Victims’ Families Outraged After U Idaho Murder Suspect Accepts Plea Deal, Avoiding Death Penalty
“Adding insult to injury, they’re rushing the plea, giving families just one day to coordinate and appear at the courthouse for a plea on July 2.”
Bryan Kohberger, the lone suspect in a horrific quadruple murder at the University of Idaho in 2022, has accepted a plea deal which will spare him the death penalty.
Family members of the victims claim that they were not made aware of the plea deal beforehand, and are outraged that Kohberger will be allowed to live.
FOX News reports:
Bryan Kohberger accepts plea deal in Idaho student murders case
Idaho student murders suspect Bryan Kohberger has accepted a plea deal to spare his life in the murders of four University of Idaho students, two sources close to the case told Fox News Digital Monday.
Kohberger, 30, is accused of killing Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, in a 4 a.m. home invasion attack on Nov. 13, 2022.
Goncalves’ family issued a scathing statement Monday evening, hours after the news became public, saying that they had been “vaguely” approached on Friday about the possibility of a deal but were blindsided that it was done by Sunday.
“The death penalty is merely an illusion in the criminal justice system. When available, it serves as a bargaining tool for the State, and when rarely applied, it’s never enforced due to a highly inefficient appellate process,” the family said in a statement through attorney Shanon Gray. “The notion that someone can plead guilty to a crime and still face years of appellate delays reveals a systemic failure.”
“We weren’t even called about the plea; we received an email with a letter attached,” the statement continued. “That’s how Latah County’s Prosecutor’s Office treats murder victims’ families. Adding insult to injury, they’re rushing the plea, giving families just one day to coordinate and appear at the courthouse for a plea on July 2.”
More from the New York Post:
The deal is a stunning twist in a hard-fought case in which prosecutors accused Kohberger of sneaking into a rental home in nearby Moscow, Idaho, and fatally stabbing Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.
And for Goncalves’ family, the deal is a stab in the back.
On their Facebook page, the family said they were “beyond furious” that Kohberger will get to live.
“The introduction of this plea deal, just weeks before the scheduled trial, is both shocking and cruel,” Kaylee’s younger sister Aubrie posted in her own scathing message.
“Bryan Kohberger facing a life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships, and engage with the world. Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever,” she wrote.
The deal would save Kohberger from a potential death by firing squad after Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a new law bringing back the antiquated execution method.
See a quick video report below:
🚨 BREAKING: Bryan Kohberger, who kiIIed multiple college students in Idaho in 2022, has just pled GUILTY to the m*rder charges
This will allow him to avoid the de*th penalty, and there will be no trial.
He will serve life in prison. pic.twitter.com/6TMrf1M6mW
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 30, 2025
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Comments
note to self… get daughter to range more this summer.
Sadly, the victims we asleep when attacked.
I hope your daughter’s house has an alarm system.
Belgian Malinois.
Now, THOSE are alarm systems I can get along with!
Wise move.
Big Dog my help too
I too was outraged.
Prayers for the families.
he now has the chance…no matter what is stated ( no chance fro parole) of being given parole
the states regularly release mental patients and that of course includes murderers many times just based on the “aged out” mentality
b/c they dont want to use the budget to treat the elderly etc etc
america has bitten the rotten apple and its name is communism
Idaho brought back death by firing squad???? I’d love to watch that — no joke.
Idaho hasn’t executed anybody since 2012. While it’s deserved for Kohberger let’s not pretend any execution was going to happen in the next 30 years.
You gotta wonder what motivated the prosecution to offer a plea in the first place?
Wasn’t this creep defending himself? How do you lose against that?
Things that make you go hmmm…
He has legal representation.
Just as likely the defense proffered the plea. Both sides would have been exposed to risk by going to the jury. The plea allows both sides to avoid their respective worst case outcomes.
It’s cheaper and easier for the state.
A bullet would be cheaper but getting it into gun and shooting it is too costly. Some people don’t deserve to ever have a smile, a laugh, a breath of air…he is one. But some idiot will say “thou shalt not kill” … wrongly stated of course as death is a fitting punishment for him.
Tell those who argue “thou shalt not kill is actually “thou shalt not do murder.” That’s why execution is not a sin and abortion is.
