Bryan Kohberger Victims: The Night, the Evidence, and the Plea Deal

Bryan Kohberger’s victims were four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin — who were stabbed to death in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, inside an off-campus rental home at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. Kohberger, then a 28-year-old criminal justice Ph.D. student at Washington State University, was arrested six weeks later. On July 23, 2025, after pleading guilty, he was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, plus ten years for burglary.¹²

Who the Four Victims Were

The four were close friends. Three of them lived in the King Road house; the fourth, Ethan Chapin, was staying over that night with his girlfriend, Xana Kernodle.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21

Kaylee Jade Goncalves was born on June 8, 2001, in Concord, California, and grew up in North Idaho, where she attended Lake City High School.³ The middle of five children, she was a member of the Alpha Phi sorority at the University of Idaho and was studying to become an elementary school teacher. She was set to graduate early, just weeks after her death, and had planned to move to Texas for a new job.⁴ Her family described her as driven; she had held a full-time job throughout high school and college. Her childhood best friend was Madison Mogen, whom she called her “chosen sister.”

Madison Mogen, 21

Madison “Maddie” May Mogen was born on May 25, 2001, in Eugene, Oregon, and raised in Northern Idaho, attending Lake City High School alongside Kaylee.⁵ A senior at the University of Idaho, she was majoring in marketing and belonged to the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She made the dean’s list every semester and worked at a Greek restaurant in Moscow, where she also ran a social media campaign for the business.⁶

Xana Kernodle, 20

Xana Kernodle was born on July 5, 2002, in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and grew up in Post Falls. She graduated from Post Falls High School in 2020 and was a junior at the University of Idaho, also majoring in marketing.⁷ Like Mogen, she was a member of Pi Beta Phi and worked at the Mad Greek restaurant. A gymnast as a child, she went on to play volleyball, run track, and play soccer in high school. Her sister Jazzmin described her as “positive, funny and was loved by everyone who met her.”⁸

Ethan Chapin, 20

Ethan Chapin was a triplet, born in October 2002 at Swedish Hospital in Seattle alongside his siblings Maizie and Hunter. He grew up in Conway, Washington, and attended Mount Vernon High School, where he played soccer and basketball and ran cross country.⁹ He was a member of Sigma Chi at the University of Idaho and was dating Xana Kernodle. According to his mother, the two had been friends before they started dating.⁸ He was staying at the King Road house the night he was killed.

What Happened That Night

On the evening of November 12, 2022, Chapin and Kernodle attended a fraternity party at the Sigma Chi house and returned to King Road at approximately 1:45 a.m.¹⁰ Goncalves and Mogen had been out separately that evening. All four were inside the three-story house when the attack began shortly after 4 a.m.

According to prosecutors, Kohberger parked behind the residence and entered through a sliding kitchen door. He went first to the third floor, where he killed Mogen and Goncalves.¹¹ Investigators believe Kernodle, who had been eating in the kitchen, heard the commotion and went upstairs to investigate; she was heard saying “somebody’s here.” Kohberger was heard telling the victims, “It’s OK, I’m here to help you,” according to evidence presented in court.¹²

Investigators believe Kernodle’s arrival distracted Kohberger. He followed her down to the second floor, where he attacked her in the doorway of her room. Kernodle fought back in what police described as an “intense struggle,” suffering over 50 stab wounds, most of them defensive.¹² Kohberger then killed Chapin, who was asleep in Kernodle’s room.¹¹ The whole attack lasted only minutes. Autopsy findings later showed all four died from multiple sharp-force injuries consistent with a Ka-Bar Marine Corps fighting knife, and the medical examiner concluded that each victim “endured a high degree of pain and/or suffering.”¹³

The Two Roommates Who Survived

Two other roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, lived on the first floor and were not attacked. According to the probable cause affidavit, Mortensen woke around 4 a.m. after hearing noise from the upper floors, opened her bedroom door, and saw a man with “bushy eyebrows” walking toward the sliding glass door.¹⁴ She locked herself in her room and then went downstairs to stay with Funke at approximately 4:20 a.m.

