Boise, Idaho — 

For 30 months, Bryan Kohberger and his defense attorneys insisted on his innocence in the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in their off-campus home.

But in a matter of minutes Wednesday, in a packed courtroom roughly 300 miles from the horrific scene of the crime, everything changed.

“Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” Kohberger said.

“Did you on November 13, 2022, enter the residence at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with the intent to commit the felony crime of murder?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” Kohberger said, again.

It was the first time the public had heard directly from the lone suspect in a gruesome crime that shocked the nation.

And it was to say what prosecutors had alleged all along: He did it.

The remarkable change-of-plea hearing cements a deal that allows Kohberger to avoid the death penalty and his highly-anticipated murder trial by admitting guilt to charges of burglary and first-degree murder in the gruesome late-night killings of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen.

The deal ends a tumultuous case that included a cross-country hunt for the suspect and a pre-trial legal battle that involved several attempts by the defense to have the charges dismissed or the death penalty taken off the table. The announcement of the deal comes after several judge’s rulings that would have narrowed the defense’s strategy options at trial.

As Kohberger, a 30-year-old former PhD student of criminology, confirmed his guilt to state district Judge Steven Hippler, one of the victims’ family members silently wept as other loved ones listened intently.

After the plea, prosecutor Bill Thompson delivered a lengthy outline of the evidence that would have been presented against Kohberger at trial, including phone records that placed him near the victims’ home and an account of how he moved through the home on the night of the killings. He also revealed that prosecutors still do not know whether Kohberger entered the home with the intent of killing all four students.

Father of Idaho student killed speaks out after Bryan Kohberger admits to killings

0:29 – Source: CNN

“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 aforethought’ Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle,” Thompson said, appearing to choke up as he read their names.

Thompson also nodded to Kohberger’s deep fascination with criminal cases as a criminology student, saying, “The defendant has studied crime. In fact, he did a detailed paper on crime scene processing … and he had that knowledge and skill.”

Several key questions were left unaddressed, including what drove Kohberger to carry out the killings, why he targeted the students and why two other roommates were spared.

The families of the four victims – who have desperately awaited answers they believed would be revealed at trial – remain torn over the outcome of the deal. Mogen’s parents have expressed their support. Her father, Ben Mogen, told the Idaho Statesman he viewed the deal as an opportunity to avoid the pain and spectacle of a trial and focus on healing.

At least one parent, Steve Goncalves, told CNN he felt blindsided by the announcement, which came just days after he and other loved ones had urged prosecutors to pursue the death penalty. The Goncalves family members, in a statement Wednesday, said they had expected more answers from Wednesday’s hearing.

“Today was the day, the day for answers, the day to find out what happened, to find out really anything about what the Defendant did that night and why he took the lives of 4 beautiful people. At least that’s what we hoped for but hope is really all we had today,” the Goncalves family statement read.

On the burglary charge, Kohberger will face a sentence of 10 years. He will face a life sentence for each of the four counts of first-degree homicide. The five counts will run consecutively. Kohberger waived his right to appeal the plea and sentence, and to seek leniency and reconsideration of the sentence later.

Kohberger’s sentencing hearing has been set for July 23 at 9 a.m. and he will remain in jail until then. Kohberger will no longer be allowed to appear in the civilian shirt and tie he usually wears for hearings, Hippler said. The next time he sets foot in the courtroom, he will be dressed in prison garb.

A pile of questions over the killer’s method and motive have haunted the case since the four students were discovered stabbed to death in their home near Moscow with no signs of forced entry. Though prosecutors have previously shared some evidence to support their charges against Kohberger, a sweeping gag order has prevented both parties from sharing insight into a case that has scarred the small college town.

But Thompson on Wednesday laid out a timeline of evidence that would have been presented at trial, which included small revelations about Kohberger’s path through the home and the searches of his home and meticulously cleaned car.

Early on the morning of the murders, prosecutors said, Kohberger parked his car behind the students’ home and slipped inside through a sliding glass door to the kitchen at the back.

Once inside, he headed to the third floor and fatally stabbed Mogen and Goncalves, Thompson said. In a crucial mistake, Kohberger left behind a knife sheath, on which investigators found DNA they would later identify as Kohberger’s, the prosecutor added.

Investigators homed in on Kohberger as a suspect by pulling DNA from his parents’ trash. His father’s discarded Q-Tip contained DNA that lab tests determined likely belonged to the father of the person whose DNA was left on the knife, Thompson revealed.

Kernodle, whose room was on the second floor, was still awake as Kohberger began the killings, Thompson said. She had recently made a food delivery order after returning home from a late night out.

“As the defendant was either coming down the stairs or leaving, he encountered Xana, and he ended up killing her, also with a large knife. Ethan Chapin, Xana’s boyfriend was asleep in her bedroom, and the defendant killed him as well,” Thompson told the court.

One of the two surviving roommates woke as Kohberger was leaving the house and looked out of her bedroom to see Kohberger – dressed in black clothing and a balaclava – leaving the home, the prosecutor said.

As Kohberger fled on rural back roads, surveillance cameras captured his car speeding through the area. Thompson said, “The car almost loses control as it makes (a) corner.”

A harrowing weekslong hunt for the suspect ensued, concluding when Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ Pennsylvania home. He had driven across the country in the white Hyundai Elantra seen at the crime scene, but when investigators searched the vehicle, they found it had been cleaned and “disassembled internally.”

The murder weapon, which investigators say is a fixed-blade knife, has never been found, and it is still unclear why Kohberger carried out the killings. He was not required to make a detailed confession in court Wednesday.

After the victims’ families were informed of the plea deal over the weekend, fathers Jeff Kernodle and Steve Goncalves harshly criticized prosecutors for not consulting the victims’ families before agreeing to conditions of the deal.

Kernodle said he was disappointed the deal did not require Kohberger to confess to unexplained details of the crime.

“I had hoped the agreement would include conditions that required the defendant to explain his actions and provide answers to the many questions that still remain, especially where evidence is missing or unclear,” Kernodle said in a statement Tuesday.

Goncalves, who said he believes Kohberger deserves the death penalty, told CNN he believes Kohberger should have been barred from reaping financial gain from selling his story from prison.

In contrast, Mogen’s parents said they are accepting the plea deal as an opportunity to move on from what would have been a torturous trial.

“We support the plea agreement 100%. 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 victims, their families and the state of Idaho,” said Leander James, who represents Mogen’s mother and stepfather, Karen and Scott Laramie.