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04-07-2025
Idaho college killings: Questions remain after stunning guilty plea
Bryan Kohberger has been behind bars for nearly 1,000 days. All the while, his lawyers had repeatedly insisted he was innocent. Now that the criminology student accused of killing four Idaho college students has instead pleaded guilty in a dramatic turn of events, he will almost certainly spend the rest of his days behind bars. The guilty plea and admission to the stabbing deaths -- just weeks from the planned start of his trial -- stunned many, in a case that had ceaselessly gripped headlines. What had been seen as a largely circumstantial case was suddenly crystallizing with every admission that Kohberger made to the judge on Wednesday. But many questions remained unanswered. While Kohberger admitted to the killings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin -- students at a school mere miles away from his own and with no apparent connection to him -- many of the details remain a mystery, most notably: why he did it. A killing that sent shockwaves It has been nearly three years since the brutal stabbing deaths of Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin. The grisly crimes sent shockwaves rippling through the tight-knit college town of Moscow, and ignited a continuous firestorm across social and news media. Their bodies were found in the girls' off-campus house on King Road on Nov. 13, 2022. Near Mogen's body, a KA-BAR knife sheath was discovered. The knife has never been found. A more than six-week manhunt ensued, and many residents of the cozy college town began locking their doors at night for the first time. Whether the killer had skipped town – or still lurked among them – was anyone's guess. In the vacuum of real information being shared, conspiracy theorists and true crime hobbyists ran amok with false accusations. Then one day before New Year's Eve, a criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University was arrested, more than 2,000 miles from where the killings occurred. Kohberger was taken into custody at his parents' home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, after driving cross-country to spend the holidays with family. He appeared to have no connection to the victims, save for their schools' proximity. And yet, prosecutors alleged, his DNA had been found on the button snap of the knife sheath. His phone pinged off cell towers in the King Road home's area the night the killings occurred, they said. His car was caught on surveillance footage taking multiple passes by what would soon become a crime scene, they said. One of two surviving roommates told police she had seen a masked intruder with "bushy eyebrows" that night – a description that has become a hallmark of the case and one, prosecutors said, applied to Kohberger, though his lawyers would later dispute that. After Kohberger's arrest, the lawyer representing him in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, said his client was "eager to be exonerated of these charges." The case was largely circumstantial. There was barely any eyewitness testimony. The murder weapon was missing. Kohberger was extradited to Idaho and indicted in May 2023. He was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He is now facing four back-to-back life sentences, as outlined in his plea agreement, for the crimes in addition to 10 years for the burglary count. His sentencing hearing has been set for July 23. Shroud of secrecy Even before Kohberger was named as a suspect, the murder case captured international attention despite – or perhaps fueled in part by – the heavy shroud of secrecy draped around its details. A strict gag order was imposed early on by the judge first overseeing the case that has forced the case to play out largely behind closed doors. Little by little though, the shape of the evidence began to emerge. A slow, steady drip of information has trickled from at-times heated hearings and literally thousands of court filings – and hundreds of thousands of pages of briefs. For years, Kohberger's lawyers had aggressively accused prosecutors of failing to do their due diligence on other possible leads and that they were too single-mindedly focused on their client. They have said investigators used a "false information trail" to target Kohberger and even suggested that police intentionally misled a judge to get the search warrants they wanted on Kohberger – a very serious allegation that ultimately went nowhere with the judge. Meanwhile, the defense has levied a litany of legal salvos trying to puncture holes in prosecutors' case, including casting doubt on the DNA evidence, asking to have the indictment dismissed, and fighting repeatedly to get the death penalty taken off the table on a