Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students

Bryan Kohberger has waived his right to appeal. Photo / Getty Images

Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty on Wednesday to killing four University of Idaho students at an off-campus house in 2022, as part of a deal to avoid the possibility of the death penalty.

Kohberger will face consecutive life sentences for each of the four first-degree murder charges as well as 10 years for a burglary charge. He waived his right to appeal. His plea change in an Ada County, Idaho, courthouse halts what would have been a closely watched trial in a case that drew national attention for its mysterious killings that disrupted a quiet Idaho college town and authorities’ public, weeks-long search for a suspect.

The case revolves around the November 13, 2022, stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in a Moscow, Idaho, home – housemates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin. Police said they determined the four were killed around 4am, and that two surviving roommates discovered their bodies the next day.

At least one victim’s family opposed Kohberger’s deal. The Goncalves family felt Idaho prosecutors failed them, their lawyer Shanon Gray said. The family wanted a trial, which could have provided definitive answers about the night of the murders and whether Kohberger had any connections to the victims.

“They would get to walk through the case, learn if anyone was targeted, if this was random,” Gray said on Tuesday. “[They would] learn the reason ‘why’.”

The change-of-plea hearing formally revises the plea of “not guilty” that a judge entered on Kohberger’s behalf at his 2023 arraignment after he made the unusual decision to “stand silent”, or decline to enter a plea.

Prosecutors on the case and members of Kohberger’s defence team did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. Lawyers for both sides have been subject to a gag order during the case.

What was Kohberger accused of?

The students’ killings rocked the college town and sparked a more than six-week-long search for a suspect.

Police determined the killings happened several hours after the victims had been in and out of the residence that evening, according to court records. A surviving roommate told police she thought she could hear Goncalves’ dog around 4am; a short time later, she opened her door when she heard what she thought was the sound of crying and saw a man with a tall, athletic build and “bushy eyebrows” wearing a mask and black clothing walk past her. Two surviving housemates discovered one of the bodies the next day and called 911 just before noon, prosecutors have said.

Fear gripped the community after the killings, with at least a quarter of students refusing to return to campus during the hunt for a suspect and the University of Idaho moving to hybrid scheduling. Law enforcement solicited tips from the public and received a torrent of responses. The mystery sparked myriad conspiracies and misinformation that grew in the absence of regular updates from investigators.

At the time of the stabbings, Kohberger was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice and studying criminology at Washington State University, a short drive from Moscow. He was arrested on December 30, 2022, at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, more than 3218km away. Kohberger was soon extradited to Idaho, where he was charged with first-degree murder and burglary.

Officials kept details of the investigation under wraps as they searched for the suspect, but court documents later revealed that investigators had linked Kohberger to the crime through DNA on a knife sheath found next to a victim’s body. Controversially, after police exhausted the available law enforcement DNA databases, they tapped a restricted consumer DNA database that helped lead them to Kohberger.

Police also relied on cellphone data that placed Kohberger near the home at least 12 times before the killings, typically late at night or early morning, as well as a witness account from a surviving roommate that loosely matched Kohberger’s description.

Kohberger’s defence team argued that the roommate’s testimony was unreliable and said the use of investigative genetic genealogy in the case violated his civil rights. They said that he had been out driving at the time of the stabbings and that his cellphone was not reporting to the network then, and could not have placed him near the house. Police said he was intentionally concealing his location the night of the murders.