Bryan Kohberger back in court for hearing on Idaho murders with “surprise witness”: Live

Moscow police detective Lawrence Mowery faced tough questioning Thursday about records suggesting he failed to save a file when analyzing cellphone data related to Bryan Kohberger's whereabouts during the 2022 murders.

According to the defense, this could mean that important evidence had been deleted or made inaccessible, but the detective objected to this portrayal.

“I didn’t delete anything,” he said.

Rather, he said during his testimony, he briefly used a police system called CASTViz to conduct a data analysis of Mr. Kohberger's phone records that will be presented to a grand jury in the case in 2023.

Even though he did not save his work on the analysis he ultimately presented to the grand jury, all of the underlying evidence records remained intact, he continued. That means the alleged evidence against Mr. Kohberger could be fed back into the program and reanalyzed at any time.

Bryan Kohberger's defense team extensively questioned Moscow Police Detective Lawrence Mowery on Thursday, part of an effort to review cellphone evidence that police say links the student to the scene of the 2022 killings.

In one conversation, one of Mr. Kohberger's attorneys asked Detective Mowery for documents related to the results of two search warrants for the defendant's cell phone records, one covering a 48-hour period and the other covering a longer period.

The detective stated that he came across the documents containing this information yesterday while preparing for today's hearing.

The defense wants to substantiate the case by saying there is additional evidence to which they should have access and accuse the prosecutors of withholding important information.

Moscow police detective Lawrence Mowery sits on the witness stand at Bryan Kohberger's pretrial hearing.

The defense is trying to get the prosecution to release additional evidence related to DNA and cell phone data that they say supports their client's alibi.

The hearing in the Bryan Koberger case is scheduled to begin shortly.

Kohberger's defense will present witnesses who will testify about cell phone data that they believe confirms their client's alibi.

The audio content is expected to be available on Judge John Judge’s YouTube page.

It starts at 2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET.

Kohberger's defense is demanding that the state produce evidence that they believe supports their client's alibi that he was driving around and stargazing on the night of the murders.

The evidence reportedly includes footage from a dashboard camera, video and audio recordings from a white sedan at the crime scene, and results from laboratory tests – information that helped police arrest Kohberger seven weeks after the murders.

In November 2022, four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in a Moscow apartment building; the case shocked the small university town and attracted media attention around the world.

For nearly seven weeks, there appeared to be no suspect in the case. Then, on December 30, 2022, Bryan Kohberger, a criminology doctoral student at Washington State University (WSU), was arrested and charged with murder.

In August, Mr Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial and postponed the proceedings indefinitely.

Here is a chronology of the case so far:

Bryan Kohberger became a household name across America when police raided his parents' home in December and arrested him for the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students.

The former criminology doctoral student at Washington State University is accused of stabbing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin to death on Nov. 13 at an off-campus student rental house in Moscow, Idaho.

Since the 29-year-old now faces the death penalty in this case, The Independent asks: Who is Bryan Kohberger really?

Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – all students at the University of Idaho – were attacked in their rooms and stabbed to death with a military-style knife that has still not been found. Nearly eight hours after the brutal attack, police were called to the gruesome scene at the off-campus dorm.

For weeks, few details of the carnage emerged as the community reeled from the tragedy and struggled with fears that a killer was on the loose.

That changed with the December 2022 arrest of Washington State University student Kohberger, whose apartment, office and family home were searched for evidence.

While additional information has become public in recent months with the release of search warrants and arrest records, a news blackout remains in place in this case and most aspects of the investigation and its findings remain a mystery.

Here's everything we know so far:

Ashlin Couch, a former roommate of the murdered University of Idaho students, revealed the moment she realized her friends were dead and the last text message she sent them.

She moved into the doomed off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with her friends Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen in 2020. Six months after moving out in 2022, her roommates were massacred.

“I think I remember getting a second alert or I was on my way home and I texted our group of friends and just said, 'Has anyone heard from Maddie?' And I remember my last text to her was, 'Are you OK?'” she said.

“And I felt at that very moment, I just knew something was wrong.”

Andrea Cavallier reports: