Idaho college killings: Kohberger lawyers seek to block talk of 'bushy eyebrows'

Lawyers for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students are asking the judge in his capital murder case to ban a key witness from using the phrase "bushy eyebrows" to describe the assailant she saw the night of the bloody attack.

That request was included in roughly 100 pages of court filings unsealed Tuesday as preparations continue in advance of the August trial of Bryan Kohberger, who's charged in the November 2022 killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.

A roommate of the victims, who lived at the off-campus Moscow, Idaho, home where the killings occurred originally told detectives that the masked male intruder she saw on the night of the killings had a singular physical attribute: "bushy eyebrows." That phrase has rocketed around the world as the headline-grabbing case has moved slowly toward a trial in Boise, Idaho.

Kohberger's defense attorneys argued the superficial description will unfairly point the finger at him and potentially bias the jury.

"The description provided by [the roommate] is unreliable and should be excluded," defense lawyer Elisa Massoth wrote. "Although she has never identified Mr. Kohberger, testimony by [the roommate] from the witness stand, describing bushy eyebrows while Mr. Kohberger sits as the accused at trial, will be as damning as her pointing to him and saying, 'he is the man that did this.'"

The roommate's varying accounts and self-confessed sleepy intoxication that night make her memory fickle, Kohberger's lawyers have argued. And, they argued, she seemed preoccupied with bushy eyebrows even before her friends were killed.

When police photographed the crime scene right after the killings, her room was found to have "many pictures of eyes with prominent eyebrows" on the walls in her room, Kohberger's lawyers said.

"Many of which she had drawn. Some of the eyebrows are heavy, voluminous, puffy, or perhaps subjectively bushy," and there was "artwork of human figures with an emphasis upon the eyes and eyebrows were pinned to corkboards," they said.

Kohberger's defense attorneys have also asked the judge to bar words like "murder," "psychopath" and "sociopath" during the trial.

"To label Mr. Kohberger as a 'murderer,' the alleged weapon consistent with an empty sheath as a 'murder weapon' or to assert that any of the four decedents was 'murdered' by Mr. Kohberger denies his right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent," the defense said.

Prosecutors allege that in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, Kohberger broke into an off-campus home and stabbed the four students to death. He was arrested in late December, after a six-week manhunt, at his parents' Pennsylvania home and indicted in May 2023.

He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. At his arraignment, he declined to offer a plea, so the judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.

If convicted, Kohberger could face the death penalty. But not if his lawyers get their way.

Defense attorneys cite autism in bid to strike death penalty

Among the flurry of new filings, the defense also argued his life should not be on the line — because he has been diagnosed with autism, and so his impairments in communication, problems with social skills and impulse control mean he is "insufficiently culpable to be executed."

His diagnosis however should not be wielded against him, the defense said — arguing prosecutors should not be allowed to use it "by criminalizing his status as a disabled person."

Even if this does not work to strike the death penalty, his diagnosis could resurface in the sentencing phase if Kohberger is convicted, where his lawyers will likely raise it again as a mitigating factor.

This is not the first time his lawyers have attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table.

In their argument about his condition now, Kohberger's lawyers shed new light on what has been a heretofore little-known person to the public.

"Mr. Kohberger displays extremely rigid thinking, perseverates on specific topics, processes information on a piece-meal basis, struggles to plan ahead, and demonstrates little insight into his own behaviors and emotions" and "his tone and cadence are abnormal, his interactions lack fluidity, and his language is often overinclusive, disorganized, highly repetitive, and oddly formal," they argued.

He "frequently shifts the topic back to himself even when it is inappropriate. He uses abrupt, matter-of-fact phrases that would be considered rude. He carries on about topics in a circular manner and perseverates about specific, non-essential details," they said, adding his autism is "also accompanied by obsessive-compulsiveness, and an eating disorder. Since childhood, Mr. Kohberger has exhibited compulsions around getting things in his eyes, hand-washing and other germ avoidant behaviors."