Possible witnesses for Bryan Kohberger trial contest travel to Idaho
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- Pennsylvania judge compels reluctant witnesses to testify at Idaho murder trial
- Kohberger’s defense seeks testimony from distant acquaintances and ex-classmates
- Media attention, subpoenas raise reputational concerns for those called to testify
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Plea deal reached in 2022 killings of four U of I students
Bryan Kohberger, suspect of killing University of Idaho students in Moscow, Idaho, agrees to a deal in exchange for no death penalty.
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He’s been portrayed in numerous media accounts as the man who taught murder suspect Bryan Kohberger how to box. But Jesse Harris told a Monroe County judge Monday that he barely remembers the former Pleasant Valley High School student now accused of killing four University of Idaho students.
“I knew him as a 15- to 16-year-old,” Harris told Pennsylvania District Judge Arthur Zulick. “We trained thousands of kids.”
Brandon Andreola, a former schoolmate of Kohberger’s, said he was similarly dumbfounded as to why defense attorneys wanted him to testify at the 30-year-old’s murder trial in Idaho.
“My relationship with Bryan has been minimal and distant since high school,” Andreola said, noting that he had not spoken to Kohberger since 2020 — two years before the homicides.
Despite the objections, the judge ordered them to travel to Idaho for the trial, which was scheduled for this summer in Boise. Kohberger has since accepted a plea deal, according to a letter signed by the prosecution Monday and obtained by the Idaho Statesman. A third Pennsylvania man, Anthony Somma, did not contest his subpoena and planned to testify. Three other potential witnesses had hearings scheduled next week.
Kohberger faced four counts of first-degree murder and a count of felony burglary stemming from the students’ deaths in November 2022. At the time, he was a Ph.D. student in Washington State University’s criminal justice and criminology department, living just over the Idaho state line from Moscow in Pullman, Washington.
Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted. The plea deal took capital punishment off the table, in exchange for his guilty plea to the murder charges, according to the letter from the prosecution.
The victims were U of I seniors Madison Mogan and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21; junior Xana Kernodle, 20; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20. The three women lived in the off-campus home with two female roommates who went unharmed in the attack, while Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and stayed over for the night.
Former friend fears reputational damage
Monday’s hearing in eastern Pennsylvania was scheduled to address rare interstate subpoenas filed by the defense, which required approval by a Pennsylvania judge. Abigail Parnell, the attorney representing Kohberger on behalf of his Idaho public defense team, did not say in open court why she wanted the men to testify. She and the judge had a sidebar conversation on the subject that was then redacted from the record, at Parnell’s request.
In court Monday, Andreola complained about the intense media coverage of the case, saying he believed he could lose his job if he testified. He did not reveal where he worked except to say that it is a “publicly traded company.”
Andreola said some of Kohberger’s family members had lost their jobs after his arrest, and decried the YouTubers and podcasters who had included photos of his wedding in their coverage.
“Reputation is everything. I do not wish to have this attention. It’s my belief that the media attention will only pick up if I’m brought out to Idaho,” he said.
“I don’t want it misconstrued that I’m out there supporting the situation Bryan has himself in,” he added.
Andreola, who appeared in court without an attorney, also told the judge that he has a newborn at home and his wife needs his help. After the judge ordered him to attend the trial, Andreola asked if he could testify via video. Zulick said that would be up to an Idaho judge.
Harris, who said he owns a small construction firm as well as trains boxing students at Northampton County Community College two nights a week, asked to be excused from traveling to Idaho because his wife is undergoing medical tests that may intensify in the coming months.
He told the judge that he has already given the defense statements about his contact with Kohberger as a teen and didn’t know how much more useful information he could share.
Harris also bristled at the characterization that he coached Kohberger to be a skilled fighter, as he’d seen in some media accounts. The teen came to his gym with his father because he needed something to do, Harris said.
“Bryan never threw a punch at anyone,” he said. “He wasn’t there to box. He was there, like a lot of kids, to work out, to build confidence and to lose weight.”
Perhaps the most perplexed witness at the hearing was Ralph A. Vecchio III, who owns the used car dealership where Kohberger’s parents bought a 2015 Hyundai Elantra in 2019. Vecchio argued that he never met Kohberger, and the defendant never even brought the car in for service.
After some back and forth about whether attorneys meant to summon Vecchio’s father, 88-year-old Ralph Vecchio II, the judge continued the matter until July 7.
Two potential witnesses, William Searfoss, a corrections officer, and Maggie Sanders, who works at the local school district as a school psychologist, also had hearings scheduled next week. Kohberger worked for the Pleasant Valley School District as a part-time security officer after graduation. He resigned in June 2021, according to school board meeting minutes.
Searfoss would likely have been called simply to confirm records of Kohberger’s short post-arrest stay at the jail in Monroe County, the judge noted. Kohberger’s brief time in custody in Pennsylvania while awaiting extradition to Idaho was “uneventful,” the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
Another man with ties to Kohberger was in court Monday. Anthony Somma told the judge he did not contest the subpoena and was quickly dismissed. He did not state his relationship with Kohberger, but appears to have attended the same technical school as Kohberger during their overlapping high school years.
Still one other possible witness, Ann Parham, who was a teacher and administrator in the public school district before she retired in 2022, already agreed to travel to Idaho to testify if called as a witness. As a result, her summons to appear Monday was canceled.
The hearing took place before a packed courtroom. Kohberger’s case has garnered intense media coverage, including a controversial “Dateline” television episode that revealed leaked details about the case, prompting the presiding judge in Idaho to order an investigation into who violated a gag order. The CBS true crime show “48 Hours” was also planning a weekly podcast with video for the trial.
None of the witnesses were accompanied by attorneys Monday and all left the courthouse without speaking to the press. Parnell declined to answer questions as she walked to her car.
Friends on 911 call speak out
The two friends who arrived to help the two surviving roommates check the house later that morning and discovered the bodies of their friends spoke out for the first time Monday in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Hunter Johnson and Emily Alandt can be heard talking with the dispatcher on the call made to 911 just before noon. Johnson told the morning program he wore shorts and sandals over to the King Road house, not expecting to stay very long.
“I would say as soon as you get there, you know something’s wrong,” Johnson said. He added that he felt God was with him in that moment, lending him the strength to get through that day.
Johnson and Alandt, who are dating, are set to appear in a forthcoming four-part docuseries called “One Night in Idaho,” which is set to begin streaming on Amazon Prime on July 11. It acts as a companion to a new book by James Patterson and Vicky Ward called “The Idaho Four” that comes out July 14.
“Good Morning America” revealed that a fifth person, friend Josie Lauteren, also was there when Johnson found Chapin and Kernodle’s bodies in her room on the second floor of the home.
“As soon as I stepped in the house, I was like, ‘Op, something is so not right.’ Like, you could feel it almost,” Lauteren said in a clip from the docuseries.
As police arrived, the group sat outside and waited for several hours for more information and direction from officers.
“We watched the ambulance come and we watched them immediately leave, so,” Alandt said. “That was a hard … part, for sure.”
Convictions for Kohberger still wouldn’t feel like true justice after the loss of their four friends, Alandt said.
“Who they are as people is so much more than ‘The Idaho Four,’ ” she said. “They shouldn’t be known as ‘The Idaho Four’ and they shouldn’t be attached to the name of who did that to them.
“I just think that hopefully one day that they’re just seen as who they are and not what happened to them.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2025 at 10:01 AM with the headline "Possible witnesses for Bryan Kohberger trial contest travel to Idaho."
