INCOMPETENCY OR CORRUPTION?
FBI CAST: Kohberger vs Daybell
Let's compare the work of FBI CAST (Cellular Analysis Survey Team) in the Bryan Kohberger case, versus their work in the Lori and Chad Daybell case(s), since we know FBI CAST member Nicholas Ballance worked on both. To do this, we'll compare probable cause affidavits and a few other court documents from each case.
THE IRONY:
To begin, let's take a look at how law enforcement twists (sometimes inconvenient) facts to suit their narrative:
If a suspect’s phone is at the scene of a crime, then they're the perpetrator. But if their phone isn't at the scene of a crime, then the person who law enforcement has chosen to be the perpetrator must've left their phone at home. So the presence of a phone proves guilt, but so does its absence. Got it.
Just to be clear about my position, I absolutely believe Chad and Lori Daybell are guilty of the crimes for which they've been convicted. I believe law enforcement investigated the disappearance/homicides of Lori Daybell’s children (along with all of the other suspicious deaths surrounding the Daybell's) in good faith. From the outside, the investigation appears honest and thorough, and the evidence presented makes sense… which is the exact opposite of what we've seen in the Idaho 4 case.
The investigation into the quadruple homicide on King Rd has been shrouded in secrecy and shifting narratives since day one, but since the arrest of Bryan Kohberger it's only gotten worse. It seems like the prosecution is trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and a lot of people blame it on incompetence, but I have to strongly disagree.
The FBI has been in control of this investigation from day one, for some undisclosed reason (although I do have a theory I will be exploring in a future post), and based on just the cell phone location aspect alone, it's clear to me that decisions were intentionally made to steer the investigation towards a predetermined outcome. So let's get into why I’ve come to that conclusion:
FROM DETECTIVE RON BALL’S PCA FOR THE ARREST OF CHAD DAYBELL:
To keep this post somewhat coherent, we're going to go through the cell phone location data in the Kohberger case first, and the Daybell/Vallow case second - but while we go through the Kohberger data, keep in mind that in an investigation from a couple years prior, the exact same FBI CAST with the exact same lead investigator (FBI SA Nicholas Ballance) utilized GPS, Google account information, AND cell tower connections to establish locations for all of the suspects. Anne Taylor has specifically mentioned FBI SA Nicholas Ballance in multiple pre-trial hearings, and his name appears on several search warrants.
The dates on the Trap & Trace warrant make no sense to me, I’ll have to address that at a later date. Just take note that Nicholas Ballance’s name appears on both. And this was also confirmed by Brett Payne in the hearing held on January 23rd, 2025:
And:
In Chad and Lori Daybell’s trials, Nicholas Ballance appeared as an expert from FBI CAST to present the state’s cell phone location evidence (Chad Daybell: 1, 2. Lori Daybell: 1, 2). It's also important to highlight the fact that the Daybell investigation occurred in late 2019 through 2020, while the Idaho 4/Bryan Kohberger investigation happened in late 2022, through 2023.
So why is it that in the Daybell case we see Google account information, GPS, AND cell tower connections used to establish locations for the people involved, but in the Kohberger case we only hear how his phone “utilized cellular resources that provide coverage to _____”, aka “connected to the same cell tower that provides coverage to a location”, with no mention of GPS, Google, Find My iPhone, Waze, Snapchat, etc…? In my opinion, this was a very intentional choice in order to paint a false narrative.
FROM BRETT PAYNE'S PCA FOR THE ARREST OF BRYAN KOHBERGER:
And:
From that we can determine, Bryan’s phone was NOT connected to the cell tower in “close proximity” to 1122 King Rd during the 2 hours the murders are believed to have occurred. The tower they are referencing is approximately a half mile away from 1122 King Rd.
It's technically a little further away than a half mile, but it doesn't seem like law enforcement involved in this case are super concerned with accuracy. Here's the search warrant for the tower in question:
So they received a “tower dump” of every phone that connected to the cell tower closest to 1122 King Rd (which also provided AT&T cell coverage to the crime scene) on November 13th, 2022 between 3 am and 5 am. So while we know Bryan Kohberger's phone wasn't one of them, I'm very curious to find out whose phones did connect to the tower during that time, and which ones typically weren’t in the area… and how much investigators really investigated all of them.
