Kohberger defense to interview roommate
BOISE, Idaho — A surviving roommate in the University of Idaho student killings will avoid traveling to Moscow for defendant Bryan Kohberger’s preliminary hearing this summer after agreeing to an interview in Nevada with Kohberger’s defense team.
The two sides struck a compromise Wednesday that eliminated the demand that Bethany Funke come to North Idaho from her home state, according to court records obtained by the Idaho Statesman. The deal vacated a subpoena served to her at the request of Kohberger’s attorneys earlier this month.
Kohberger’s defense asserted last month in a court filing that Funke, one of two roommates who went unharmed in the November knife attack, has information that could show he is not guilty. Their client is charged with with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the slayings at an off-campus rental home of Madison
Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. Kohberger could face the death penalty if convicted.
Anne Taylor, Kohberger’s public defender, sought Funke’s testimony at a pretrial hearing scheduled to start June 26. Second District Judge Megan Marshall, who is overseeing the case in Latah County, approved the legal demand.
Funke’s Reno-based attorney argued in a legal filing earlier this month that the witness subpoena was improper. Nevada’s law does not permit such an action from an out-of-state defendant, and a preliminary hearing is not the right setting for her client to testify, wrote attorney Kelli Anne Viloria.
“Funke, through her attorney, has agreed to an interview with Idaho defense counsel in Reno, Nevada, in lieu of proceeding forward with the subpoena,” read Viloria’s filing Wednesday in 2nd Judicial District Court in Washoe County, Nevada.
A gag order that Marshall issued in January restricts attorneys for victims or witnesses from commenting about the Kohberger case outside of court filings.
It is unclear what the defense believes Funke may know that could pertain to Kohberger. A criminal investigator hired by Taylor wrote in a March legal filing that he learned that details she possesses are “exculpatory,” meaning they negate his guilt.
“Portions of information Ms. Funke has is exculpatory to the defendant,” Richard Bitonti, the criminal investigator, wrote to help justify the out-of-state subpoena. “Ms. Funke’s information is unique to her experiences and cannot be provided by another witness.”
Judge Barry Breslow of Nevada’s 2nd Judicial District Court signed off Wednesday on an order dropping the subpoena, and the case is expected to be closed, Alica Lerud, the district court’s administrator and clerk of court, told the Statesman by phone.