wide range of grounds, pointing to everything from the U.S. Constitution and international human rights to evolving social norms, to his autism spectrum disorder diagnosis as a factor on jurors' perception, to needing more time for the morass of discovery and intensive preparation they must do in such a capital case. All those attempts were unsuccessful. If he had been convicted at trial, Kohberger could have faced execution by firing squad. That capital punishment method is newly legal in Idaho because of the ongoing nationwide shortage of the lethal injection drugs, as major pharmaceutical suppliers have withdrawn from the capital punishment market. What all the legal back-in-forth has succeeded in, however, is continuously pushing back the actual trial – to the frustration of some of the victims' families. But those delays in the judicial proceedings could not freeze time. The off-campus home where the killings occurred was demolished in December 2023, after the property owner donated the home to the school. The school made the call to tear it down as a "healing step," they said at the time, despite mixed feelings from the victims' families. The sunrise demolition took less than two hours. The Goncalves and Kernodle families had pointed to potential evidentiary value in preserving the house, while the parents of Ethan Chapin – whose brother and sister were still students at the university – were supportive of the demolition. Neither Kohberger's defense nor prosecutors had pushed back on the planned demolition, and the school said it would help stop "efforts to further sensationalize the crime scene." Lawyers for Kohberger have also denounced what they called "inflammatory" and "prejudicial" media coverage against their client. The trial, once slated to take place in Latah County, where the killings occurred, was finally moved to Boise after a long legal battle waged by the defense. Early one Sunday morning in September 2024, Kohberger was transported by an Idaho State Police plane from the Latah County Jail, where he had been held, to Ada County. In both facilities, Kohberger has been housed by himself, for his own and others' safety, authorities have said. A 'so-called alibi' unravels His lawyers had said that Kohberger was driving around alone on the night the killings occurred, and the reason his phone stopped reporting from the network in the critical window when the killings occurred is because he was out in a very remote area, stargazing. It's an alibi that both judges who have overseen the case summarily scoffed at: Judge John Judge in Moscow, dubbing it a "so-called" alibi; Judge Steven Hippler in Boise, saying "at this point, [Kohberger] has not provided an alibi, partial or otherwise." Some of the search warrants served on Kohberger's online shopping indicated curiosities far earthlier than the cosmos, prosecutors said. Eight months before four Idaho college students would be found stabbed to death, as ABC News has previously reported, the man accused of the bloody killing spree bought a knife that matches what prosecutors said could be the murder weapon. Kohberger's lawyers, while arguing his innocence, had said the whole Kohberger family had access to that Amazon account. But it was Kohberger's buy, prosecutors said. "He purchased online a KA-BAR knife and sheath with an Amazon gift card," prosecutor Bill Thompson said at Wednesday's plea hearing. Prosecutors also pointed to Kohberger's own writings, including in their court briefs a homework assignment from his master's degree program that they said was essentially a crime scene how-to guide that showed he had been not just a scholar of crime – he knew how to cover his tracks after committing murder. It was a point Thompson explicitly made at Wednesday's plea hearing. "The defendant has studied crime. In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing when he was working on his pre doctorate degrees, and he had that knowledge and skill," Thompson said. Meanwhile as the case dragged on, its cost mushroomed. The financial burden has largely been borne by the local community itself. In 2022, Idaho Governor Brad Little had committed up to $1 million in emergency funds to support the manhunt and investigation, which has helped defray some of the expense. The change in venue to Boise would have also brought additional costs as prosecutors and others would have had to travel more than five hours to Boise for what was expected to be a three-month trial. Now, that trial, where the actual evidence would finally come to light, will never occur. And at least for now, the case comes to a close much like it started: with still-unanswered questions.
New York Post
03-07-2025
- New York Post
Bryan Kohberger fancied himself a criminal mastermind — so why'd he make so many dumb mistakes?
