June 30 (UPI) — Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students in 2022, has agreed to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty, according to court documents and one of the victims’ families.
Kohberger is pleading guilty just weeks before his quadruple-murder trial was scheduled to start on Aug. 11. He is accused of stabbing Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20 and Ethan Chapin, 21, to death on Nov. 13, 2022, at an off-campus residence in Moscow, Idaho. Two others at the residence that night were unharmed.
The plea agreement, as reported by ABC News, states Kohberger will be sentenced to four consecutive life sentences on the four murder counts and 10 years for a charge of burglary.
The Goncalves family confirmed the plea deal in a statement on Facebook.
“It’s true!” the family, which was seeking the death penalty, said. “We are beyond furious at the State of Idaho, they have failed us.”
The family added in a second statement that the prosecution had approached them on Friday about the possibility of a plea deal and “it was a HARD NO from the family.”
Aubrie Goncalves, 18, the youngest of the Goncalves family, called the introduction of a plea deal just weeks before the trial was to start “both shocking and cruel.”
“Had this proposal come a year and a half ago, the families could have had time to process, discuss and potentially come to terms with the idea of a life sentence — however difficult that may be. We could have had the time to understand it, to prepare for it emotionally and perhaps even to find some degree of peace,” she said in a statement. “But now, with mere weeks left, we are being asked to absorb and respond to life-altering decisions with no room to breathe.”
“Bryan Kohberger facing a life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships and engage with the world. Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever.”
According to the plea deal, Kohberger will waive his right to appeal and the state will seek restitution for the victims and their families.
Prosecutors told the families in a letter that Kohberger’s defense asked them last week to be presented with a plea deal offer and that 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,” the prosecution said in the letter, again reported on by ABC News.
“Your viewpoints weighed heavily in our decision-making process, and we hope that you may come to appreciate why we believe this resolution is in the best interest of justice.”
Aubrie Goncalves said the plea deal feels less like justice and more like an “afterthought.”
“We are not asking for vengeance. We are asking for accountability,” she said. “We are asking for dignity for our loved ones. And we are asking — pleading — for a justice system that truly lives up to its name.”
Kohberger, now 30, was a graduate student in criminology at Washington State University, located about 10 miles away from Moscow. He was arrested late December 2022 in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, following a manhunt for a suspect in the quadruple-murder case.
Prosecutors have said that samples taken from the murder scene contain a match to DNA taken from Kohberger’s cheek. His defense has sought to avoid the death penalty in a case that has seen numerous delays and a change of venue.
