Idaho student murders suspect accepts plea deal to avoid death penalty

Sydney Morning Herald

15 hours ago

Bryan Kohberger, the man charged in the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, has reached a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, according to a lawyer for the family of one of the victims.
Kohberger, 30, had been set to go on trial for the killings in August, nearly three years after the killings, which occurred at a residence near the university in Moscow, Idaho.
The lawyer, Shanon Gray, who represents the family of one of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, said they had been notified that a plea agreement had been reached to take the death penalty off the table.
The Goncalves family wrote in a message on Facebook that they were 'beyond furious at the State of Idaho'.
'They have failed us,' the family wrote. 'Please give us some time. This was very unexpected.'
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The Goncalves family had been pressing for the state to pursue the death penalty and had pushed to expand Idaho's capital punishment rules to allow executions by firing squad.
Prosecutors did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, nor did lawyers for Kohberger.
Kohberger was a criminology doctoral student at Washington State University, about a 20-minute drive from the crime scene. He grew up in Pennsylvania and studied psychology in college. He was arrested in December 2022 at his parents' home in the Pocono Mountains area of Pennsylvania, about six weeks after the killings.