Judge Steven Hippler rejected Bryan Kohberger’s effort to suppress evidence obtained through AT&T warrants that gave investigators access to cellphone records used to reconstruct his movements before and after the murders. Kohberger’s defense had attacked the warrants on constitutional and probable-cause grounds, arguing that the applications relied on flawed or incomplete assertions and that investigators should not have been permitted to obtain the breadth of historical location and subscriber data they sought. Hippler disagreed, finding that the warrants were supported by sufficient probable cause when the affidavits were read as a whole and that investigators had established an adequate factual connection between Kohberger, his phone and the homicide investigation. His February 19, 2025 order therefore allowed prosecutors to continue using the AT&T-derived evidence, preserving one of the major digital pillars of the state’s timeline against Kohberger.
Hippler also denied Kohberger’s challenge to the Pennsylvania search warrant for the white Hyundai Elantra seized at his parents’ home after his December 2022 arrest. The defense sought to suppress the evidence collected from the car, along with other Pennsylvania searches, but Hippler concluded that the warrants were lawfully supported and rejected the defense’s broader arguments for exclusion. That ruling meant investigators could retain evidence recovered from Kohberger’s Hyundai and prosecutors could continue tying the vehicle search to the larger case involving surveillance footage of a white sedan, cellphone evidence and Kohberger’s alleged movements. Taken together, Hippler’s rulings were a substantial loss for the defense because they left both the state’s digital-location evidence and the physical evidence obtained from Kohberger’s car intact rather than stripping two important investigative avenues out of the case before trial.
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