Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson dropped a bombshell in a newly filed motion—Bryan Kohberger’s defense team isn’t disputing that his DNA was found on the knife sheath at the crime scene. Instead, they’re setting up an argument that someone else could have planted it there. That’s right—the cornerstone of the prosecution’s forensic evidence might just be the battleground where the defense makes its stand.

“Instead of challenging the conclusion that the DNA on the knife sheath belonged to Defendant, the defense’s expert disclosures reveal that the defense plans to argue the DNA on the knife sheath does not prove Defendant was ever at the crime scene and the knife sheath itself could have been planted by the real perpetrator,” Thompson wrote.

This argument flips the script in a case where DNA was expected to be the smoking gun. The defense isn’t saying the lab got it wrong. They’re saying that finding Kohberger’s DNA on the sheath doesn’t automatically mean he was in the house when the murders happened. And the next logical step? The suggestion that someone else put it there.

The problem? Many of the court documents that lay out exactly how the defense plans to support this theory are sealed. That means right now, there’s no way to compare Thompson’s claim against what the defense has actually submitted in court filings.

Kohberger, the 29-year-old criminology Ph.D. student, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the brutal slayings of University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Kaylee Goncalves. The attack, which took place in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, inside an off-campus rental home, shocked the small town of Moscow, Idaho, and quickly became a national headline.

Kohberger has never spoken publicly about the case. When asked to enter a plea last year, he stood silent, prompting the judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Prosecutors say they matched Kohberger’s DNA to the knife sheath using investigative genetic genealogy, or IGG. This controversial technique, which compares crime scene DNA against public ancestry databases to find potential family connections, has been a key factor in cracking cold cases. But Kohberger’s defense team fought hard to keep IGG evidence out of the courtroom, arguing that its use in his case was flawed. Their request was denied last month, though prosecutors have since stated they won’t introduce IGG at trial. Instead, they’ll present it as a “tip” that led them to Kohberger as a suspect.

Now, with the trial set to begin on August 11 and expected to last more than three months, the stage is set for an intense legal battle. The prosecution is relying on forensic evidence, including the knife sheath, while the defense is signaling that they’re going to challenge the very meaning of that evidence. It’s a high-stakes gamble that could shape the outcome of one of the most closely watched murder trials in years.

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