They exchanged urgent texts. Mortensen said she had seen what looked like a masked man in the house and wrote “I’m freaking out.” Funke replied, “Come to my room” and “Run.”¹⁵ Neither called 911 for hours. The call did not come until 11:58 a.m. on November 13, when a caller told the dispatcher, “Something happened in our house. We don’t know what.”¹⁴ Funke later said she was “sick with guilt” over not calling sooner. Both women have described lasting psychological trauma.¹⁶

How Investigators Tied Kohberger to the Killings

The case rested on several interlocking pieces of evidence. The central piece was a Ka-Bar knife sheath found facedown on the bed next to Mogen and Goncalves, partially underneath Mogen’s body. Male DNA on the sheath’s button snap was matched to Kohberger with what prosecutors described as overwhelming statistical certainty, stating it was “at least 5.37 octillion times more likely to be Kohberger’s than that of an unrelated member of the public.” Investigators identified him through investigative genetic genealogy, then confirmed the match using DNA from trash discarded by Kohberger’s father and, later, a cheek swab from Kohberger himself.¹⁷

Prosecutors also traced the sheath to Kohberger through Amazon records showing he had purchased a Ka-Bar knife, sheath, and sharpener between March 20 and March 30, 2022, roughly eight months before the killings. The knife itself was never recovered.¹⁸

FBI forensic examiners identified a white 2015 Hyundai Elantra registered to Kohberger in surveillance footage around King Road between 3:29 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. on November 13. His cell phone stopped reporting to the network between 2:47 a.m. and 4:48 a.m., consistent with the phone being turned off or in airplane mode during the attack, and reconnected in a location consistent with the vehicle’s route back toward Pullman, Washington, where he lived.¹⁹ Historical cell tower data showed his phone had used towers near the King Road house on at least 12 prior occasions, typically late at night or in the early morning.

Was There a Motive?

No clear motive has ever been established. At the sentencing hearing, Moscow police confirmed they had found no link between Kohberger and any of the victims and could not determine why he chose 1122 King Road.²⁰ Lead prosecutor Bill Thompson put it plainly: “We do not have evidence that the defendant had direct contact with 1122 or with residents in 1122.”¹¹ The victims appear to have been strangers to him.

Prosecutors did present evidence that Kohberger surveilled the neighborhood. His phone pinged near the house between 12 and 23 times from the summer of 2022 through the night of the murders, almost always during late-night hours.¹¹ Thompson characterized these trips as “looking and surveilling or stalking.” Prosecutors also speculated that Kohberger may have entered the house before that night, noting its confusing layout, and may have quietly befriended the victims’ dog.²¹

A book about the case, The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy, reported that some of the victims’ friends believed Madison Mogen may have been Kohberger’s primary target, theorizing he might have visited the restaurant where she worked, expressed romantic interest, and been rejected. Prosecutors noted that Mogen was attacked first and that the knife sheath was found beneath her body.²² Investigators did not confirm any of this, and the friends themselves did not recognize Kohberger when his photo was released. The real motive remains unknown.

The Plea Deal and Sentence

In July 2025, Kohberger pleaded guilty to all four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary under a plea agreement that took the death penalty off the table. In exchange, he waived his right to appeal all pretrial motions.² The deal did not require him to confess to the specific details of the crime, and it split the families: Steve Goncalves and Jeff Kernodle publicly opposed the agreement, while the Mogen and Chapin families supported it.²³

On July 23, 2025, Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four consecutive fixed life terms without the possibility of parole, plus ten years for burglary. He was also fined $50,000 per charge and ordered to pay $5,000 in civil penalties to each victim’s family for each murder count, totaling $270,000 in fines and civil penalties.²⁰ Kohberger declined the judge’s offer to address the court.¹ He is housed at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, Idaho.²⁴

