A former criminal justice student charged in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students that shocked and terrified the campus somberly sat in front of a judge Wednesday to plead guilty in a deal to avoid the death penalty.
Bryan Kohberger agreed to the plea deal in the past few days, just weeks before his trial was to begin, after his attorneys tried but failed to have execution stricken as a possible punishment. The deal drew mixed reactions from the victims’ families, ranging from support to outrage.
“Bryan Kohberger facing a life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships, and engage with the world,” Aubrie Goncalves, the 18-year-old sister of victim Kaylee Goncalves, wrote in a Facebook post. “Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever. That reality stings more deeply when it feels like the system is protecting his future more than honoring the victims’ pasts.”
Idaho Fourth Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler said as the hearing began Wednesday that he would not take into account public opinion when deciding whether to accept the agreement.
“This court cannot require the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, nor would it be appropriate for this court to do that,” he said. “This court … cannot force the state to seek the death penalty.”
The small farming community of Moscow, in the northern Idaho panhandle, had not had a homicide in about five years when Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen were found dead at a rental home near campus on Nov. 13, 2022. Autopsies showed the four victims were all likely asleep when they were attacked. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times.
Long before sunrise Wednesday, reporters were setting up cameras outside the courthouse in Boise and lining up along with those hoping to snag a seat for the hearing.
The killings grabbed headlines around the world and set off a nationwide hunt, including an elaborate effort to track down a white sedan spotted on surveillance cameras repeatedly driving by the rental home. Police said they used genetic genealogy to identify Kohberger as a possible suspect and accessed cellphone data to pinpoint his movements the night of the killings.
At the time, Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at nearby Washington State University who had just completed his first semester and was a teaching assistant in the criminology program.
Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived, weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.
Online shopping records showed that Kohberger had purchased a military-style knife months earlier — as well as a sheath like the one found at the scene.
No motive has emerged for the killings, nor is it clear why the attacker spared two roommates who were in the home. There also was no indication he had a relationship with any of the victims, who all were friends and members of the university’s Greek system.
Authorities have said cellphone data and surveillance video show that Kohberger visited the victims’ neighborhood at least a dozen times before the killings, and that he traveled in the same area that night.
Kohberger’s lawyers said he was simply on a long drive by himself around the time the four were killed.
The case was moved to Boise because of pretrial publicity in northern Idaho. Hippler must approve the plea deal. If Kohberger pleads guilty as expected, he would likely be sentenced in July.
Although the Goncalves family opposed the agreement and said they would seek to stop it, they also argued that any such deal should require Kohberger to make a full confession, detail the facts of what happened and provide the location of the murder weapon.
“We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was,” they wrote in a Facebook post.
The family of Chapin — one of three triplets who attended the university together — supports the deal, their spokesperson, Christina Teves, said Tuesday.
Attorney Leander James, who represents Mogen’s mother and stepfather, declined to give their views but said he would deliver a statement on their behalf after Wednesday’s hearing. Mogen’s father, Ben Mogen, told CBS News he was relieved by the agreement.
“We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don’t want to have to be at, that we shouldn’t have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person,” he said. “We get to just think about the rest of lives and have to try and figure out how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.