May 22 (UPI) — A judge entered a plea of not guilty Monday morning on behalf of Bryan Kohberger, who stood silent during the proceedings ahead of his trial on charges of first-degree murder.
Kohberger’s public defender told Latah County District Judge John Judge the 28-year-old “will be standing silent” during the arraignment.
The judge then entered the not-guilty pleas on his behalf and set a trial date for Oct. 2.
Kohberger’s lawyer Anny Taylor had asked the judge to set the trial’s opening at the latest possible date.
A Latah County grand jury formally indicted Kohberger last week in the stabbing deaths of University of Idaho students. He faces four first-degree murder charges, as well as a burglary charge.
Prosecutors chose to skip a weeklong pretrial hearing that could have revealed what evidence they have against Kohberger. The indictment remains sealed.
Investigators so far have not said much about how they identified Kohberger or what evidence they have.
Police did say in January they matched Kohberger’s DNA to the sheath of a knife recovered from the crime scene.
First-degree murder charges can carry a death sentence in Idaho, but prosecutors have not specified if they will seek one. They now have a 60-day window to make that decision, after the pleas were entered Monday.
The burglary charge carries a 10-year maximum sentence.
Kohberger is accused in the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernoldle, 20; and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20. The four were killed at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, in November.
Kohberger was a PhD student in the criminal justice and criminology department at Washington State University at the time.
He later drove across the country to his family’s home in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. He was arrested there in late December, waived his extradition rights and was returned to Idaho in January. He remains held in the small Latah County Jail.