How the Families Remembered Them

The sentencing hearing gave the families their first chance to speak directly to Kohberger. Kaylee’s sister, Alivea Goncalves, told him that Kaylee and Maddie were “not yours to take” and called him a “delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser,” adding, “Kaylee would’ve kicked your f—— ass.” Their mother, Kristi, told Kohberger that “hell will be waiting” and that he was “officially the property of the state of Idaho.” Their father, Steve, mocked Kohberger for leaving his DNA at the scene, calling him “a joke, a complete joke.”¹⁶

Madison Mogen’s grandmother, Kim Cheeley, described her “debilitating” fear and “traumatic grief,” saying she had sought EMDR therapy and grief counseling. Xana Kernodle’s stepfather, Randy Davis, called Kohberger “evil” and told him “you’re gonna go to hell.” Her aunt, Kim Kernodle, took a different path, saying she had forgiven Kohberger because she could “no longer live with that hate,” and offered to speak with him without judgment.¹⁶

Surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen delivered her first public remarks since the murders, describing “tsunami-like panic attacks” and calling Kohberger “a hollow vessel… a body without empathy, without remorse.” Bethany Funke’s statement, read by a friend, detailed how she had slept in her parents’ room for nearly a year, double-locked every door, and endured death threats from online observers who blamed her for not calling 911 sooner.¹⁶

Ethan Chapin’s family did not attend the sentencing. In an Instagram statement released July 31, 2025, his mother, Stacy Chapin, wrote, “The entire situation has been a tough pill to swallow but at the end of the day, we believe the outcome is the right one.” His father, Jim Chapin, had earlier expressed relief at the plea deal, saying the family had found “big time closure” and that he was “so ready for it to be done.”²⁵²⁶

1
BBC News. Bryan Kohberger Sentenced to Life in Prison for Idaho Student Murders
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CBS News. Bryan Kohberger Sentence Idaho Murders
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Coeur d’Alene Press. Kaylee Jade Goncalves, 21
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ABC7 New York. Idaho Murders Kaylee Goncalves
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Coeur d’Alene Press. Maddie May Mogen
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WBAL-TV. University of Idaho Students Murder Profiles
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Bonner County Daily Bee. Xana Kernodle, 20
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Fox 13 Seattle. Remembering Idaho Murder Victims
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The Independent. Xana Kernodle Ethan Chapin Idaho Last Movements
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PBS NewsHour. The Key Evidence That Linked Bryan Kohberger to the Murders of 4 Idaho Students
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ABC News. Idaho Murder Victim Interrupted Bryan Kohberger
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Court TV. Kaylee Goncalves Had Nose Broken, Tooth Knocked Out Autopsy Report
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TODAY. One Night in Idaho Surviving Roommates 911 Call
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ABC 7 Chicago. New Defense Filings Shed Light on Communications Between Roommates
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ABC News. Idaho Families at Bryan Kohberger Sentencing Hearing
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NBC News. Genetic Genealogy Used to Link Bryan Kohberger to Idaho Slayings
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CBS News. Bryan Kohberger Idaho Student Murders Knife Sheath
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Idaho Courts. State’s Response to Defendant’s Motion in Limine RE Amazon Click Activity
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ABC7 New York. Bryan Kohberger Sentencing Live Updates
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E! Online. Idaho Murders Bryan Kohberger Stalked Victims Home
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ABC News. New Book on University of Idaho Murders Sheds Light on Bryan Kohberger
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CNN. Kohberger Plea Deal What We Know
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Idaho Attorney General. Attorney General Labrador Commends Life Sentences for Bryan Kohberger
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NewsNation. Bryan Kohberger Victim Ethan Chapin’s Family Not Attending Sentencing
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People. Idaho Murder Victim Ethan Chapin Family Statement Bryan Kohberger Sentencing