Kohberger Pleads Guilty in Idaho Student Killings, Gets Life Terms

Bryan Kohberger, the former Washington State University doctoral student charged with stabbing four University of Idaho undergraduates to death in November 2022, pleaded guilty on Wednesday in an Ada County courtroom. Under a deal accepted by Idaho Fourth Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler, Kohberger admitted to four counts of first-degree murder and will receive four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, avoiding the death penalty prosecutors had planned to pursue. Formal sentencing is scheduled for 23 July 2025.

Prosecutors said Kohberger, 30, broke into a rental house near the Moscow campus shortly after 4 a.m. on 13 November 2022 and fatally attacked seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, junior Xana Kernodle and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin. The killings stunned the rural college town, which had not recorded a homicide in five years, and triggered a nationwide manhunt that ended with Kohberger’s arrest at his parents’ Pennsylvania home six weeks later.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson outlined the evidence that led investigators to the suspect. A knife sheath left beside one victim carried a single male DNA profile. In late December 2022 the FBI covertly retrieved household trash from Kohberger’s family residence; a used Q-tip contained DNA that matched the profile from the sheath via parental linkage. Cell-phone records showed Kohberger’s handset connecting to towers near the victims’ neighborhood 23 times in the months before the crime, and surveillance cameras captured his white Hyundai circling the area that night before speeding away. When police seized the vehicle weeks later, its interior had been meticulously cleaned and partially disassembled.

Relatives of victims Ethan Chapin and Madison Mogen supported the plea arrangement, saying it would spare them a protracted capital trial. Kaylee Goncalves’s family opposed the deal, arguing it denies them a full accounting of motive, which remains undisclosed. Kohberger waived his right to appeal the convictions or sentences.

Court filings, including detailed discovery and witness lists, remain sealed under a longstanding gag order until after sentencing. Judge Hippler said he would weigh victim-impact statements and other submissions before imposing the agreed life terms later this month.