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Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November 2022, took a plea deal Tuesday, NewsNation reported.
Prosecutors agreed to drop the death penalty if Kohberger, who was a criminology graduate student at nearby Washington State University at the time of the murders, pleaded guilty to stabbing four students to death and a burglary charge. As part of the deal, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and must waive his right to appeal.
“We cannot fathom the toll that this case has taken on your family,” read a letter Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson and his senior deputy, Ashley Jennings, wrote to the victims’ families, according to The Idaho Statesman. “This resolution is our sincere attempt to seek justice for your family. This agreement ensures that the defendant will be convicted, will spend the rest of his life in prison, and will not be able to put you and the other families through the uncertainty of decades of post-conviction appeals.”
Kohberger, who previously pleaded not guilty, was scheduled to stand trial in August.
All four victims—seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21; junior Xana Kernodle, 20; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20—were sleeping in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, when Kohberger allegedly stabbed them to death in the middle of the night. Nearly two months later, police arrested him at his parents' home in Pennsylvania and have since said that his DNA was found on a knife sheath left on one of the victims’ beds.
The Goncalves family, which has advocated for the death penalty, wrote on Facebook Monday that they are “beyond furious at the state of Idaho” for offering Kohberger a plea deal. “They have failed us.”
