Moscow murders defamation case finally goes to trial months after killer confessed
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- A federal judge ruled in June 2024 that videos about the 2022 Moscow murders defamatory.
- A jury in Boise will decide financial damages up to $1.8 million at a trial this week.
- Defendant claimed free speech and religious rights; judge ruled her statements were false.
A Texas woman who a judge ruled defamed a University of Idaho professor when she accused her on social media of orchestrating the November 2022 college student murders in Moscow will learn how much her false public claims are going to cost her this week.
Ashley Guillard, a TikTok personality who has claimed she has psychic abilities, is due in federal court in Boise starting Tuesday for a scheduled trial to finally resolve the 3-year-old civil suit brought by Rebecca Scofield. The case has outlived the criminal prosecution of the man convicted last summer of the four murders.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Patricco already ruled for Scofield in June 2024, and it’s now left to a jury to decide the financial damages owed by Guillard. Scofield previously asked for more than $1.8 million.
The trial is set to last up to four days and center around the toll Guillard’s claims caused to Scofield’s personal life and academic career. Expert witnesses expected to testify include Scofield’s therapist for the past two years, and a public relations specialist to speak to the reputational harm caused to the Harvard-educated history professor.
Guillard, 41, of Houston, published more than 100 videos that made erroneous allegations against Scofield, according to court records. The accusations included that the U of I professor had a romantic relationship with one of the four victims and ordered their deaths to prevent the affair with a female student from becoming public.
Scofield, 40, of Moscow, sent cease-and-desist letters to Guillard in the ensuing weeks, but her demands were ignored. In late December 2022, Scofield, represented by lawyer Wendy Olson, a former U.S. Attorney for Idaho, sued Guillard in federal court. Scofield contends the allegations have led to a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, on top of considerable professional hardship.
Nine days later, Bryan Kohberger, a Washington State University graduate student in Pullman, Washington, just west of the Idaho border, was arrested and charged with the murders. After two and a half years of legal proceedings, he pleaded guilty in June 2025 to killing the four U of I students, in an agreement with prosecutors to drop the death penalty. Kohberger, 31, waived all of his appeal rights and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison with no chance of parole.
Judge: ‘Complete lack of any corroborating support’
Guillard has maintained that the defamation lawsuit infringed upon her First Amendment rights and her free expression of religion. Guillard reads tarot cards and argued her spiritual practice led her to “uncover the motive and details that led to the murder” of the four U of I students when she named Scofield as responsible.
The fatal stabbing victims were three North Idaho women who lived in an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow and a Washington man who was in a relationship with one of them. They were seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21, junior Xana Kernodle, 20, and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20.
Scofield, chair of the U of I history department, never met nor taught any of the four students, she wrote in her denial. And she was out of town in Oregon on Nov. 13, 2022, when the students were killed, she said.
“The University of Idaho confirmed that it has no records of the murdered students ever being enrolled in a class taught by (the) plaintiff, any investigation into (the) plaintiff having an inappropriate relationship with (the student), or any investigation into (the) plaintiff’s involvement with the murders,” Patricco wrote in his ruling. “Finally, there is no indication that (the) plaintiff is — or has ever been — even remotely considered a suspect in the murders.”
Guillard’s statements otherwise are provably false and have a “complete lack of any corroborating support,” the judge added in his legal analysis affirming the claims are defamatory under the law.
Representing herself, Guillard has since attempted several legal maneuvers, which have prolonged the court process. A countersuit she filed against Scofield was tossed. A switch to a U.S. district judge after Patricco ruled was denied. A request to reconsider the decision was declined.
Guillard’s latest legal efforts this month included filings to dismiss the case over improper jurisdiction and to delay this week’s trial that will determine damages while she appeals the judge’s overarching ruling. Patricco rejected both.
A pretrial conference is set for 10 a.m. Monday at the James A. McClure Federal Building in Boise ahead of the scheduled start of trial Tuesday.
This story was originally published February 23, 2026 at 3:00 AM with the headline "Moscow murders defamation case finally goes to trial months after killer confessed."