Here is the overall coverage area for that specific AT&T tower:
The green square is the AT&T tower in question, the purple is the overall coverage area for the tower according to cellmapper.net, and the blue square is another AT&T cell tower in the area, but it does not provide coverage to 1122 King Rd.
There is also one other AT&T tower in the Moscow area that provides coverage to 1122 King Rd, but it is a little over 3 miles away:
Here is that AT&T tower's coverage area:
MAP KEY (applies to all maps in this article):
The green square is the AT&T tower in question.
The purple is the overall coverage area for the tower according to cellmapper.net.
The blue squares are the other AT&T cell towers in the area, but do not provide coverage to 1122 King Rd (except the two towers I specifically mentioned previously).
The route highlighted in pink is the route the state alleges Bryan Kohberger may have driven from his apartment in Pullman to 1122 King Rd in Moscow, “based off of cellular site locations”, aka the route law enforcement decided Bryan drove, based solely on the cell towers his phone connected to.
The four towns labeled in black on the map are relevant “cellular site locations” mentioned in the PCA.
“BK” is Bryan Kohberger’s apartment.
“1122” is 1122 King Rd.
“Wawawai” is Wawawai Park, which is the location mentioned by Anne Taylor in the Notice of Defendant's Supplemental Response to State's Alibi Demand:
Interestingly, throughout the PCA it is never clarified which of the two AT&T towers that provide coverage to the crime scene Bryan’s phone is alleged to have connected to, but as I’ve already stated, I believe that’s intentional. However, it doesn’t really matter which of the two towers he’s connected to, because they both have such a large coverage area, especially the tower that’s 3.17 miles away from the crime scene. According to the coverage area depicted on cellmapper.net, you could be 30+ miles south of Moscow and still be “utilizing cellular resources which provide coverage to 1122 King Rd”… which is essentially meaningless. So why exactly would they not include any of the GPS location data from Bryan’s phone? If it shows his phone in the exact locations claimed in the PCA, then wouldn’t they want to include it?
To keep this post from being too long, for the Kohberger case we're mostly going to focus on the portion of the PCA pertaining to the alleged locations of Bryan's phone in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022.
Let's break this down step-by-step:
As we've established, a phone “utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to _____”, means that the phone connected to the same tower that provides coverage to the stated location, and nothing more. No mention of which sector (side) of the tower, or the distance from the tower, or the direction in which the hand off occurred (the direction a phone is traveling as it moves from one tower to the next), and definitely no mention of GPS location data.
From what I can find, only one AT&T tower provides coverage to Bryan Kohberger's apartment, which is depicted above. Here is a wider view of the coverage area for the same tower:
So his phone could be anywhere within the shaded purple area. Next, the PCA says:
They could still be referring to the same tower, although it could be this other tower too:
Or is it maybe this tower?
Of course they don't specify which tower they're talking about, they wouldn’t want to pin themselves down too much.
Then the PCA states:
The thing that bothers me the most about this particular sentence is, they can tell if Bryan's phone was placed in airplane mode, turned off, or lost service - but they pretend like they have no idea which it is! This is so incredibly dishonest. Just look at what Dustin Blaker wrote in his version of the PCA, which was replaced by Payne's shortly after:
Gee, I wonder why they took that part out?
It should be noted that any apps tracking a phone’s location through GPS (satellites) will continue to do so even when the phone is in an area with no cell service. Perhaps this is why they left it out?
Another issue is the time - here's Anne Taylor informing the court of a slight “discrepancy”:
So they straight up lied about basic facts in the PCA…. too bad Hippler seems to be totally fine with it. I love how Anne Taylor pointed out that the FBI knows how to do all of this correctly - but they chose not to. Why do you think they would do that?
