Idaho at the time of the murders.
4 March 2025
Kohberger’s defence team say he exhibits traits of autism spectrum disorder, and putting him to death would be unconstitutional.
2 July 2025
Weeks before the trial is set to begin, Kohberger pleads guilty to burglary and four counts of first-degree murder.
23 July 2025
Kohberger is sentenced to four consecutive life sentences, plus 10 years for the burglary charge.
He comes face to face with the families of his victims for the first time, who read out impact statements.
Mortensen says she’s suffered from debilitating panic attacks since the night of the murders, telling Kohberger he has taken away her ‘ability to trust the world’.
27 July 2026
Kohberger announces he is seeking to take back his guilty plea and overturn his conviction.
He tells the New York Times: “My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn.”
Topics: Bryan Kohberger, US News, Crime
Brenna Cooper