Bryan Kohberger's former defense expert calls for death penalty, says investigators missed key evidence

Admitted Idaho murderer Bryan Kohberger should get a new trial and face the death penalty, according to a digital forensics expert hired by the defense who says investigators missed damning evidence against the 30-year-old former criminology PhD student — although his own expert report for the case appears to contradict some of the claims.

Sy Ray is a former Arizona homicide investigator who is now an expert on digital forensics, geolocation and similar data. Kohberger’s lawyers hired him as an expert witness for the defense before Kohberger pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty for the home invasion murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, also 20.

Kohberger, now serving four consecutive sentences of life in prison without parole, petitioned the court last week to withdraw his guilty plea and seek post-conviction relief, which could send the case to trial — and put the potential death penalty back in play.

However, in Ray’s report, he wrote that he “can find no evidence of stalking behavior or surveillance at the King Road Residence,” Wright noted.

“This is the sharpest contradiction,” Wright told Fox News Digital. “The state’s search warrant sought records specifically to determine whether Kohberger ‘stalked’ any victim or ‘conducted surveillance on the King Road Residence.'”

After Kohberger’s guilty plea, Ray said he offered to do a debrief with the FBI to show the evidence he said he found and they missed. He said he got no response, but added that he has presented before hundreds of law enforcement agencies around the country going back to November, he said.

Last week, Kohberger filed a petition for post-conviction relief, claiming he had ineffective counsel from his defense team.

Ray also speculated that Kohberger’s post-conviction petition was part of a broader legal strategy by his lead defense attorney Anne Taylor despite the plea agreement’s waiver of most appeal rights.

Kohberger pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.

“This can never be the standard investigation that we see in cases,” Ray said. “This can never be acceptable.”

However, he said that he’s confident Kohberger would be convicted anyway at trial — if investigators introduced the evidence he found while working with Taylor.

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“The time is now to start this investigation over,” Ray said.

Kohberger had followed other people in the Moscow-Pullman area, he said — a pair of college towns on the border of Washington and Idaho.

“I think he had multiple targets throughout the entire Moscow-Pullman area,” Ray said. “Location information and pattern of life is by far the most telling.”

Ray said he has no doubt that Kohberger committed the murders.

“If he ever does walk, he will kill again,” he said.