Idaho student murders: Bryan Kohberger judge faces new gag order appeal

Lawyers for a group of media outlets have filed a new motion asking Idaho Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall to lift her gag order on the Bryan Kohberger case, a week after the state's Supreme Court dismissed a similar appeal and said it should have been filed in the lower court.

Authorities have cited the order in avoiding answering questions for months on the case against Kohberger – who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students in a 4 a.m. ambush on Nov. 13 – even questions they are allowed to answer under Marshall's terms.

"Last week, the Idaho Supreme Court held that a ‘vague, overbroad, unduly restrictive, or not narrowly drawn’ gag order is ‘an unconstitutional obstacle to [Intervenors] gathering’ information about this case," attorneys for The Associated Press and the media group wrote in a new filing.

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"But on procedural grounds, the Idaho Supreme Court decided that this Court should have a chance, in the first instance, to vacate the amended nondissemination order entered January 18, 2023 (the ‘Gag Order’)," the filing continues. "Following the Idaho Supreme Court’s guidance, and for the reasons provided in the accompanying memorandum, Intervenors now ask this Court to vacate the Gag Order because it is vague, overbroad, unduly restrictive, and not narrowly drawn."

The filing also notes that public records requests have been denied on the grounds of the gag order as well.

Kohberger faces four counts of first-degree murder and a felony burglary charge for allegedly stabbing all four students with a large knife.

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The victims, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were found dead hours after a surviving housemate told police she heard strange noises and saw a masked man with "bushy eyebrows" leaving out the back door.

Kohberger's defense team has claimed in court filings that another survivor has "exculpatory information." 

Court filings, however, show how detectives linked Kohberger's phone and car to the house at least a dozen times before the murders – and they allege that he returned to the scene hours later but before 911 had been called.

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Next to Mogen's body, police found a Ka-Bar knife sheath that they allege contained DNA that also linked Kohberger to the home.

Kohberger is being held in the Latah County Jail in Moscow, Idaho, without bail.

He's due back in court on June 26 for a preliminary hearing.

But on May 25, the court will also heal a separate appeal of the gag order from Goncalves' family.

Judge Marshall had previously said she would not address the motion on the gag order until after the Idaho Supreme Court reached its decision on the media group's first appeal.

Kohberger was a Ph.D. student at Washington State University at the time of the attack. The school is less than 10 miles from the University of Idaho. Pennsylvania police arrested him at his parents' house in the Pocono Mountains on Dec. 30 after investigators tracked his cross-country path home.

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After the arrest, Bill Thompson, the Latah County prosecuting attorney, told reporters at a news briefing on the day of the arrest to expect more information to come out in court.

Kohberger's defense attorney, Anne Taylor, has ignored numerous requests for comment from Fox News Digital, even before the gag order.

Her office claimed in court filings that media coverage of the home invasion murders has been "grotesquely twisted."