Judge approves new lawyer for Bryan Kohberger in Idaho murder trial
In a recent legal development, a judge has granted Bryan Kohberger’s request for new legal representation as he seeks a retrial. This decision comes even after Kohberger’s previous guilty plea to the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students. Legal analyst Mehek Cooke emphasizes the challenges involved in overturning such a plea, while the victims’ families continue to endure the heartache of revisiting the horrific events.
Kohberger is now being represented by a new attorney, as he moves forward with his petition for post-conviction relief. This motion aims to retract his self-filed guilty plea, which he submitted approximately a year following his admission to the fatal stabbings of the students in November 2022.
The 30-year-old Kohberger has enlisted the help of attorney Greg Rauch from Moscow, Idaho, to take on his legal defense.
Rauch, in a statement to News Media, mentioned that he has not yet had the opportunity to review the petition or the case file, nor has he spoken with Kohberger. Having just been appointed on Monday morning, Rauch anticipates an initial phone conversation with Kohberger, followed by a personal visit to the prison for further discussion.
On Wednesday, July 23, 2025, Bryan Kohberger attended his sentencing hearing at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho. Nearly three years ago, he committed the brutal stabbing of four University of Idaho students. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool)
“Today, my goal is to set up phone contact with him,” Rauch said. “I gotta read the case file…I gotta check out the police reports. I gotta talk to him.”
Kohberger is being held in the J-Block unit of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, about 300 miles south of where the crimes took place in Moscow, near the University of Idaho campus.
Kohberger pleaded guilty in July 2025 to four counts of first-degree murder as well as a charge of burglary. Judge Steven Hippler sentenced him to four consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole, plus another 10 years.
University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were killed in a November 2022 attack at an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. (Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The plea deal required Kohberger to waive his right to appeal, however, that doesn’t block him from seeking post-conviction relief, which could reopen the case if successful.
If he succeeds in withdrawing his guilty plea, the case could go to trial, where he would face the potential death penalty.
Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and two other housemates in Goncalves’ final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
Kohberger, in a handwritten petition on July 27, 2026, claimed that he was “convinced to falsely confess,” by his high-profile defense team of Anne Taylor, Elisa Massoth and Bicka Barlow. He alleged that they didn’t tell him about “exculpatory discovery” — hair found at the scene that was not tested for DNA. It was excluded as Kohberger’s by a physical analysis.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador told News Media shortly after Kohberger’s petition was filed that his office is “ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out.”
Bryan Kohberger arrives at Monroe County Courthouse in Pennsylvania in advance of highly anticipated extradition hearing. (The Image Direct for News Media)
Police found Kohberger’s DNA on a knife sheath in a bed with two of the four victims, Mogen and Goncalves. They also tracked his vehicle coming and going, and forensic investigators were prepared to testify about how, although he shut his phone off during the murders, the evidence suggested he drove to and from the crime scene anyway.
Separately, Sy Ray, a former expert witness working for Kohberger’s defense team, last week alleged that there is additional damaging evidence that investigators hadn’t introduced before Kohberger’s guilty plea.
“They’ve got to release this report, because the report that changes everything has not been released,” Ray told News Media Sunday. “It hasn’t been unsealed.”
Ray said that document, known as the location database of record or LOCDBOR report, contains “pattern of life” location data that he alleges shows Kohberger stalked the victims, that he may have been inside the victims’ home before the murders and contains clues as to where he may have disposed of evidence.
“If he ever does walk, he will kill again,” he said.