Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty in University of Idaho killings

Judge accepts plea agreement which allows the former graduate student to avoid the death penalty.

Bryan Kohberger appeared at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Wednesday. Picture: AP/Kyle Green

Bryan Kohberger, the man charged with killing four University of Idaho students, pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder Wednesday as part of an agreement with prosecutors that allows him to avoid the death penalty.

The plea agreement marked a twist in a case that drew national attention and was set to go to trial later this summer.

Kohberger, 30 years old, originally pleaded not guilty to state felony charges of first-degree murder for the deaths of Xana Kernodle, 20 years old, Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21. He was set to go on trial in August for the November 2022 fatal stabbings that rocked the small college town of Moscow, Idaho.

Idaho Fourth Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler accepted Kohberger’s guilty plea during a hearing in Boise on Wednesday after posing questions to the defendant about the agreement and whether he understood the charges against him.

Wearing a shirt, tie and khaki pants, Kohberger responded with one-word answers to the judge’s questions and didn’t provide any further explanation for the crimes he now admits he committed.

“Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” Hippler asked Kohberger. “Yes,” Kohberger said.

Kohberger was arrested in December 2022 at his parents’ house in Albrightsville, Pa., after a weekslong search for a suspect. He was extradited to Idaho, where he was charged with state felony charges of four counts of first-degree murder for the stabbing deaths of the four students. He was also charged with one count of felony burglary.

Kohberger was a graduate student studying criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, which is located about 7 miles from the University of Idaho.

Under the plea agreement, Kohberger will face life sentences, running consecutively, for each charge of first-degree murder, as well as 10 years for the felony burglary charge, Hippler said.

Bryan Kohberger appeared at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho. Picture: AP/Kyle Green

University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves (second from left, bottom) and Madison Mogen (second from left, top), Ethan Chapin (centre) and Xana Kernodle (second from right) were stabbed to death as they slept in their off-campus home. Picture: ZUMA Press Wire/ZUMA Press Wire

Kohberger waived his right to appeal his sentence under the agreement.

The judge said he will sentence Kohberger on July 23.

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson detailed how prosecutors used cellphone data, DNA and surveillance footage to tie Kohberger to the murders. He said cellphone data shows Kohberger’s phone connected to the cell tower near the Moscow, Idaho, residence nearly two dozen times beginning months before the fatal stabbings.

Prosecutors didn’t have evidence he had direct contact with the victims, Thompson said. He said DNA found on the sheath for a knife left on the bed of one of the victims matched Kohberger’s and the knife hasn’t been found.

The house in Moscow, Idaho, where four University of Idaho students were killed in November 2022. Picture: AP /Ted S. Warren

The shift in the case has elicited emotion and criticism from some members of the public. At the start of the hearing Wednesday, Hippler instructed people in the courtroom that anyone who makes outbursts or demonstrations during the hearing would be removed. His office received calls from the public that sought to sway his decision-making in the case, he said, calling the outpouring “extraordinarily disruptive.” Hippler also said he wasn’t made aware of the plea agreement until Monday afternoon.

The plea agreement stunned and frustrated at least one of the families of the victims of the fatal stabbings. The family of Kaylee Goncalves has criticised the Latah County prosecutors’ and judge’s handling of the agreement.

The plea deal “represented an easy way out and no answers,” the family wrote in a statement shared Wednesday by their lawyer Shanon Gray.

Lawyer Leander James read a statement in support of the plea agreement, on behalf of the family of slain student Madison Mogen in Boise. Picture: AP/Jenny Kane

Prosecutors and Kohberger’s defence team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

The family of Madison Mogen supports the plea agreement, according to a statement read by their lawyer, Leander James, outside the courthouse Wednesday. The agreement was the “best outcome possible” for the victims, their families and the state, he said.

“We now embark on a new path,” James read from the family’s statement. “We turn from tragedy and mourning, we turn from darkness and uncertainty of the legal process, to the light of the future. We have closure.”

The Wall Street Journal