Idaho murder suspect Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to the horrific slayings of four University of Idaho students to avoid the death penalty.
Bryan Kohberger was indicted by a secret grand jury last year and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the slayings of four University of Idaho students.
Kohberger, 30, was accused of fatally stabbing 20-year-old Ethan Chapin of Conway, Washington; 21-year-old Madison Mogen of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; 20-year-old Xana Kernodle of Avondale, Arizona; and 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves of Rathdrum, Idaho on November 13, 2022.
The Goncalves family was outraged upon learning about the plea deal.
“We are beyond furious at the State of Idaho,” a Facebook post read, according to Fox News. “They have failed us. Please give us some time. This was very unexpected.”
Kohberger, who was facing a firing squad if convicted, accepted a plea deal and will spend life in prison without parole.
Fox News reported: “Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger has accepted a plea deal to spare his life in exchange for a guilty plea in the murders of four University of Idaho students, two sources close to the case told Fox News Digital Monday.”
According to the court documents, Kohberger’s DNA was found on a tan leather knife sheath left behind on Maddie Mogen’s bed on the 3rd floor at the King Road Residence.
“The sheath was later processed and had ‘Ka-Bar’ ‘USMC’ and the United States Marine Corps eagle globe and anchor insignia stamped on the outside of it,” Idaho police officer Brett Payne wrote in the 19-page affidavit. “The Idaho state lab later located a single source of male DNA (suspect Profile) left on the button snap of the knife sheath.”
Click here to read the probable cause affidavit and read through and analysis.
Click here to read the unsealed search warrant on Bryan Kohberger’s Pullman, Washington, apartment.
According to new court filings, Kohberger’s online ‘click activity’ shows a purchase of a Ka-Bar knife and sheath before the quadruple homicide. Kohberger also searched online for a Ka-Bar and sheath after the murders.
Kohberger also took a creepy selfie giving a thumbs up just hours after the murders. He looked freshly showered and proud of his alleged slayings.
Prosecutors will use this selfie to showcase Kohberger’s ‘bushy eyebrows’ as described by the surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen.
The prosecution has records of Bryan Kohberger purchasing a black balaclava from Dick’s Sporting Goods several months before the murders.
“This mask is the same type of mask described by DM that she witnessed worn by a male in the residence on November 13, 2022,” the prosecution said referring to the surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen’s description of what appears to be Kohberger.
Mortensen described a male, slim but muscular build, about 6 feet tall with bushy eyebrows who was wearing a black mask in the home at the time of the murders around 4:20 am.
Additionally, prosecutors have screen images of what appears to be Bryan Kohberger’s white Hyundai Elantra driving up to the house on King Road and fleeing the crime scene around the time of the murders.
They also have footage of Kohberger driving along State Route 270 between his residence in Pullman, Washington and Moscow, Idaho shortly before the murders.