Well, that's one way to fail criminology school. Bryan Kohberger had been in a PhD in criminology program at Washington State University when he drove to the nearby Moscow, Idaho, and slaughtered four University of Idaho undergrads in 2022. But for that crime, this student gets an 'F.' Advertisement It wasn't that he didn't try to cover his tracks: Kohberger clearly had a firm grasp of common investigative techniques and took pains to subvert them — including scrubbing his car meticulously clean after the killings. But his attempts were so half-baked that they only made him seem more suspicious, according to prosecutors. Experts say he attempted to cover his tracks, and was more careful than killers — but he made some obvious mistakes. Advertisement 8 Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse, in Boise, Idaho. via REUTERS 'He was certainly smarter than most murderers,' a former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Post. 'But it wasn't the perfect crime.' Rahmani noted that it took weeks for authorities to find the suspect, which is 'atypical now with advances in technology.' These are some of Kohberger's biggest blunders. Leaving his DNA behind Advertisement The murder weapon was never found, but a knife sheath smudged with male DNA left at the scene became the prosecution's best piece of physical evidence. 8 The shoes of four University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death in an off-campus house are removed on Wednesday, December 7, 2022. James Keivom 8 A handwritten list of items seized from Bryan Kohberger's parents' home. Rahmani said the blunder revealed that the the killings were harder than Kohberger expected — betraying a 'a chaotic scene when you're stabbing multiple people and you're just by yourself.' Advertisement 'It's not easy,' he added. Another former prosecutor and Court TV anchor Vinnie Politan said Kohberger likely 'ran into an unexpected situation,' when one of the victims, Madison Mogen, wasn't alone. She and best friend Kaylee Goncalves were sleeping together in the same bed. They were the first victims. And the dropped sheath likely revealed that they did not die without a struggle. 'The women fought back, and in the struggle' the knife sheath fell out, Politan speculated. 'Then when he was leaving he ran into Xana [Kernodle] then Ethan [Chapin], two more unexpected victims,' Politan explained. 'He was exhausted and didn't have time to think, so he left without any realizing he didn't have the sheath.' Buying the murder weapon on Amazon Prosecutors said Kohberger purchased a KA-BAR military-style knife, a strap sheath, and a sharpener on Amazon while living at his parents' house in Pennsylvania months before the murders. 8 A sheath like the one found at the Idaho crime scene. KA-BAR He seemed to know his online purchases might be traced: He used a gift card, which can be anonymous, to make the payments and even tried to delete his purchase history. Advertisement But why make the purchase online at all when anyone can buy a knife with cash at any Walmart or truck stop? Defense attorney David Seltzer said, 'clearly Kohberger left break crumbs linking him to the crimes, and we will never know why, or if they were heat-of-the-moment mistakes.' Seltzer said he wouldn't be surprised if mental health played a role in Kohberger's crimes. Driving his own car to the crime scene, then cleaning it too well Kohberger's white Hyundai Elantra is what first landed him on detectives' radar. Advertisement Security camera footage showed the car circling the victims' block, parking behind their house, and then speeding away after the crime. A search of white Elantra drivers included Kohberger, who had been pulled over near the University of Idaho campus months before the killings. 8 Bodycam footage of Bryan Kohberger being pulled over for running a red light. Washington State Univ Police / MEGA 8 Bodycam footage of Bryan Kohberger's car at a traffic stop. Washington State Univ Police / MEGA He did thoroughly clean the interior of the car afterward, prosecutors said – but that only made him seem more suspicious, Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson revealed Wednesday. Advertisement 'I think we can all look to our own cars. Those compartments in the doors where you try to keep them clean where you put stuff? There's always some degree of crud in there — they were spotless,' Thompson said. 'Defendant's car had been meticulously cleaned inside.' Thompson noted that Kohberger has previously written a paper on crime scene evidence collection — making his deep-clean even more suspicious. His phone also tracked him driving to Moscow, Idaho — the town where the killings happened — at least 23 times before the murders. He kept his own phone Anyone who's watched 'Breaking Bad' knows to use a prepaid, burner cell phone when they're up to no good. Advertisement 8 Photo of four University of Idaho students hours before their deaths. Instagram/@kayleegoncalves 8 Mugshot of Bryan Kohberger, inmate number 5356 at the Latah County Sheriff's Office. Latah County Jail But Kohberger kept a traceable cell phone. He was careful to deactivate the device before driving to Moscow on the night of the murders, but it was only off between around 2:30 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. – the exact window of the killings. He also reactivated the phone in another town 25 miles away from his apartment. Rahmani said Kohberger should have just left his phone at home. 'He was careful,' the lawyer said. 'But he's not a genius.' Taking out the trash Kohberger knew that his DNA could tie him to the crime scene: He wore latex gloves to the supermarket and hid trash that contained his hair or saliva. At one point during the four days he was surveilled at his parents' Pennsylvania home by the FBI prior to his arrest, Kohberger was observed putting trash from his family's house into neighbors' garbage bins around 4 a.m. Kohberger clearly knew investigators search suspects' garbage, but it apparently didn't occur to him that agents might be watching the house — nor catch him dumping garbage in the small hours.
