Bryan Kohberger's lawyer sends defense investigators to crime scene: source

EXCLUSIVE - MOSCOW, Idaho – Investigators hired by Bryan Kohberger's defense team arrived Tuesday at the home where he's accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students, Fox News Digital has learned.

Three men and two women arrived at the King Road house at about noon Eastern time and spent 45 minutes taking video inside and outside the property.

Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen were knifed to death in the early morning hours of Nov. 13 on the second and third floors of the home.

Four of the investigators left after touring the home Tuesday, while a crime scene reconstruction analyst remained.

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO MURDERS TIMELINE: WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE SLAUGHTER OF FOUR STUDENTS

An Idaho State Police trooper accompanied the group. The Idaho lawyer who is representing the accused mass murderer hasn't been publicly identified.

"The fact that Bryan Kohberger's attorney has brought in private investigators to go throughout this crime scene leads me to believe that he is definitely going to mount a strong defense," said Fox News contributor Ted Williams, a former homicide detective and attorney. 

A cleaning crew arrived at the murder scene last Friday to clear the home of biohazards and harmful substances in preparation for turning the property back over to the owner. 

But at a press conference later Friday announcing the arrest of Kohberger, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said that remediation efforts at the home were halted after receiving a "legal request from the court."

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Kohberger was arrested Friday at about 1:30 a.m. Eastern time about 2,500 miles from the crime scene at his parents' home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania.

The Washington State University Ph.D. student and teaching assistant in the criminal justice and criminology program wrapped up the semester before driving home with his father for the holidays.

He was due in Monroe County Court in Stroudsburg for an extradition hearing Tuesday afternoon.

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Jason Labar, a public defender who is representing Kohberg only in the extradition matter, said his client plans to voluntarily return to Idaho, where's he's charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary.

Kohberger believes he will be exonerated and his parents believe their son isn't behind the horrific slayings, LaBar told NBC News.

The slain college students were ambushed in their sleep and each stabbed multiple times, according to police.

IDAHO MURDERS: SUSPECT BRYAN CHRISTOPHER KOHBERGER ARRESTED IN KILLINGS OF 4 UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Officials have not publicly disclosed a motive for the gruesome rampage or recovered the fixed-blade knife they believe was used in the attack.

Once Kohberger returns to Idaho, the probable cause affidavit outlining his alleged crimes will be unsealed, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said last week.

The court document could offer more insight into Kohberger's possible motive and connection to the victims.

Nearly seven weeks after the murders, Kohberger was finally caught after authorities matched DNA he allegedly left at the crime scene to an immediate family member who had submitted their DNA to a genealogy testing website, a law enforcement source told Fox News.

 Haley Chi-Sing, Michael Ruiz and Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.

Russian outrage grows after strike kills dozens of troops in Ukraine

A growing number of Russians have begun lashing out at the country's military leadership after dozens of Russian soldiers were killed in a strike against their position by Ukrainian forces.

"The Russian people are justifiably angry at the commanders and Moscow leaders as their young men and boys are dying by the thousands in this war," Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer and the author of "Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America," told Fox News Digital.

Koffler's comments come as Russian nationalists and even some lawmakers have demanded punishment for military commanders, according to a Reuters report Tuesday, accusing military leaders of ignoring the dangers of hosting troops near a storage facility that was an obvious target for a Ukrainian strike.

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The outrage began after a rare Russian Defense Ministry disclosure admitted that 63 Russian soldiers were killed in a New Year's Eve attack on a temporary barracks in the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk, one of the deadliest attacks on Russian troops since the war began over 10 months ago. 

Gatherings to honor dead troops popped up in multiple cities across the country in response to the attack, with mourners in the city of Samara placing flowers in the city center.

"I haven't slept for three days, Samara hasn't slept. We are constantly in touch with the wives of our guys. It's very hard and scary. But we can't be broken. Grief unites ... We will not forgive, and, definitely, victory will be ours," Yekaterina Kolotovkina, a representative of a women's council at an army unit, told mourners at one of the gatherings, according to Reuters.

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Koffler believes the setback is unlikely to dissuade Russia from continuing to put troops at risk, arguing that the country's culture prioritizes the collective over individual soldiers. 

"The fact that large numbers of personnel were housed close-by to the storage of military hardware, making this location an ideal target for Ukrainian strikes is not exactly due to incompetence of the Russian military leadership," Koffler said. "It’s due to negligence. They simply don’t care."

"The Russian culture prioritizes sacrifice for mother Russia rather than the sanctity of life. Lives of individual soldiers don’t matter on the big scheme of things - that is the mentality," she continued. "Putin and his regime will continue to throw young soldiers in the meat grinder to achieve the Kremlin's strategic goal - keep Ukraine out of NATO."