Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty for the 2022 killings of four University of Idaho college students on Wednesday.
Kohberger entered a plea deal, admitting guilt of all five counts in the indictment, four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. The deal allowed Kohlberger to avoid the death penalty in exchange for four consecutive life sentences. Through the deal, Kohberger waived his right to appeal.
“Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” Judge Steven Hippler asked.
“Yes,” Kohlberger replied.
He repeatedly answered “yes” when Hippler asked if he stabbed the four victims – Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Kaylee Goncalves – “deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought.”
The four victims were found brutally stabbed in a house near Moscow, Idaho in November 2022. After a nationwide search, Kohberger, then 28 years old and a Ph.D. student at Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania that December. Investigators linked Kohberger to the murder through cell phone data, surveillance video, and DNA on a knife sheath at the crime scene.
Reactions from the victims’ families on the plea agreement are mixed. Gonglaves’ family expressed dissatisfaction with the plea deal.
“This ain’t justice, no judge presided, no jury weighed the truth,” a the family shared on Facebook.
In a statement read by their attorney, Mogen’s family said they “support the plea agreement 100%.”
“We are grateful for the gift of her life, and we have grieved the loss of that life during each of these 962 days,” the statement said. “While we know there are some who do not support it, we ask that they respect our belief that this is the best outcome for the victims, their families and the state of Idaho.”
Kohberger will be formally sentenced on July 23 at 9 a.m., local time. He’s to remain in jail until the sentencing.
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