Hindustan Times
03-07-2025
- Hindustan Times
Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty: Over 2 years after Idaho murders, 5 chilling questions remain unanswered
Jul 03, 2025 01:37 PM IST Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger has finally admitted to killing four University of Idaho students in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, at a rental home near their campus in Moscow, Idaho. He pleaded guilty to four counts of murder, a deal that will help him dodge the death penalty. Kohberger is accused of killing Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty: Over 2 years after Idaho murders, 5 chilling questions remain unanswered (Kyle Green/Pool via REUTERS REFILE)(via REUTERS) The judge asked Kohberger, 'Did you kill and murder Madison Mogen, a human being?' Kohberger, wearing a too-short tie and slacks, replied, 'Yes.' He repeated the same answer for the three other victims. 'I accept the plea. I direct that it be entered,' the judge, according to the New York Post. However, even as the two and a half-year saga seems to have finally come to a close, five chilling questions remain unanswered. Five questions that remain unanswered in the Idaho case Why did Kohberger kill the four students? – Despite pleading guilty, Kohberger never revealed why he targeted and slaughtered the youngsters, leaving the motive unclear. Where is the murder weapon? – Kohberger used a KA-BAR military-style knife to kill the students. He is believed to have purchased the knife, sheath, and sharpener from Amazon in March 2022. Although police found the knife sheath at the crime scene with Kohberger's DNA on it, the knife was never recovered. About an hour after the murders, Kohberger was near a rural village outside Moscow, according to cell phone tower records. This means he could have ditched or hidden the knife anywhere, including some fields or pastures along the way. Did Kohberger know any of his victims? – It was revealed after the murders that cell phone tower records placed Kohberger in the victims' neighborhood 23 times in the months before the crime. Security camera footage even showed his car circling their block before he carried out the attack. This indicates that he did not just break into a random house, but it remains unclear if he knew any of the victims. It was previously reported that Kohberger cyberstalked one of the victims and even sent her several messages on Instagram. Kohberger's lawyers, however, have asserted that he did not know the victims at all. Why did Kohberger return to the victims' neighborhood? – Cell phone tower records revealed that Kohberger returned to the victims' neighborhood about five hours after the murders. It remains unclear why he did so, whether to recover a piece of evidence, or to simply admire his gruesome deed. He indeed seemed proud of what he did, as he took a grinning 'thumbs up' selfie after getting back home. Is Kohberger a psychopath? – Kohberger's defense earlier revealed that he had OCD and mild autism, but insisted that these traits had no connection to the crimes he has been accused of committing. Whether or not he had psychopathic, sociopathic or any other similar traits remains unclear. Had there been a jury trial, there would perhaps have been a psychological evaluation of Kohberger.
New York Post
02-07-2025
- New York Post
Bryan Kohberger's plea deal leaves these burning questions unanswered
Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty Wednesday to the premeditated slaughter of four University of Idaho undergrads — but there remain a slew of glaring loose ends. Prosecutors gave a step-by-step timeline of the 30-year-old killer's actions before, during, and after the pre-dawn attack in Moscow, Idaho, they failed to explain Kohberger's possible motive. But the 'why?' wasn't the only burning question that has tantalized followers of the case for two and a half years. Where is the knife? Kohberger purchased a KA-BAR military-style knife, sheath, and sharpener from Amazon in March, 2022 – months before he even moved to the area, prosecutors said. 8 Bryan Kohberger at his extradition hearing. Paul Martinka 8 Final photo of the victims, pictured just hours before their untimely deaths. Police recovered the knife sheath at the crime scene with his DNA on it, but the murder weapon itself was nowhere to be found. Cell phone tower records place Kohberger's phone near a rural village outside Moscow at around 4:45 a.m., roughly a half hour after the killings, which means he could have ditched it in any number of Idaho fields and pastures along the way. Did Kohberger know any of the victims, and why did he target them? Kohberger didn't break into a random house: Cell phone tower records placed Kohberger in the victims' neighborhood 23 times in the months before the murders, and security camera footage shows his car circling their block like a shark before finally moving in for the kill. Early reports claimed Kohberger had cyberstalked one of the victims and bombarded her with Instagram messages, but his lawyers later insisted he had no connection to the victims at all. So how did he know about Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin? The only hint prosecutors offered on Wednesday was suggesting Kohberger might not have entered the house intending to kill all four victims. 