A group of Pennsylvania residents is due in court for a series of hearings on whether they should be compelled to travel to Idaho for Bryan Kohberer’s upcoming quadruple murder trial.

The 30-year-old former criminology Ph.D. student is a Pocono Mountains native who drove home from Washington State University between the slayings of four University of Idaho undergrads on Nov. 13, 2022, and his arrest on Dec. 30 of that year.

Seven Pennsylvanians have been asked to testify, according to court records. Of those, at least five have been requested to testify for the defense. Each will have a chance to argue before a Pennsylvania judge why they should not have to travel before they can be forced to testify.

Initially, DeSales University professor Marie Bolger had also been summoned to court, but her name was removed from a later filing. In a 2023 interview with the Daily Mail, Bolger said Kohberger was one of her brightest students and one of only two she had recommended for Ph.D. programs in a decade as a criminology professor.

University of Idaho students, from left, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. All four were stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. (Jazzmin Kernodle via AP/Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)

Bolger told the outlet she had never met Kohberger in person and had only taught him over email and Zoom during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. She helped him work on his graduate thesis, which centered on “how and why criminals commit their crime,” she said.

Kohberger obtained a master’s degree from DeSales before moving on to Washington State University, about 10 miles from the off-campus home where he is accused of killing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.