Bryan Kohberger is expected to appear in court Wednesday to plead guilty to murder in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students in 2022.
He agreed to the plea deal just weeks before his trial was to begin to avoid the death penalty, which prosecutors had said they intended to pursue.
Kohberger, 30, has been charged with killing Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. The northern Idaho farming community of about 25,000 people was rocked by the killings and hadn’t seen a homicide in about five years.
Here’s the latest:
Kohberger decided to accept a plea deal only after failed efforts to strike the death penalty failed
His attorneys tried to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty on an array of grounds — that it would violate standards of decency or flout international law, that prosecutors had failed to provide evidence properly, that their client’s autism diagnosis reduced any possible culpability.
They challenged the legitimacy of DNA evidence and sought permission to suggest to a jury that someone else committed the crime.
None of it worked, so they turned to a final option: a plea deal to avoid execution.
