The horrifying revelations of the Idaho student murders; What the Idaho student murder investigation tells us about how criminal justice should work.

 VOX

The probable cause affidavit for the arrest, released Thursday after Kohberger’s first court appearance, sheds new light on an extraordinarily horrific crime and the equally extraordinary criminal investigation that followed it. What finally led to Kohberger’s arrest was simply excellent investigative work: a mix of well-organized policing, groundbreaking forensics using genetic genealogy, and old-fashioned detective work. 

. . .“ 'Impressive” might be an understatement: The swiftness with which police managed to identify, carefully build a strong case against Kohberger, track him across the country, and arrest him, all while working with multiple agencies and somehow managing to keep his identity from leaking to the public, is extremely rare. It’s even more extraordinary given how many victims were involved, how unusual the crime was, how many agencies were involved, and how intense the public and media scrutiny was.

"The triumph of the investigation, however, is tempered by the realization that Kohberger seems to have been working the criminal justice system in order to become a better criminal. Each half of the resolution to this case is a cold counter to the other: On the one hand, a picture of what we all, desperately, want policing to look like; on the other, a picture of what the criminal justice system too often becomes: exploitable.

"Still, it’s easy to imagine this investigation becoming a major case study for what effective policing can and should look like: law enforcement working with the community and with each other, and building the case methodically, based solely on the evidence.

"Perhaps most unusual of all is just how strong the case against Kohberger appears from the outset. Eyewitness? Check. Video surveillance of his car? Check. DNA match? Check. Implicating cell phone records? Loads. Even without the added circumstantial evidence of Kohberger’s own obsession with criminal psychology, this would be a hard defense to mount.

"And we know all of this just from the probable cause affidavit — which typically only contains enough information to make the case for an arrest. The trial process itself will likely reveal much more information about the crime and the alleged criminal.". . .