Defendant questions plaintiff on stand in Idaho student murders defamation case

A University of Idaho professor detailed the debilitating mental and physical toll she said she has suffered the past three years from a series of online videos that repeatedly blamed her for the Moscow college student murders while directly confronting her accuser for the first time this week in federal court.

Rebecca Scofield, a tenured history professor and department chair at the flagship campus in North Idaho, described the downward spiral of her health starting in late November 2022 when Ashley Guillard’s posts with unsubstantiated allegations on the social media platform TikTok spread rapidly. Soon, Scofield’s anonymity and sense of security in the rural college town were shattered as the false claims about her went viral and left her with severe grief and depression that manifested as chronic headaches and nerve damage throughout her body, the professor testified.

“It was like a stone on my chest that was not crushing me, it was dissolving me,” Scofield told the court while holding back tears. “I was unraveling underneath the weight of it.”

The TikTok videos created by Guillard, a tarot card reader who has asserted she is clairvoyant, continued to publish despite cease and desist letters from the U of I professor and her attorney – and later the arrest of the suspect in the four students’ murders. The student victims were U of I undergraduates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, who were each fatally stabbed at an off-campus home in Moscow in November 2022.

Under the pressures of public strain and ongoing media inquiries, Scofield, 40, further declined as fears over the safety of herself and her family took hold. She had to hit pause on several aspects of her still blossoming academic career, her university supervisor testified Wednesday.

“It was international news,” testified Sean Quinlan, dean of the U of I’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “You could see it in terms of exhaustion. I was very concerned about how she was holding up in what seemed to me very trying circumstances.”

So Scofield sued Guillard for defamation in federal court in December 2022, and won. Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Raymond Patricco for the District of Idaho ruled in Scofield’s favor in June 2024.

One year later, Bryan Kohberger confessed to the four murders in a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. He is now serving four consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole and also waived all appeal rights.

Eight months after that, a jury trial in the case – also overseen by Patricco – began at the federal courthouse in Boise on Tuesday. It is being held only to decide how much money Scofield will be awarded in economic and noneconomic damages to compensate for the impacts to the professor’s personal and professional life. The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.

‘We work with intuition, not facts,’ defendant says

With Wendy Olson, a former U.S. attorney for Idaho, as her lawyer, Scofield previously sought more than $1.8 million. The trial’s eight-member jury was seated Monday and will determine the amount at its conclusion, which is expected later this week. The jury’s decision must be unanimous in the case.

Among the jury’s members are an attorney who is co-counsel on a separate case with Olson, and also a woman whose daughter showed her some of Guillard’s TikTok videos about Scofield during the height of the manhunt that eventually led to Kohberger. A woman whose brother attends the U of I and knew one of the four victims – and also was questioned by the FBI during the investigation – made the cut, too.

Guillard, 41, of Texas, is representing herself in the case. Because of that dynamic, a turning point at trial occurred when the defendant spoke to Scofield for the first time while questioning her on the stand.

“We felt personally targeted,” Scofield said Tuesday, raising her voice at Guillard. “It felt like our children’s lives were directly threatened – that my name was being thrown around by you saying horrific accusations that were fully baseless and not even from the community we were settled in. It felt like an attack from the outside.”

Olson called Guillard to the stand Wednesday and peppered her with question after question about what facts – rather than assumptions and inferences through her tarot card readers – she came to about her client before creating the TikTok videos. Guillard admitted, despite some efforts with a subpoena and a separate public records request to the U of I, it was none.

“Claircognizance – we work with intuition, not facts,” Guillford testified. “The facts are the job of law enforcement, not a psychic.”

In her efforts to limit the potential monetary damages she must pay, Guillard has sought to tie Scofield’s health issues to a total hysterectomy she underwent in early December 2022, and also raised the lack of a formal psychiatric diagnosis. Scofield has countered that she fully recovered from the surgery and that doctors, including a therapist scheduled to testify Thursday, have stated her physical challenges stem from the emotional damage from the unfounded allegations made by Guillard.

The defendant also has worked to establish that Scofield’s career and earning potential have not been dramatically affected by the defamatory statements she made about the professor. On Wednesday, under questioning by Guillard, Quinlan acknowledged Scofield received at least one pay increase since the TikTok videos were published, and she also has faced no limitations in her position at the U of I.

The damages trial is set to continue with additional witness testimony at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the James A. McClure Federal Building in Boise.