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Jan. 12 (UPI) — Murder suspect Bryan Kohberger, accused of committing the deadly stabbings of four University of Idaho students, appeared in court for the second time Thursday.
Kohberger waived his right to a speedy trial Thursday, during a brief appearance in Latah County District Court in Idaho.
The 28-year-old nodded his head and responded “yes” when Judge Megan Marshall asked if he understood the proceedings.
Kohberger has not yet entered a plea in the case and remains held without bail at Idaho’s Latah County Jail. A pre-trial hearing is now scheduled for June. He was under armed guard during Thursday’s hearing, wearing orange jail clothing.
Kohberger was a PhD student in the criminal justice and criminology department at Washington State University. He is accused in the stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernoldle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in November.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30 in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains after authorities tracked him down. He was in his home state of Pennsylvania for the holidays, after driving home with his father and arriving in the state on Dec. 17.
He was extradited to Idaho earlier this month.
If convicted, Kohberger faces the death penalty, which is legal in Idaho, although the state has only executed three people since 1976 when the punishment was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court. The last execution in Idaho was in 2012.
Investigators have not speculated on a motive for the crime.
Prosecutors have not laid out all the evidence they have against Kohberger, who has refused to answer questions so far.
Shortly before the end of the year, Pennsylvania police recovered trash from his family’s Pennsylvania home. A state-run lab in Idaho then linked the DNA from the sample to the knife sheath from the murder scene.
