Bryan Kohberger, charged in the murders of four University of Idaho students, appears at the Ada County Courthouse, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Boise, Idaho. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool)

Bryan Kohberger admitted in court Wednesday to the murder of four University of Idaho students in 2022, finally bringing some closure to the highly publicized case that brought national attention to the grieving college town.

“Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” 4th Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler asked Kohberger during a 50-minute change-of-plea hearing.

“Yes,” Kohberger replied.

Hippler, seated from the bench, asked Kohberger four times — once for each victim — if he “willfully, unlawfully, deliberately with premeditation and with malice aforethought” stabbed Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin to death after breaking into a Moscow home in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022.

“Yes,” Kohberger said stoically, seated between his three attorneys. His parents sat just feet away in the front row of the largest courtroom at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise.

The hearing, hastily scheduled within days after the plea deal was publicized, came a month before Kohberger’s public defense team was expected to begin its fight for its client’s innocence at his long-awaited capital murder trial. Hippler apologized to both the families of the victims and the family of Kohberger, who had all rushed to book travel to Boise for the hearing with limited notice.

Until Monday, Hippler said he was under the impression that the case would be proceeding to trial next month, adding that he and his staff were preparing to have possibly 10,000 jurors complete questionnaires to determine whether they could serve.
Kohberger, dressed in a white button-down shirt, patterned tie and khakis, pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of the U of I students at an off-campus home in Moscow, as well as felony burglary. In exchange, he will no longer face the death penalty as a potential sentence in the deal brokered with Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson, who led the state’s case. The choice to pursue a sudden plea agreement over a public trial has been met with pushback by some of the victims’ families.

“I don’t think it will ever be possible for us to comprehend the senseless murder of four young people in the prime of their lives and the impact it had, and continues to have, on their families and friends,” Moscow Mayor Art Bettge said in a statement. “This was a horrific and tragic event that shocked our close-knit community to its core, one that still reverberates today.”
Still left unanswered is any understanding of Kohberger’s motive for the killings, or for his decision to target the home. Some of those details may be revealed at Kohberger’s sentencing, which Hippler scheduled for July 23. Judge: ‘Where the facts and the law lead me’

Originally from Pennsylvania, Kohberger was a Washington State University Ph.D. student of criminology who lived just 10 miles west of the students on the other side of the Idaho-Washington state line in Pullman. Prosecutors in court records have alleged the four murders occurred within a 13-minute span.

Kohberger had faced the prospect of capital punishment if found guilty by a jury at trial. Led by Anne Taylor, his attorneys spent nearly a year trying to remove the death penalty as a possible sentencing option, but to no avail, ahead of the plea agreement. The deal instead offered a guaranteed life sentence with no ability to appeal.

The plea agreement came over the protest of half of the four victims’ families. Most outspoken were the parents of Kaylee Goncalves, who worked this week to inspire supporters to call the judge, the U.S. Department of Justice and Gov. Brad Little’s office to force Kohberger’s capital murder trial to proceed, in pursuit of a possible death sentence.

“This ain’t justice. No judge presided, no jury weighed the truth,” the Goncalveses posted to a family-run Facebook page shortly before Wednesday’s hearing. “Thompson cut his deal with the devil, his negotiations didn’t require anything other than a simple guilty plea.”

Hippler addressed these sentiments during Wednesday’s hearing. Calls to contact him and his staff have been “extraordinarily disruptive” for court staffers and their ability to do their jobs for not only Kohberger’s case but for others, he said, calling it “highly inappropriate.”

“A court is not supposed to — and this court will never — take into account public sentiment in making an opinion regarding its judicial decisions in cases,” Hippler said. “Courts should, and I always will, make decisions based on where the facts and the law lead me. Period.”

Kohberger’s parents appeared emotional during the hearing. His mother held a wadded tissue in one hand and hung her head. His father comforted her with an embrace as they watched their only son admit to the murders.

Kohberger’s parents exited the hearing and the courthouse without speaking to the throng of media that traveled from across the country to observe their son’s change of plea. A Pennsylvania law firm representing Kohberger’s family also did not return a request for comment from the Idaho Statesman on Wednesday. The day before, their attorneys shared their request for privacy and declined to answer questions from The New York Times.

