Why Bryan Kohberger's guilty plea means he may get the last laugh — and torment his victims further
With a trial averted and the death penalty taken off the table through a plea deal, Kohberger, 30, will go to prison the only person with firsthand knowledge of what he did in the bedrooms of 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, and why.
'With no trial, he gets to keep certain secrets. The air of mystery and in some ways that gives him the upper hand,' Jeff Guinn, author of crime books including 'The Life and Times of Charles Manson,' and 'Waco,' among others told The Post Tuesday.
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Indeed, Guinn notes that the lack of a trial means the victims' families and the general public may never hear evidence of what motivated Kohberger to murder four University of Idaho students, which of them – if any – were the intended target or if he had ever met them.
5 Criminal trial experts tell The Post Kohberger will get the power to spin the story of the despicable crime to suit him from prison when he answers a guilty plea.
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5 The University of Idaho victims (clockwise from bottom left): Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20.
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'If he decides he wants to make a public statement he's taking control through this deal because he's still living, breathing and talking. As long he can talk, he's got some control,' Guinn said.
However, the trauma of the despicable slaughter will continue to burden the grieving families of his victims: Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernoodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.
Furious family members of the murdered students have already said they will fight the plea deal offered by prosecutors, which puts Kohberger behind bars for life without the possibility of appeal or parole.
'Idaho has failed. They failed me. They failed my whole family,' Steve Goncalves, father of Kaylee, told NBC's 'Today' show.
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Kohberger, who was a Criminology student at Washington State University, just a few miles from Moscow but over state lines, was arrested in December 2022. He was slated to go to trial in August after a protracted legal back and forth delayed proceedings.
5 'By not having a trial, he [Kohberger] gets to keep certain secrets, the air of mystery and in some ways that gives him the upper hand,' Jeff Guinn, author of crime books including 'Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson,' and 'Waco,' among others told The Post Tuesday.
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5 Steve Goncalves, father of University of Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves, speaking during a vigil in 2022
James Keivom
Now, Guinn says, it's most likely the majority of evidence amassed by prosecutors about Kohberger's crimes will remain sealed.
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Guinn noted Kohberger's life behind bars could play out much like notorious career criminal Charles Manson, who died behind bars in 2017.
Manson was handed the death penalty for murders carried out by his cult in 1971 in California, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 when the state briefly abolished the death penalty.
5 Victim Xana Kernodle (middle) with her father Jeff and sister Jazzmin in Dec. 2021.
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'[Charles] Manson set the paradigm for how much notoriety you can get, for how much you can live off your bloody exploits by getting that life imprisonment. Periodically he would say or do something crazy and get his name back in the news,' Guinn told The Post.
'In [Kohberger's] case, if you commit this kind of crime you tend to think of yourself as sort of a God-like figure anyway. The plea gives him a further chance to exist in a way that will get more attention, and make him seem [to himself] more superhuman … I doubt he's taking this plea to quietly disappear into the penal system.
'The secondary thing is I'm surprised the prosecution would do this if they felt they had a slam dunk case.'
Although Idaho has the death penalty, its last successful execution was in 2012.
An attempt to execute prisoner Thomas Creech in February 2024 was aborted after an hour after the team could not establish a reliable IV line into his body.
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We know that there's always a risk that we're attracting somebody who wants to do something terrible hoping we wont ever have that but in my case, I did." She went on: "I think just the idea of wanting to study offenders and what their thought process was, how they felt about their crimes, wanting to study that and then finding out if this is a person who then is now saying he's guilty of doing these things. I have to look at the framework of what I taught and wonder, did I inspire him in some way? But I can't second guess that because I may have inspired somebody else to become an FBI agent. And unfortunately, in this field, that's what we live with." Ramsland said she had thought Kohberger was "a promising student who really could have made a mark in this career." She added: "I thought that so I was disappointed, angry and... shocked that, you know, this is who he turned out to be, and horrified for the victims and their families." 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The Goncalves family, who opposed the plea agreement, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday: "While we are cognizant that some may have wanted the plea, the prosecution relayed to us it was NOT a majority vote that was the deciding factor in offering this plea. At a bare minimum, please - require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night. We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was." Mogen's father Ben Mogen, who is supportive of the deal, told CBS News: "We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don't want to have to be at, that we shouldn't have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person. We get to just think about the rest of [our] lives and have to try and figure out how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids." Martin Souto Diaz, an attorney for the Kohberger family, said in a statement on behalf of the family, provided to CBS News: "In light of recent developments, the Kohbergers are asking members of the media for privacy, respect, and responsible judgement during this time. "We will continue to allow the legal process to unfold with respect to all parties, and will not release any comments or take any questions." What's Next Kohberger is due to be sentenced on July 23.
