Bryan Kohberger defense suggests 'alternate perpetrators' in Idaho murders, joining infamous legal strategy

Fox News

23-05-2025

Bryan Kohberger's defense team brought up the possibility that there were "alternate perpetrators" involved in the quadruple murders during a hearing in early May, but Kohberger is hardly the first person to point the blame at other individuals.
During a May 15 pretrial hearing, Judge Steven Hippler revealed that Kohberger's defense team made a filing that suggested an alternate suspect. Kohberger is charged with first-degree murder in the Nov. 13, 2022, deaths of University of Idaho students Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
While Hippler did not rule on whether he was going to allow Kohberger's defense team to present the "alternate perpetrators" theory during trial, he did ask for more evidence supporting their claim.
Former federal prosecutor James Trusty told Fox News Digital the strategy isn't necessarily a "full-throated defense" but rather a strategy used to create reasonable doubt within the jury.
"The problem is, a lot of times, it's really designed to be not a full-throated defense to say Mr. Smith was the one that committed the murder, but just to create reasonable doubt. It's keeping in mind that the standard is tilted in favor of the defendant appropriately. And so the idea is to not always go full-throated and say he absolutely did it, but to make a run at it, to play it out in front of the jury, let them kind of come to their own conclusion that there's at least some doubt as to who did it," Trusty said.
Here's a look at other criminal cases in which the suspects invoked an alternate perpetrator.
O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, along with her friend, Ronald Goldman, on June 12, 1994.
Simpson's defense team attempted to bring in the alternate perpetrators' theory when they suggested in 1995 that the murders were done by Colombian drug lords, according to the New York Times.
Simpson's lawyer, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., said in court that Brown Simpson and Goldman weren't the intended targets of the murder, but he suggested that one of her friends, Faye Resnick, was the person that Colombian drug lords had planned to kill.
Cochran said the drug dealers wanted to kill Resnick over money she allegedly owed.
Simpson was ultimately acquitted but said after the trial that he would keep working to find the person who killed his ex-wife and Goldman.
"My first obligation is to my young children, who will be raised the way that Nicole and I had always planned. … But when things have settled a bit, I will pursue as my primary goal in life the killer or killers who slaughtered Nicole and Mr. Goldman. They are out there somewhere. Whatever it takes to identify them and bring them in, I will provide somehow," Simpson said.
Scott Peterson was found guilty in 2004 of killing his wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner. Laci Peterson disappeared from the couple's Modesto, California, home on Christmas Eve in late 2002. A pedestrian found her unborn son's body, decomposed at the time, in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
During Peterson's 2004 trial, his attorney, Mark Geragos, claimed a burglary near the couple's home at the time of her disappearance might have been connected to her death, according to the New York Post.
Peterson was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In April, the Los Angeles Innocence Project filed a petition that claimed 17 eyewitnesses who lived or worked in the Petersons' neighborhood "reported seeing a woman fitting Laci's description walking a dog in the neighborhood and nearby park" on the morning of Dec. 24, 2002, after Scott left for the day.
Casey Anthony was accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in 2008.
Prosecutors alleged that Casey Anthony used duct tape as the murder weapon, claiming the mother covered her mouth and nose with it, which resulted in the child's death. Her body was found in a wooded area in Orange County, Florida.
Anthony's defense lawyers claimed Caylee Anthony accidentally drowned while swimming in her grandparents' pool.
During the trial, Anthony's defense attorney, Jose Baez, argued that Caylee Anthony's father, George, covered up the drowning and sexually abused his daughter. George Anthony vehemently denied those accusations.
Casey Anthony was acquitted on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated manslaughter of a child and aggravated child abuse, butshe was found guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement.
Dr. Sam Sheppard was accused of killing his wife, Marilyn Sheppard, on July 4, 1954.
According to Cleveland Historical, the family hosted a Fourth of July party. After the party, Sam Sheppard decided to go on a walk alone along a Lake Erie beach in Bay Village, Ohio.
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When he returned, Sam Sheppard discovered his wife's body "chopped up" on their bed.
Bay Village police arrested him on a murder charge on July 30, 1954. He was found guilty at trial but maintained that a bushy-haired man was the individual who killed his wife. Sam Sheppard said he chased the man while he was fleeing their home.
His conviction was overturned in 1966.
Jeffrey MacDonald was accused of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters on Feb. 17, 1970, according to the News & Observer.
Colette Stevenson MacDonald, 26, along with the couple's two daughters, Kimberley, 6, and Kristin, 2, were stabbed and beaten to death at their home located on the Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina. Jeffrey MacDonald had several stab wounds.
MacDonald allegedly told Army investigators at the time that his family was killed by a group of hippies, which included a woman in a floppy hat. The woman, according to MacDonald, chanted, "Acid is groovy, kill the pigs."
MacDonald was indicted on three counts of murder by a federal grand jury in January 1975, but the trial didn't start until 1979. He was found guilty of first-degree murder for his wife's death and two second-degree murders for the deaths of his daughters. He was sentenced to three terms of life in prison.