Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty on July 2, 2025, to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary for the November 13, 2022, stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in Moscow, Idaho. Under the agreement, he accepted four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole and waived his right to appeal; in return, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the death penalty. Judge Steven Hippler formally imposed the sentence on July 23, 2025, and Kohberger is now incarcerated at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna.
What He Pleaded Guilty To
The five counts covered the killings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, inside a rental house on King Road in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022. Prosecutors placed the attack in a roughly 13-minute window between 4:07 and 4:20 a.m. Two other roommates in the house survived. A grand jury had indicted Kohberger on May 17, 2023, on four counts of first-degree murder and one felony burglary count, and at his arraignment he stood silent, prompting the judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
At the July 2 change-of-plea hearing before Judge Hippler, Kohberger answered “yes” under oath when asked whether he was pleading guilty because he was guilty and whether he had committed the murders “willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and malice of forethought.” He confirmed he was not being coerced and said he was satisfied with his legal representation.
Terms of the Plea Agreement
The agreement was stipulated on June 30, 2025, by Kohberger, defense counsel Anne Taylor, and prosecutors Bill Thompson and Ashley Jennings, and filed with the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District in Ada County on July 2, 2025.
Its core terms:
- Kohberger would plead guilty to all five counts as charged in the indictment.
- The state would not seek the death penalty.
- The agreed sentence was 10 years fixed for burglary and four consecutive fixed life sentences for the murders.
- Kohberger waived all rights to appeal, including issues decided before the guilty plea, the judgment itself, and the sentence.
- He waived the right to file a motion for sentence reduction under Idaho Criminal Rule 35.
- The state reserved the right to seek restitution for funeral expenses and crime victims’ compensation.
Judge Hippler accepted the plea but noted the court was not strictly bound by the sentencing recommendation.
Why Prosecutors Made the Deal
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson told CBS News’s 48 Hours that his office had not been looking to resolve the case short of trial. “I can tell you right up front, we were never looking for a plea in this case,” he said. When the defense inquired about a deal in late June 2025, prosecutors asked Kohberger’s team what he wanted to do and scheduled meetings with the victims’ families.
Thompson framed the outcome as a way to lock in a conviction and life imprisonment while sparing families years of appellate uncertainty. In a letter to the families, he wrote that the deal “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.” He described the agreement as offering “straight up guilty pleas as charged and waiver of appeal for closure.”
Thompson also addressed why the deal did not require a detailed confession or allocution. He said there was nothing he believed Kohberger “could say that would shed the actual truth on what happened,” and that pressing him for a specific narrative could undermine the factual basis for the plea and give the judge weaker footing to uphold it.
The case had also grown enormously expensive. Total public spending on the prosecution and defense eventually exceeded $8 million, with defense costs alone approaching $5.5 million and Latah County’s share reaching roughly $3.1 million. By late June 2025, the major pretrial rulings had gone the state’s way: the judge had rejected the defense’s proposed “alternate perpetrator” theory as “rank speculation,” had previously barred Kohberger from entering an official alibi, and had denied a motion to suppress DNA evidence recovered from a knife sheath found next to Madison Mogen’s body. Even so, a capital trial carries its own unpredictability, and a death sentence would have triggered years of mandatory appeals. A guilty plea with an appeal waiver offered a finality a jury verdict could not.
How the Victims’ Families Responded
The families split sharply on the deal.
The Goncalves family objected the most forcefully. Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s father, said publicly that “Idaho has failed” his family. In a written statement, the family called the agreement “shocking and cruel,” criticized prosecutors for introducing it weeks before trial with minimal notice, and said that when the possibility was first raised, they gave a “hard no,” only to receive a letter days later saying the defense had requested an offer. “Latah County should be ashamed of its Prosecutor’s Office,” the statement read, alleging the families had been treated as “opponents from the outset.”
Jeff Kernodle, Xana’s father, and her aunt Kim Kernodle also expressed disagreement, and Kim Kernodle initially said the families intended to “fight the plea” and urged the judge to delay his decision.
The Mogen and Chapin families took a different view. Ben Mogen, Madison’s father, told reporters he felt “torment” from the prolonged case and wanted to avoid the “nightmare” of a trial. Both families indicated they were at peace with the agreement.
Under Idaho law, victims of violent crimes have the right to be advised of any proposed plea agreement before it is entered and the right to be heard at hearings considering a guilty plea. The law does not give families veto power over a prosecutor’s decision, and a violation of these notification rights does not provide grounds for a court to void an accepted plea.
The Sentencing Hearing
On July 23, 2025, Judge Hippler sentenced Kohberger at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise. He imposed four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murders and a 10-year term for burglary. He also ordered a $50,000 fine for each charge and a $5,000 civil penalty per murder count payable to the victims’ families, along with roughly $32,000 in restitution to the families and the Idaho victims’ compensation fund. Kohberger was ordered to submit a DNA sample.
Before sentencing, friends and family members of the victims delivered impact statements. Alivea Goncalves, Kaylee’s sister, addressed Kohberger directly, calling him a “delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser” and telling him that if he hadn’t attacked the victims in their sleep, “Kaylee would’ve kicked your ass.” Steve Goncalves called him a “complete joke” who would be “forgotten to the wind.” Kristi Goncalves, Kaylee’s mother, told him “hell will be waiting.”
Dylan Mortensen, one of the surviving roommates, described “tsunami-like panic attacks” and called Kohberger “a hollow vessel, something less than human.” Bethany Funke, the other survivor, expressed guilt for not calling 911 sooner in a statement read aloud by a friend. Kim Kernodle told Kohberger she had forgiven him because she “could no longer live with that hate.” Xana’s stepfather, Randy Davis, told him he was “evil” and was “gonna go to hell.” The Chapin family did not attend.
Kohberger, in an orange prison uniform, showed no visible reaction. When Judge Hippler offered him the chance to speak, he said three words: “I respectfully decline.” The judge noted that Kohberger’s motive may never be known. Hippler also told Kohberger that while he had waived his appeal rights, he technically retained the ability to file a notice of appeal, though doing so could be considered a violation of the plea agreement.
Where Kohberger Is Now
Kohberger is held at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, the state’s only maximum-security prison, which houses Idaho’s most dangerous male inmates, including its death row population. Idaho Department of Correction records list him as IDOC inmate number 163214, assigned to J Block, with a life sentence on the murder counts.
The house at 1122 King Road was demolished on December 28, 2023, by the University of Idaho, which had taken ownership of the property. The demolition was completed in under two hours despite objections from the Goncalves and Kernodle families, who argued the structure might hold evidentiary value. The university said both sides in the criminal case had been granted access and neither had asked for the house to be preserved.
In January 2026, the parents of all four victims filed a civil lawsuit against Washington State University in Skagit County Superior Court in Washington. The 126-page complaint alleges gross negligence, wrongful death, and Title IX violations, claiming WSU failed to act on at least 13 formal complaints filed against Kohberger during his single semester as a graduate student there. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages. As of that filing, Kohberger was also reported to be disputing restitution payments related to the victims’ urns under the terms of his plea agreement.