Who knows if that time is even correct, but I guess for now we have to assume it is. In my opinion, this particular part is the most interesting to me. The reason for this is:
The state claims that when Bryan's phone reconnects to the network (regains cell service), it is utilizing a tower that provides coverage to highway 95, north of Genesee, near Blaine… but if you look at the coverage map, that tower also covers the entire stretch of highway 195 on the Washington side, from the Idaho state line, nearly all the way up to Pullman. So while the state is claiming Bryan’s phone coming back onto the network and connecting to that tower somehow proves he was just turning his phone back on as he left Moscow after committing the murders, it could just as easily mean he was driving home from Wawawai Park, and that is the tower his phone reconnected to - on highway 195 near Johnson, Washington. As I explained in my earlier alibi post, there is no cell service at Wawawai Park, or the entire length of the Snake River/Lower Granite Lake. This is likely due to the steep mountains along the river, which would block cell signal from any nearby cell towers.
The area highlighted in orange likely has no cell service based on elevation change, and the area highlighted in pink verifiably has no cell service based on multiple coverage maps, Google Maps and TripAdvisor reviews, and the fact that it’s in a valley with steep mountains on each side. The pink route is the way the state is pretending Bryan drove based on cell tower connections, but the routes highlighted in blue are some of the possible roads Bryan may have driven to and from Wawawai Park based on cell towers connections. The blue route with yellow dots/arrows is the route I believe he most likely took. Here is a satellite image of the same area:
AFTER THE MURDERS:
So they're saying that on the morning after the murders, approximately 4.5 to 5 hours later (according to law enforcement's timeline), Bryan Kohberger left his apartment. At 9:00 AM his cell phone is connected to this AT&T tower:
Which could quite possibly have a coverage area that includes 1122 King Rd, or at least extremely close to it:
And then he connects to one or both of these two AT&T towers:
And then his phone connected to the AT&T tower that provides coverage to his apartment… which in no way proves he was ever at, or even near, 1122 King Rd that morning.
Julez With True Crime Reactions recently did a good video breaking down the issues with the timeline of Bryan's alleged movements on the morning of November 13th, 2022, and you can check that out here.
This map is ridiculous, but it's apparently the best the FBI, MPD, and ISP could come up with. If you compare the route they drew in yellow to an actual map, you can see that the line doesn't even follow an existing road. The original map from the PCA is so dark you can't make anything out, and my edited version above isn't much better. I'm sure that's by design.
I love how they discredit all of their claims about Bryan's location via cell tower connections by saying that Bryan's phone “did connect to a cell tower that provides service to Moscow on November 14th, 2022, but investigators do not believe the 8458 phone was in Moscow on that date”. Then how can they be sure any of their other claims are accurate?? Obviously, they can't.
I have a few questions though:
What is that small blue line over by Pullman supposed to represent, and do they have any evidence to back it up?
What is with the gaps in the yellow line? Is this when his phone is supposedly not connected to the network? Because that doesn’t make any sense! So what is it supposed to represent?
Is this really the best they could do? Why not follow actual roads, rather than aimlessly drawing a yellow line through open fields? Four young college students were brutally stabbed to death, and this is what the FBI came up?? It's honestly insulting and disrespectful to the victims.
Let's pretend like Bryan Kohberger actually did drive to and from 1122 King Rd in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022, and he actually did turn his phone off part way through his drive… why do we not have any GPS data for his phone leading up to the moment it was turned off, and then after it was turned back on? I think I might know why.
It is WILD to me that the lack of evidence can be turned into evidence of a crime. Plus, what does he mean “the route of travel” of Bryan’s phone, when in the next breath he mentions that the phone wasn’t reporting to the AT&T network during that time? On their little map it even says “POSSIBLE route of travel”. It’s all circular reasoning.
Notice how in the last sentence of the second paragraph it says “consistent with cellular DATA” from Bryan's phone - this is one of only two times the PCA describes the location data from Bryan's phone in such a way. Every other time it says “utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to”, and I think the distinction is intentional.
