Bryan Kohberger Trial Piles Pressure on Idaho Prosecutor's Finances

The Bryan Kohberger murder trial is expected to be financially draining for the prosecution, which has recently asked for more money to avoid "cutting corners" in the case, according to reports.

Kohberger, 28, is accused of breaking into an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, and stabbing four students to death.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were all found dead with stab wounds later that day.

He has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. He declined to enter a plea during a hearing in Latah County District Court in May 2023, prompting the judge to enter a not guilty plea on his behalf. Soon after his arrest, in December 2022, his former attorney said Kohberger was "eager to be exonerated."

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson met with the county commissioners on Tuesday to submit his office annual budget request and proposed a significantly higher sum than most years.

Thompson requested $135,000 for trial expenses, a big leap from the $15,000 that has been consistently budgeted in previous years, according to a Lewiston Tribune report.

This money would be used for trial expenses, including paying for the services of expert witnesses, witness travel fees, transcript fees and exhibit displays.

"It's hard to project exactly what's going to be involved. We know that it's not going to be cheap," Thompson said.

He added that he and his office were trying to keep the budget projections conservative but "we need to make sure that we don't cut corners on anything with regard to making sure this case is handled properly."

The Latah County Prosecutor's Office has so far submitted over 51 terabytes of data as part of the discovery process, according to a New York Post report.

This has included: "thousands of pages of discovery, thousands of photographs, hundreds of hours of recordings, many gigabytes of electronic phone record and social media data," according to court documents.

The commissioners are expected to adopt the county's annual budget in September and Kohberger's trial is set for October.

Ahead of the trial, experts have weighed in on the possibility that the prosecution team may push for the death penalty.

Former prosecutor Matt Murphy spoke to NewsNation's Elizabeth Vargas in May and said there was an "overwhelming" amount of evidence against Kohberger.

"A prosecutor under these circumstances will weigh the aggravating versus mitigating circumstances. It's essentially the same job that a jury will be asked to do. And this case is so overwhelmingly awful, for lack of a better term, I think there's going to be a lot of pressure within the DA's office to actually seek the death penalty," he said.

"The evidence against Bryan Kohberger is overwhelming, and that actually is a factor in that decision. I think this one is pretty clear...my guess is he's [the district attorney] seeking the death penalty."