Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty to slaughtering 4 Idaho college students — but does not say why

Bryan Kohberger admitted Wednesday to hacking four University of Idaho students to death, pleading guilty to four counts of murder in a deal that will spare him from death by firing squad.

But, there is still no indication about why he committed the cold-blooded crime.

Kohberger, wearing a too-short tie and slacks and utterly devoid of emotion, stood as he spoke in court, replying only with a curt “Yes” or “No” as the judge questioned him over his plea in a Boisie, Idaho, courtroom.

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When it came time to cop to the killings, the judge asked: “Did you kill and murder Madison Mogen, a human being?”

“Yes,” Kohberger said, repeating that answer for his three other victims – Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. 

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“I accept the plea. I direct that it be entered,” the judge finally said, bringing to a close the two and a half-year saga that commanded headlines and left the nation baffled by the seemingly random crime.

Kohberger, 30, will serve four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole or appeal, according to the plea deal announced Monday, which he apparently took to avoid the death penalty in the face of piles of evidence against him. 

He will also serve 10 years for a single count of burglary, and his victims’ devastated family will be able to seek restitution.

The deal means the psycho-killer will spend the rest of his days in a cage. However, he may not be required to explain why he carried out the senseless killings – leaving his victims’ families starkly divided.

The families of Goncalves and Kernodle have both denounced the deal – with Goncalves’ father saying prosecutors were told there was no interest in striking a bargain with Kohberger, but that they went ahead with it anyway.

However, the families of Chapin and Mogen both supported the deal, explaining they wanted to avoid a painful bombshell trial which would have generated weeks of wall-to-wall national coverage.

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Kohberger — a PhD criminology student — had insisted he was completely innocent of the bloody quadruple homicide since he was arrested in December 2022. And as recently as May, his defense attempted to argue an “alternative perpetrator” committed the cold-blooded stabbings.

But now he’s finally owned up to the killing, which saw students Kernodle, 20; Chapin, 20; Mogen, 21, and Goncalves, 21, hacked to death in their off-campus by a military-style Ka-Bar knife on a dark night in November 2022.

No motive has ever been revealed. Kohberger was studying at the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology just 10 miles away at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, at the time of the murders.

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Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson in court Wednesday spelled out the case they would have brought against Kohberger had the murders gone to trial — telling in terrifying detail how evidence indicated Kohberger staked out his victims’ home in the days before the killing, then sneaked in under the cover of dark and massacred four of the home’s six occupants.

Kohberger slipped in through the kitchen’s sliding door and stole upstairs to Mogen’s bedroom, prosecutors said.

There he found her in bed alongside Goncalves — her best pal – and using his seven-inch carbon steel blade butchered the pair as they slept.

He then fled the room but encountered Kernodle on the home’s stairs — she had been awake after ordering food — then cut her down where she stood and left her to die.

“Her room was not on the third floor, it was on the second floor,” Thompson said, his voice shaking. “He encountered Xana, and he ended up killing her, also with a large knife.”

Kohberger then moved into Kernodle’s bedroom where her boyfriend — Chapin — was sleeping, and hacked him to death as well.

He left through the kitchen using the sliding door he came in by – but not before one of the home’s two surviving occupants got a look at him, infamously telling investigators she saw a masked man with “busy eyebrows.”

Thompson said there is no evidence any of the victims was sexually assaulted.

He then drove home and took a selfie of himself flashing a thumbs-up, and spent the following weeks making attempts to erase evidence – including scrubbing his car completely clean and following tactics prosecutors suggested he picked up from his own criminology classes.

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Kohberger’s sentencing is scheduled for July 23, where the victims’ families and loved ones will be able to address the court. Kohberger will also have the chance to speak then, though it is unclear how much he will say.

The stunning turnaround comes as Kohberger’s trial was due to begin in August, and his defense became increasingly desperate — with a judge rejecting repeated motions to have mountains of damning evidence thrown out. The most recent rulings denied defense requests to delay the trial and present other possible suspects.

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Despite Kohberger having little apparent connection to his victims, the increasingly daunting evidence of his guilt may have motivated him to finally take a deal and avoid the same fate he gave his innocent victims.

Chief among the evidence was a sheath found near Mogen’s bloodied body that had Kohberger’s DNA on it, while prosecutors found evidence that he’d purchased a matching Ka-Bar knife on Amazon just months before the murders – and was trying to buy a replacement sheath days after the killings.

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Eerie surveillance footage also captured a white Hyundai matching Kohberger’s vehicle circling the students’ home on the night of the murders, and then speeding away around 4 a.m. just after investigators say the students were killed.

And while he coldly butchered most of the home’s occupants, two housemates survived — including one who got a look at the killer lurking through the dark halls, and described him as somebody with “bushy eyebrows” exactly like Kohberger’s.

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Cell tower records also indicated Kohberger had been lurking around the victims’ home in the days before the killings, only for his phone to mysteriously drop off the grid during the exact moments of the attack — and then reconnect after everyone was dead around 4:30 a.m., just minutes from the house.

Kohberger was also found with a gun, knife, and a black surgical mask when he was arrested, along with an ID card he’d hidden that authorities said was connected to the murders.

His defense spent the last months filing a deluge of motions to have evidence thrown out, but was largely rebuffed by the court.

But it all ended Monday after news broke that prosecutors had sent the victims’ families a letter explaining a deal had been struck.

Wednesday’s plea brings the three-year saga to a close, but leaves many questions unanswered.