There’s a few issues with what they’re claiming about the cell tower connections Bryan’s phone made on August 22nd, 2022, such as the timing. Here are the towers they’re referring to:
Notice how it says Bryan’s phone utilized cellular data (in the area of Albertson’s grocery store) yet again. This is the second of only two times this word is used in the PCA.
Notice how earlier in the PCA it said Bryan's phone came back onto the network “utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to” Blaine, Idaho after he supposedly committed the murders. Now they're saying his phone goes off the network “utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to” Johnson, Washington (let's ignore the fact that they incorrectly wrote Johnson, Idaho)…
Remember the coverage area of the tower in question:
In my opinion, this is where they give themselves away. Clearly Bryan’s phone lost service as he drove to Wawawai Park, and then regained service on his way back, and the FBI knows that. They also know he didn’t turn his phone off or put it in airplane mode, because it would say that in his cell phone data. They intentionally left out any location data more precise than a cell tower connection (advanced timing, GPS, app, etc…) because it would expose their lies. If you’re still not convinced, let’s go through the cell phone location data used in the probable cause affidavit for the arrest of Chad and Lori Daybell.
THE VALLOW/DAYBELL INVESTIGATION:
Now that we’ve seen what FBI CAST came up with for the Kohberger investigation, let's look at what the exact same team produced for the Lori Vallow/Chad Daybell cases.
FROM DETECTIVE RON BALL’S PCA FOR THE ARREST OF CHAD & LORI DAYBELL:
We’re only one paragraph in and I think you can already see what I’m talking about, right? There isn’t one single mention of “GPS data points” in the Kohberger PCA, but here we see it brought up immediately.
Not once in the Daybell PCA do you see the phrase “utilizing cellular resources that provide coverage to ____”. Not. Once. In the Daybell case, CAST was able to determine which apartment Alex Cox was in! Let’s look at how close all of these locations are to each other:
And:
These locations are all less than a mile apart, yet CAST has no issue determining where the phone belonging to Alex Cox is located.
This really is the most incredible part of it all:
So a couple years BEFORE the Kohberger investigation, this FBI CAST team was able to determine precisely which apartment a phone was located in, and when the phone moved from one apartment to another… yet when it comes time for them to prove Bryan Kohberger actually traveled to Moscow on the night of November 13th, 2022 and committed a quadruple homicide, suddenly they only have cell tower connections. Obviously that’s a lie, but why are they being so deceptive?
Again, they note precise GPS data points, not mere cell tower connections. They're able to determine where on Chad Daybell's 3.7 acre property Alex Cox was located:
Look how precise these locations are… it’s laughable, isn’t it?
Here we see the first mention of a cell tower “ping”, and it’s only brought up to state how INACCURATE IT IS! I don’t know if it would be possible for Anne Taylor to bring any of this up at trial, but I think it’s critically important information: the FBI knows how to do this (meaning GPS, cell tower hand-offs, etc), but they chose not to…. WHY??
They even included time-stamped text messages in their PCA, rather than waiting 2 years after an arrest to release a few when it serves their narrative.
Again:
The location described in paragraph 22 and 23 is labeled “Alex Cox GPS Point 1” on the map above. The location described in paragraph 27 is labeled “Alex Cox GPS Point 2” on the map above.
This is interesting….
It would appear that the FBI is capable of acquiring precise historical location data for a cell phone and analyzing the data to determine if there are any patterns or anomalies…. so why is it that when it comes to Bryan Kohberger’s phone, all we get is a vague suggestion of “stalking” because his phone connected to one or both of the two AT&T cell towers providing coverage to 1122 King Rd?
Sounds to me like the last sentence backs up what Anne Taylor said in the Notice of Defendant’s Response to State’s Alibi Demand:
In my opinion, it’s obvious why the state has been desperately trying to force the defense to give them everything they possibly have that can prove where Bryan Kohberger actually was in the early morning hours of November 13th, 2022. They want time to be able to change their story or further manipulate the data to disprove whatever the defense says, and without the AT&T Advance Timing Data from the FBI, the defense won’t be able to prove anything. It’s infuriating to watch this case chug along, with the prosecution going after the death penalty, when if only the FBI would stop hiding everything, the defense could prove that it couldn’t have been Bryan Kohberger.
