On Wednesday, July 2nd, in a homicide case involving a university student in Idaho, the defendant Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty in court, avoiding the trial for the quadruple homicide scheduled for next month, as well as a possible death penalty, while also waiving his right to appeal.
Kohberger admitted to committing four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in November 2022, confessing to stabbing four students of the University of Idaho inside a house off-campus.
The district court judge Steven Hippler approved Kohberger’s plea agreement. Under the plea deal, Kohberger will be sentenced to 10 years for burglary and life imprisonment for the four murder charges.
Kohberger is set to be sentenced on July 23 at 9 a.m. local time.
According to a sworn statement, Kohberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University when the crimes were committed. He was arrested weeks after the murders based on DNA and other digital evidence collected by law enforcement.
The motive behind the crimes committed by the 30-year-old Kohberger remains unclear, as well as why he spared the other two roommates present in the house during the killings and how he managed to evade capture for over six weeks. Authorities have revealed that cell phone data and surveillance footage showed Kohberger visiting the victims’ neighborhood at least a dozen times before the incident, despite no known existing connection between him and the victims.
At least one victim’s family supports the plea agreement.
In a statement read by lawyers outside the courthouse, a victim’s family expressed gratitude to Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson, requesting those who do not support the plea agreement to “respect our belief that this (the plea agreement) is the best outcome for the victims, their families, and the state of Idaho.” The family stated, “We lost our kind, loving, energetic, caring daughter, full of goals and hopes… Every day of these 962 days, we mourn the loss of this life.”
However, Kaylee Goncalves’s family criticized the state prosecutor for “negligence,” accusing the prosecution of mishandling the plea agreement by lacking transparency and failing to involve or inform the victims’ families about the details of the agreement.
The family expressed, “After more than two years of waiting, the case ended hastily with an opaque agreement, closing without allowing the victims’ families to participate or understand the details of the plea, as the prosecution rushed through the plea process, giving families only one day to arrange to attend the plea hearing on July 2.”
Goncalves’s family took to Facebook to express anger towards the Idaho government, feeling let down by the authorities and requesting some time for the public to digest this sudden news.