Bryan Kohberger’s defense team has revealed a major curve ball for his upcoming trial. A newly unsealed court filing discloses that investigators found three unknown profiles from DNA underneath victim Madison Mogen’s fingernails. Clippings from Mogen’s left hand unearthed the samples, but testing has not determined who they belong to. Comparisons of the profiles to Kohberger’s DNA were inconclusive. The accused quadruple-killer has not been confirmed or excluded as a source.
Kohberger’s defense is fighting to have the DNA evidence tossed, arguing that the term “inconclusive” could be easily misconstrued by a jury to mean Kohberger might be one of the three individual profiles found under Mogen’s nails. The attorneys also concerned the Likelihood ratios, which simply compare the state’s hypotheses, may be incorrectly understood as a probability of identity. Kohberger goes so far as to claim the defense’s own testing of the clippings excluded him as a contributor.
Kohberger’s defense team is also arguing that his autism diagnosis should bar him from receiving the death penalty. The attorneys claim that symptoms of his Autism may prejudice jurors against him, citing Kohberger’s ‘limited facial expressions’ and ‘atypical eye contact’ as things that could be perceived as a lack of remorse, or even disrespect in the courtroom. Anne Taylor specifically points to the media labelling Kohberger’s expression as an ‘eerie’ or ‘creepy’ stare.
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