When Bryan Kohberger’s lawyers filed an updated alibi defense last week, suggesting cellphone tower data will show the man suspected in the slayings of four University of Idaho students was not in the area of the crime scene when they were killed, they said they planned to turn to an Arizona-based cell data analyst for key testimony.
It wouldn’t be the first time that Sy Ray has been asked to be an expert witness in a high-profile murder trial, although he said Friday that, out of the more than 100 times he’s testified in state and federal cases, it has typically been for the prosecution.
Now, Ray’s involvement in the case of the four college students fatally stabbed in their off-campus apartment house in November 2022, which continues to stir speculation over why someone would commit the gruesome act, is putting a spotlight on his expertise after past scrutiny over his credentials.
Ray declined to address the Kohberger case, as a judge issued a gag order last year preventing many involved from speaking publicly, but he said in general that it takes “competent experts with adequate experience to interpret call detail records.”
“Where the challenges come in is when there’s a different level of experience,” he added, “and some of these records can be extremely complicated.”
Ray, a former Gilbert, Arizona, police detective, founded ZetX Corp., a company specializing in cellular geolocation mapping, in 2014. In the courtroom, Ray has found himself and his mapping software, Trax, under questions about reliability before.
“I’ve seen in previous cases where his credibility has been brought into question,” said Mark Pfoff, a cellular technology expert and former sheriff’s detective in El Paso County, Colorado.
Pfoff testified for the defense in a 2022 hearing related to the case of a man accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend. But the judge barred prosecutors from using Ray’s software data.
District Court Judge Juan Villaseñor ruled that ZetX’s Trax mapping was inadmissible and based on a “sea of unreliability” after other experts found the technology to be problematic.
“For one, the Court doesn’t find Ray credible,” Villaseñor wrote, adding: “He inflated his credentials, inaccurately claiming to be an engineer.”
He went on to say that Ray has “no qualifications, licenses, or credentials to support” calling himself an engineer and that there’s “no evidence that Ray’s taken any engineering classes.”
Villaseñor also took exception with how the Trax algorithm wasn’t open to “scientific scrutiny.”
“While Ray stands by his formula, it hasn’t gained traction in the scientific community,” the judge wrote.