Not exactly. There’s no exact English equivalent. The word is תרצח, which generally refers both to murder and manslaughter, but in Numbers 35:27 the Bible explicitly uses it of justified homicide; indeed it actually commands the killing, and yet uses the exact same verb. So the word can’t mean just murder, or just unlawful killing; there’s something about some justified and even mandatory killings that also makes the word appropriate.
Essentially, they don’t have the evidence to make it a sure thing, or they’re lazy and don’t want to actually work toward justice.
You’re mistaking him for Karmelo Anthony.
Anthony was not defending himself although that he was will be argued,
I think he means “in court,” not “during the murder.”
lets get this out of the way
just b/c the pos will meet his shank in prison is not to be acceptable as justice
b/c if we have to rely on prison justice to now be our level of civility
then not one more penny and defund the justice system will now become our rallying cry
and we DONT want that
hold the tax funded /soros funded DA’s police chiefs and mayors accountable
trump won b/c and only b/c of the crime issue when it was laid at the feet of the non border cities like nyc chiraq
then and ONLY THEN did the population have to deal with crime and criminals
“not of their choosing”
We are at the point where criminals rarely face consequences. So if justice is delivered at the end of a rifle or a dirty shank in prison, I no longer care.
“Sometimes it is necessary to pursue Natural Justice.” — Thomas Jane as “The Punisher”
I am not surprised they offered him (0r accepted) that deal, but they should have far more respect for the victims’ families.
A crime is considered an offense against the state and their laws, not the victim.
I understand that, but the State has a duty to at least consider the families/victims and listen to them (even if ultimately they do not get a say or veto on what happens on the prosecution side). If you do that for simple burglary (which most prosecutors do), why would you not do it when college age children are murdered?
Thank you for pointing out one of the fundamental flaws in our legal system. Murder is personal and the societal offense is far less for murder is a denial of the victim’s right to life, the most fundamental of rights. Whereas the State has no unalienable right to life… for if it did, the people would have no right to abolish it.
The question: is the Latah County’s Prosecutor’s Office staffed by woke, progressive squishes, or did they encounter something in the case that made them not want to go to trial? Because those are the only two things I can think of that would make them offer this deal.
From what we know on the outside, the case is a ‘slam dunk’ conviction. In a highly publicized case, that’s what you do — convict in open court. So either the prosecutor is a squish or they found something in the case that they fear the defense can use effectively at trial.
Latah was one of two Idaho counties to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 8,093 votes (44.5%), compared to 7,265 (40.0%) for Donald Trump and 2,798 (15.5%) for various other candidates.[44]
maybe they are sooooo woke from top to bottom that the pos would have walked and the DA..b/c it looked /was a slam dunk case, would have looked inept
and yeah idaho is considered a gop stronghold of some sorts but thats not always the reality
they did vote 2024 they voted trump but so did many many many other center left people
Is one of your reasons the fact that all it takes is one juror to to be an anti-death idiot, and the best you can get after 2 months of trial is “life without”? The area has a university and coupled with all the people moving to ID from CA, the chances of getting that juror is greater than zero.
To paraphrase Mike Ditka, an ugly win is still a win
.
Most criminal cases end in plea deals, the number is staggeringly high, over 90%. If you’re the prosecutor, you just got an automatic win here in the highest profile case of your career.
Juries are a crapshoot. A year ago, there was legit reasonable doubt. Now, with so many leaks, and the recent motions from the defense, I think much of that doubt has been erased. But there are still things the prosecutor had to worry about from the get-go. I don’t think it was anything new that made DA Bill Thompson agree to this. Despite the amount of nonsense in the media, it was never a slam dunk, and I think the biggest tell for that was the fact that we see this plea deal. If your case were a slam dunk, would you say – nah, forget it?
Both sides clearly understood their respective risks of a trial.
There is no case that is a “slam dunk.” The best case is 80% =and the worse case is 20%. Anything can happen, there are too many variables and human beings are fallible.
Idaho hasn’t executed anyone in well over a decade. Most recently – and famously – they’ve been trying to execute a serial killer (no less than 42-victims) named Thomas Creech…a guy who has been on death row for almost 50-years, and killed at least one person while in prison. Because of a failed lethal-injection attempt on Creech about 2-years ago, the state very recently adopted ‘firing squad’ as the primary execution method.