MORE LIES FROM THE LATAH COUNTY PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE:
As you can see above, the prosecution recently filed a Motion in Limine asking the Judge to prohibit the defense from mentioning during trial that the state has neglected to hand over discovery in the form of AT&T timing advance records. The basis for this request is a straight up lie - Ashley Jennings is claiming AT&T timing advance records weren’t available until May of 2023, therefore it was impossible to provide them to the defense. Let me show you how totally untrue this is using the FBI CAST Field Resource Guide (dated current as of March 2019), several of the State’s own search warrants from November and December of 2022, and a portion of the transcript from the motion to compel hearing held on May 30th, 2024:
Uh-oh….
Interesting how the FBI ignored all of the available location data with an accuracy between 1 and 12 on their chart, and decided to go with tower connection only - not even tower sector!
Now here's the warrant for the AT&T cell tower dump, signed by Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall on November 17th, 2022, where law enforcement asks AT&T for “timing advance” data that they apparently knew AT&T didn't have 🙄:
This exact issue was addressed by Anne Taylor and Sy Ray in the motion to compel hearing held on May 30th, 2024. Here's an excerpt from the hearing (if you'd like to see the full transcript, you can find that here):
ANNE TAYLOR: In that first AT&T report (the search warrant affidavit), did you see the request for advanced timing reports?
SY RAY: I did, it's in both search warrants.
ANNE TAYLOR: Did you get a copy of that in either return?
SY RAY: I have not seen any timing data in this case.
ANNE TAYLOR: In December of 2022, did AT&T have this advanced timing report?
SY RAY: They absolutely did.
ANNE TAYLOR: Was it something that they could produce?
SY RAY: It absolutely was.
ANNE TAYLOR: Alright. But in May of 2023 - but how's it [different to prior to?] May of 2023?
SY RAY: Prior to May of 2023, only certain agencies were receiving this timing report, the FBI being one of them. What was referenced earlier about the May 23rd date, that is when AT&T started offering the same type of reports… it's a little different, but it's the basic timing report… to the state and local law enforcement as well. But prior to that date, state and local law enforcement would have to leverage these reports through federal agencies that had access to them.
Clearly the FBI had access to the Timing Advance records from AT&T prior to May of 2023, and the FBI CAST team was doing the cell phone location “investigation” in this case, so…. Ashley Jennings is full of it. The prosecution needs to face some kind of repercussions for lying like this, but I won’t hold my breath.
On top of the prosecution’s lies about timing advance records, they’re also withholding discovery from the defense… STILL. If Bryan Kohberger’s phone location data proves he was where they say he was, then they’d have no legitimate reason to be hiding it. Here’s a segment from the defense’s 2nd motion in limine:
Here's another excerpt from the full transcript of the motion to compel hearing held on May 30th, 2024. For context, Nicholas Ballance is one of the two FBI agents they are referring to:
ANNE TAYLOR: Okay now when we're thinking about the data, the drive test data that we have that's missing some significant portions… could it be because the machine wasn't working right all the times they tried to do drive testing?
SY RAY: Yes.
ANNE TAYLOR: Okay, is it also possible that the FBI agents using this machine weren't properly trained to do the drive test data, or to do the drive testing and collect data?
SY RAY: I know of the two FBI agents from prior lives *chuckles*. I believe they're properly trained.
ANNE TAYLOR: So we're looking at either the machine itself isn't functioning properly, or could that data have been pulled out of what we got?
SY RAY: If we're talking about possible scenarios that would cause the shortcoming of data, maybe it was never captured in the first place? I-I can't speak to that… um, the machine erroring at least during one portion of this drive test, I've seen similar errors before. I'm pretty sure they had a small period of time where it just, it had been a very busy day, and it kind of gave up for a little while like any computer will, it needed to be reset. Could things be extracted and us not know? That's always possible, I can't rule that out.