8 The house in Moscow, ID, where four University of Idaho students were knifed to death. Kevin C. Downs for NY Post 8 The four victims: Kaylee Goncalves, top left; Xana Kernodle, top right; Ethan Chapin, bottom left; and Madison Mogen, bottom right. Whose ID did Kohberger have hidden at his parents' house? In 2023, a police source told NewsNation investigators had found an ID 'connected to someone from the quadruple homicide' carefully hidden at Kohberger's parents' house. The report prompted frenzied speculation that Kohberger had kept a victim's ID as a souvenir. That now seems unlikely: A victim's ID would have been a major piece of physical evidence and would likely have come up in the courtroom. But the ID could have been any number of things: A fake ID for a potential escape off the grid, or even just the Amazon gift card prosecutors said he used to purchase the knife. One colorful theory suggests Kohberer had a Joker-style calling card to leave at the scenes of future murders. Whatever it was, we'll likely never know. Is Kohberger a psychopath? Kohberger's defense revealed that he had OCD and mild autism, but they said those traits has no bearing on the crimes he was accused of. 8 Judge Steven Hippler rejecting a motion to drop the death penalty. TNS 8 Kohberger at a court hearing. His defense used an autism diagnosis to explain his distinctive, dead-eyed stare. AP A jury trial could have involved psychological evaluations of Kohberger and evidence for what psychologists call 'dark tetrad' personality traits: Narcissism, sadism, Machiavellian manipulativeness, and, of course, psychopathy. 8 Bryan Kohberger appears for his July 2 plea hearing. AP 8 Two University of Idaho victims, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle. Instagram / @xanakernodle Why did Kohberger return to the scene of the crime? Cell phone tower records suggest Kohberger went back to his victim's neighborhood roughly five hours after the bloody deed. Was it to recover a piece of evidence, perhaps even the missing knife? Or just to admire his deadly handiwork? He certainly seemed to be proud of himself, as evidenced by a grinning, 'thumbs up' selfie he took when he got home.
Hindustan Times
02-07-2025
- Hindustan Times
Why Bryan Kohberger murdered 4 University of Idaho students. Here's what his confession says about motive
Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old former criminology PhD student accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students, pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary on Wednesday. The plea was accepted by Judge Steven Hippler in Boise's Ada County Courthouse. It ensures Kohberger will serve four consecutive life sentences without parole. The four victims were: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. Bryan Kohberger, charged in the murders of four University of Idaho students, appears at the Ada County Courthouse(via REUTERS) Bryan Kohberger's confession During a Wednesday hearing, Kohberger verbally admitted to murdering Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Chapin, responding 'Yes' when Judge Hippler asked if he committed each killing. The confession was part of a plea deal initiated by his defense team, which approached prosecutors in late June. However, Kohberger provided no detailed explanation of his motive in court, and the prosecutors' letter to the victims' families did not specify a reason for the killings. What we know about Bryan Kohberger's motive? The Goncalves family demanded a 'full confession' including the 'true facts' and location of the murder weapon, but no such details were disclosed. Prosecutors have not publicly outlined a motive, a point emphasized in pre-trial rulings. Evidence tying Kohberger to the crime includes DNA on a KA-BAR knife sheath found near Mogen's body, cellphone pings showing his white Hyundai Elantra near the victims' home multiple times, and surveillance footage of his car circling the area. Despite this, no apparent personal connection between Kohberger and the victims was established, though the Goncalves family provided screenshots suggesting he followed Mogen and Goncalves on Instagram. Speculated motives Kohberger's background as a criminology PhD student at Washington State University, 8 miles from Moscow, Idaho, and his prior Reddit posts seeking insights into the 'crime commission process' suggest an academic obsession with criminal behavior. His 2018 message about working with 'high-profile offenders' and interest in serial killers like Ted Bundy (evidenced by his phone's search history) hint at a possible desire to study or emulate such acts. Kohberger's teenage posts on Tapatalk revealed struggles with depression, dissociation, and suicidal thoughts, alongside a history of heroin use. His autism spectrum disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnoses, raised by the defense, may have contributed to his social isolation. Victim and family Reactions The plea deal sparked division among the victims' families. The Goncalves family expressed fury, calling it a 'secretive deal' and demanding a full confession.
