Bryan Kohberger apparently agrees to a plea deal in Idaho college student murders, victim’s family says

Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of fatally stabbing four college students in Idaho, appears ready to accept a deal to plead guilty in connection with the killings, one victim’s family and their attorney said Monday.

Kaylee Goncalves’ family said they learned about the apparent deal in a letter from prosecutors, according to a statement. The family said on Facebook in an updated statement that they gave a “HARD NO” after prosecutors broached the possibility of a plea deal Friday, before prosecutors emailed them about the deal Sunday.

According to the Idaho Statesman, the letter said the plea deal will ensure Kohberger’s conviction and secure life in prison for him.

“This agreement 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,” read the letter, signed by Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson, according to the Statesman.

The Goncalves family had said that the Latah County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office “vaguely mentioned” a possible plea deal Friday, before it presented it to the family Sunday through a letter sent via email “without seeking our input.”

In its updated statement, the family said they met with prosecutors again Monday to reiterate their desire for the death penalty.

“Unfortunately all of our efforts did not matter,” the family said.

Kohberger, 30, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary in the 2022 killings of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Goncalves at an off-campus home in Moscow.

Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s father, was upset in an interview Monday night and said he considers the plea agreement a “ridiculous joke.” He said he wants the judge to reject it.

“There’s no justice in this,” he said. The family also said on Facebook that they were “beyond furious at the State of Idaho.”

Additional details about the reported deal were not immediately available. The Latah County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and an attorney for Kohberger declined to comment.

Kohberger’s trial was scheduled to begin Aug. 11 in Boise.

Attorneys for Kohberger, a doctoral student in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman, have said he was out driving alone when the students were killed.

They attended the University of Idaho, just across the state line from Pullman.

The bodies of Chapin, 20; Kernodle, 20; Mogen, 21; and Goncalves, 21, were found Nov. 13, 2022. Authorities linked Kohberger to the killing through cellphone data, security camera video and DNA on a knife sheath discovered at the scene.

Kohberger was arrested Dec. 30 at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania.

The Goncalves family’s attorney, Shanon Gray, said they wanted the death penalty in part because that would change Kohberger’s time in prison.

“The death penalty, even though it’s probably not going to happen in anybody’s lifetime — when you’re in prison you’re basically on lockdown for 23 hours. And then you get about an hour,” Gray said.

“But if you’re life sentence, you’re just walking around and doing the things that any other prisoner will do,” he said. “So it was a big deal for them.”

Steve Goncalves also said that he believes Kohberger will try to write a book or have some other communication about the crimes and that the proposed plea deal doesn’t stop him from doing that.

“We have a killer who wants a show, and they just gave him one,” he said.