Unfortunately, the reality is no matter how conservative a state is, most murders are committed in jurisdictions that have urban areas in them…and are governed by the liberals that are elected by those urban areas. Idaho is no different. Even in our reddest states, the progressives always find a way to run the show. If Idaho can’t execute someone like Thomas Creech, the families had no hope Kohlberger was going to be put to death.
This may seem unsympathetic, but the justice system is not in place to give “justice” or retribution or satisfaction to the victim’s loved ones.
Sorry as I am for those families, their emotions cannot be part of the equation., no more than that of the family of the perpetrator.
you are correct
but the obvious is that the victims were seeking justice and were let down
As a matter of courtesy, the prosecution should have at least informed the victims’ families well in advance of its decision. Doing so at the last minute is disrespectful and greasy.
And, there is an argument to be made that in instances of heinous crimes such as these homicides, retributive justice, i.e., execution, is the only meaningful and proper punishment to be handed down.
Evidence of the defendant’s guilt was substantial, so, offering a plea deal instead of trying the defendant makes no tactical sense.
Agree with you about the last minute thing, and I’m with you on the forfeit your life part. But no – evidence of the defendant’s guilt was not substantial. If you follow the stupid shitty media, reasonable doubt never existed. But if you followed the pre-trial stuff, yes it did.
Prosecutors don’t bargain with air-tight cases.
And doing it BY EMAIL is … crazy. I don’t know what sort of lunatic would even think to inform parents of this BY EMAIL. That is one of the most cowardly, despicable acts I can think of.
They deserve a personal phone call and before it leaks to the media. It is cowardly.
Good damn thing it didn’t get routed to the recipient’s spam mailbox and never seen.
Why does the government always make ME sign their registered mail?
Actually, quite the contrary. Their emotions have to be part of the equation. Long ago, when humans began to order themselves in civil society, one of the critical elements that needed to be negotiated was in fact retribution. A implicit (and in some cases, explicit) compact was made so that people would no longer take justice into their own hands and instead, allow governing authorities to seek justice for the victims (or their families if the victims are no longer alive). First we vested this authority with kings. But later, we vested this authority with a government by, of and for the people.
That part of the ‘justice equation’ is the driving principle behind the victim(s) impact statements that are ubiquitous in US courts. When governing authorities begin to abdicate their fidelity to that implicit compact, bad things follow.
What I describe is taken for granted here because our government has been so stable for so long. But, I’ve spent too much time in other places where that compact has long been forgotten…and I’ve seen the consequences. It’s ugly and unfortunately, we’re beginning to see it emerge in our urban areas today…even those in the middle of deeply red states.
The emotions are about what is perceived as a lack of justice. So they’re perfectly valid to comment on.
It’s not all done for the benefit of family members.
So, he’ll be locked up in a place with a lot of guys happy to shank someone for a pack of cigarettes?
Just sayin’.
He’ll be in a place where a lot of guys need some new meat.
The judge should certainly reject the plea deal.
This is pretty much an open-and-shut case (though now jury selection will be seriously hampered by news of this plea deal and acceptance – thanks, idiot prosecutors) that should be tried.
And these “life sentences” are jokes. As the family stated, the convicts are still allowed to communicate (which should be taken away) and live their lives, taken care of and sheltered by the state forever.
Now, if this dirtbag got life with no communication and HARD LABOR then we might be able to talk … but this is a sick joke and the prosecutor’s office should be ashamed of itself (and needs to be sanctioned/impeached/etc.).
except they still wont give him the death penalty and even if he did get the dp
there are about 50 more years for him to live
“The death penalty is merely an illusion in the criminal justice system. When available, it serves as a bargaining tool for the State, and when rarely applied, it’s never enforced due to a highly inefficient appellate process,” the family said in a statement through attorney Shanon Gray”
Woo. Preach it, sister!
If he had committed the crime just a few miles farther west (in WA), we don’t have a death penalty. So there would have been no reason for him to plead guilty, and there would have been a long trial, many appeals, the possibility of him getting away with it, and eventually the chance of a parole. That’s why we need a death penalty on the books, even if you never use it except as a bargaining tool.