ANNE TAYLOR: Is the missing data important to you to fulfill your duties in Mr. Kohberger's case?
SY RAY: I don't recall when I got involved in this case, on the day where I could actually start looking at evidence… l've had a concern since the very first day I saw the CAST draft report that there are significant errors in the drive testing… it was before I even saw the drive testing, I can look at the coverage areas, I can tell you they're wrong… so… yes, it's not a concern that they're wrong, people make mistakes, we can fix things… it's a concern that I still don't have the source data that any expert, not just myself, but anybody, could sit down and look at it and say “okay, I see what's happening here, here's how we fix this”... unfortunately, that mistake has a ripple effect, and I'm seeing multiple errors that are happening as a result. So that's why this data is important… we've reached a point that we need to determine is this just human error? Is this accidental? Is it intentional? Is there other things at play here that's changing this narrative, to where there's clearly some manipulation of the original data?
ANNE TAYLOR: And having that data, will that help us answer that question?
SY RAY: It's the only way we're going to answer that question.
Then on March 17th, 2025, Anne Taylor filed an objection to the State’s Motion in Limine Re: Timing Advance Records, which I included a screenshot of earlier. Every time I try to wrap up this (already long) article, something new gets posted to the court docket and I feel compelled to add it! This objection from Anne Taylor is *chef's kiss*, so I had to include all of it.
I am SO curious to know why they only wanted timing advance records for two of the four victim's phones… I suppose that was probably for Xana and Ethan, since investigators were begging the public for help locating their whereabouts from 9 pm to 1 am, all the way up until Bryan Kohberger was arrested… when suddenly they knew exactly where the couple had been the whole night.
The prosecution has been demanding more information about Bryan’s alibi since his arrest, and Anne Taylor has been telling them the only way they can prove his alibi is if the FBI hands over the Timing Advance Report for Bryan’s phone… yet the state refuses to hand it over. It’s honestly dumbfounding to me that they’re now pretending like it doesn’t even exist, when based on all available evidence, it absolutely does.
I love that Anne specifically called out Prosecutor Ashley Jennings, who was the author of that asinine Motion in Limine. She knows damn well that AT&T timing advance records were available in November of 2022. The thing I don't understand is, why were detectives running things like suggested verbiage for tower dump warrants by the prosecutor on November 15th, 2022, when they didn't even have a suspect yet? Is that typical? I thought prosecutors became involved once they have a suspect and they're going to bring a case against them? Maybe I'm just mistaken, if so please let me know in the comments!
I mean… what else is there to say? Clearly the AT&T Timing Advance Report for Bryan Kohberger’s phone exists and is either in the possession of the prosecution, or FBI CAST. I believe the FBI has the report and they’re intentionally hiding it to keep their case from falling apart, just like they’ve done with the IGG evidence and other key aspects of this case. If the prosecution can prove that Bryan Kohberger is guilty of the murders of Xana, Ethan, Kaylee, and Maddie, then why are they still withholding all of the evidence that could prove it?? Why are they only sharing “evidence” that has been intentionally manipulated or is missing key details… and the missing details are almost always exculpatory in nature? I wish more people would wake up and see what’s really going on here, a man’s life is on the line. Putting the wrong person to death is NOT justice for the four young lives that were taken on November 13th, 2022.
SOURCES (in no particular order):
Google Earth
Brett Payne’s Probable Cause Affidavit for the Arrest of Bryan Kohberger
Defense’s Motion in Limine 2: Vague and Undisclosed Expert Testimony
Affidavit - Exhibit A - Statement of Dustin Blaker For Search Warrant
Full transcript of the motion to compel hearing held on May 30th, 2024
Defendant's Objection to the State's Motion in Limine Re: AT&T Timing Advance Records
Please let me know if there’s any typos or missing sources, or if any of the images are difficult to see. It took wayyyy longer for me to put this post together than I originally anticipated, hopefully my next article won’t take nearly as long. Please subscribe, share, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
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