“We ask that you respect our wishes during a difficult time for all those affected,” read the statement from attorney Martin Souto Diaz of Amori & Associates to the Times.

Hours before the hearing was scheduled to start, reporters and onlookers, sectioned off in the hallway, lined the fourth floor of the courthouse, waiting to enter. The same courtroom was used in recent years for several of the state’s other high-profile cases, including the murder trials of Chad and Lori Daybell.

There also was a ramped-up security presence at the Ada County Courthouse on Wednesday, with K-9s from the Boise Police Department circling outside of the building, and extra bag checks before members of the public were allowed inside the courtroom. Even plastic bottles weren’t permitted in the courthouse out of concerns of potential violence, a sheriff’s deputy told people waiting to enter the courthouse.

Mogen’s family supports the deal, attorney says

During the hearing, Thompson stood to offer a rundown to Hippler of the narrative prosecutors would have attempted to prove beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. He read from and flipped through a white legal pad as he laid out the state’s case against Kohberger. With lips pursed and a blank stare, Kohberger trained his eyes on Thompson as the prosecutor spoke.

Thompson explained that investigators never found the Ka-Bar fixed-blade knife believed to be the murder weapon, but that a single source of male DNA found on a leather sheath for the knife found next to Mogen’s body was matched to Kohberger. A trash pull at the family’s home in eastern Pennsylvania led to analysis of DNA from a Q-tip found to be from Kohberger’s father, he said.

Thompson grew emotional as he neared the end of his comments, and reached the names of the four victims.

“We will not represent that he intended to commit all of the murders that he did that night, but we know that that is what resulted — and that he then killed intentionally, willfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice and forethought,” he said, as his voice began to crack. “Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle.

He collapsed in his chair and took a sip of water. Fellow prosecutor Josh Hurwit placed his hand on Thompson’s back.
The Goncalves family expressed their outrage at the plea deal, calling Thompson a “cowardly” and “gutless” man in their Facebook post.

“One man shouldn’t decide what four souls are worth,” Steve Goncalves told several reporters outside the courthouse before the plea deal, according to a video published by Fox News. The family called on the judge to reject the agreement.

But under non-binding plea agreements, Hippler said a presiding judge can only reject the deal if the defendant doesn’t admit to all of the elements of the crime.

While Kaylee’s mother, Kristi Goncalves, and other family members attended Wednesday’s hearing, Steve Goncalves did not. In the clip posted by Fox News, just before Steve Goncalves walked away, a reporter asked a follow-up question about his anger, specifically with Thompson.

“Thompson made a deal with Kohberger,” he responded. “He was the only person that was considered.”

The Goncalveses headed for their vehicles parked near the courtroom and left the area. A white SUV driven by Kristi Goncalves had messages scrawled on the rear windshield: “Honk for Justice” and listed the names of their daughter, Kernodle and Mogen, followed by the now well-known slogan “#Idaho4” at the bottom.

Jeff Kernodle, father of Xana Kernodle, said he also opposed the plea agreement in a statement to The New York Times.
“I do not agree with this outcome and expressed my concerns before the deal was negotiated,” he said “After nearly three years of waiting and being told there would be a trial, with evidence presented to convict him, I’m disappointed in the prosecutors’ decision.”

But not all of the families agreed with that view. The families of Ethan Chapin and Madison Mogen, in statements to the media, issued their support for the plea deal.

Mogen’s father, Ben Mogen, and his family, in a statement to the Statesman, said the deal guarantees punishment for Kohberger and safety for the community, while also allowing those who knew the four young adults time to grieve “without the anxiety of the long and gruesome trial” and potential appeals.

“We support the plea agreement 100%,” Leander James, an attorney representing Mogen’s mother and stepfather, said in prepared remarks outside the courtroom Wednesday. “While we know there are some who do not support it, we ask that they respect our belief that this is the best outcome possible for the victims, their families and the state of Idaho.”
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