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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Bryan Kohberger agrees to plea deal to avoid death penalty in Idaho
student killings
By Jim Sciutto, Zoe Sottile, Jean Casarez, Lauren del Valle, Josh
Campbell, Jason Kravarik, CNN
Updated:
10:35 PM EDT, Mon June 30, 2025
Source: CNN
, the 30-year-old accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho
students in their apartment in 2022, has agreed to a plea deal in his
quadruple murder case, skirting the death penalty and bringing a
possible end to the years-long legal proceedings against him.
The deal involves Kohberger pleading guilty to four counts of murder in
exchange for the government not pursuing the death penalty, a person
familiar with the details confirmed to CNN. Shanon Gray, attorney for
the family of victim Kaylee Goncalves, also confirmed the deal to CNN.
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Kohberger was slated to go on
trial in August, and prosecutors indicated they would pursue the .
The deal was announced with a letter sent to the victims’ families,
according to the and the Goncalves family, who described the
announcement as “very unexpected” and said they were “furious at
the State of Idaho”
“They have failed us. Please give us some time,” reads the post.
In a statement shared with CNN, the Goncalves family said that they
“weren’t even called about the plea; we received an email with a
letter attached.”
“After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive
deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the
victims’ families on the plea’s details,” reads the statement.
They said victims’ families had been “treated as opponents from the
outset.”
Gray, their attorney, said, “The issue is they are trying to cram the
plea for July 2, only giving the families a day to get to Boise.”
Lengthy legal battle
The past week has seen the options for Kohberger’s legal defense
dwindle. Last week, the judge from Kohberger’s defense to delay the
trial and dismissed the defense’s request to propose an “alternate
perpetrator” theory. Defense lawyers had hoped to suggest that one of
four alternate perpetrators killed the students, but the judge ruled
nothing but “rank speculation” linked the proposed alternate
perpetrators to the crimes. The judge had also previously barred
Kohberger’s defense from entering an – since no one could vouch for
where he was during the time of the killings.
Kohberger’s trial date was pushed back multiple times due to disputes
about evidence and witnesses, and saw from Latah County to the state
capital of Boise. A was previously entered on Kohberger’s behalf.
Last year, the Goncalves family at the incessant delays, saying the
case had turned into a “hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and
delayed decisions.”
The letter specifies Kohberger will likely be sentenced to life in
prison if he pleads guilty as expected, according to the Idaho
Statesman. It also requires him to waive his right to appeal, the
Statesman reported.
“We cannot fathom the toll that this case has taken on your
family,” read the letter, signed by Moscow Prosecuting Attorney Bill
Thompson, 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, previously a PhD student of criminology at Washington State
University, was charged with in January 2023. Authorities say Ethan
Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen,
21, were fatally stabbed in the early morning hours of November 13,
2022 in Moscow, Idaho. CNN has reached out to the families of Chapin,
Kernodle, and Mogen.
An assistant at the Kootenai County Public Defender’s office told CNN
“no comment” about the news of the plea deal. The office of
Thompson, the Moscow Prosecuting Attorney, told CNN they could not
comment due to in the case, which prohibits prosecutors, defense
lawyers, attorneys for victims’ families and witnesses from saying
anything publicly, aside from what is already in the public record.
The killings shook the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, as law
enforcement spent weeks searching for a suspect. The harrowing details
of the crimes and years-long legal proceedings against Kohberger have
also been the subject of public scrutiny. Kohberger appeared to have to
the victims.
Kohberger was arrested over a month after the killings in Pennsylvania,
after forensic DNA testing from trash outside the Kohberger family home
gave Idaho law enforcement the probable cause to arrest him.
Prosecutors had submitted a variety of evidence they say ties Kohberger
to the crimes, including DNA found on a knife sheath on a bed close to
Mogen. The single source profile was determined to be male and matched
to Kohberger through , the process of taking unknown DNA to public
databases and finding relatives that share the profile.
His defense attorneys have said he in part of their push to get the
death penalty off the table. They have said he was out driving alone
during the night of the killings.
Four students killed overnight
The four university students were on November 13, 2022 after a Saturday
night out. Investigators believe the four roommates were killed
sometime between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m.
Accounts of what unfolded that night in Moscow have emerged from two of
the surviving roommates, who were both expected to testify at trial.
One survivor, Dylan Mortensen, said she was woken overnight by strange
noises in their off-campus house.
She told investigators she saw a masked man with “bushy eyebrows”
in the home, according to an affidavit.
When their roommates didn’t respond to their text messages in the
morning, Mortensen and the other survivor, Bethany Funke, called 911 at
around noon, records show.
Heavy breathing and crying can be heard in audio of the 911 call as the
surviving roommates pass the phone between them and what sounds like
two other people, answering the dispatcher in fragmented responses.
“Something has happened in our house, we don’t know what,” one of
the roommates says.
On the call they reported 20-year-old Kernodle unconscious, telling the
dispatcher she had come home drunk the night before. “She’s not
waking up,” one of them says.
Police arrived to find Kernodle and Chapin dead on the floor of the
second floor. Upstairs, Goncalves and Mogen were dead in one of the
beds with visible stab wounds.
“They were sons, daughters, siblings, and friends—real people with
real dreams,” reads posted to Facebook by the Goncalves family,
attributed to Kaylee’s sister Aubrie, after the deal was announced.
“They deserve to be remembered for who they were in life, not only
for the tragedy of their deaths. But before that can truly happen, they
deserve justice,” it added.
This story has been updated with more information.
Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated
Kohberger’s university. He had attended Washington State University.
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