Bryan Kohberger’s decision to accept plea deal came after efforts to strike death penalty failed

A private security officer sits in a vehicle on Jan. 3, 2023, in front of the house in Moscow, Idaho, where four University of Idaho students were killed in November 2022. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

MOSCOW, Idaho -- Bryan Kohberger’s attorneys had done what they could to spare his life.

They tried to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students 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. And with Kohberger’s quadruple-murder trial set to begin next month, they turned to a final option: a plea deal to avoid execution.

Kohberger, 30, is due to appear at 11 a.m. MDT Wednesday before Idaho Fourth Judicial District Judge Steven Hippler in Boise, where he is expected to plead guilty to charges that he murdered Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, early on Nov. 13, 2022.

“This resolution is our sincere attempt to seek justice for your family,” prosecutors wrote in a letter to the families quoted by ABC News. “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.”

The victims’ families offer mixed reactions

The family of Chapin -- one of three triplets who attended the university together -- supports the deal, their spokesperson, Christina Teves, said Tuesday. Attorney Leander James, who represents Mogen’s mother and stepfather, declined to give their views but said he would deliver a statement on their behalf after Wednesday’s hearing. Mogen’s father, Ben Mogen, told CBS News he was relieved by the agreement.

“We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don’t want to have to be at, that we shouldn’t have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person,” he said. “We get to just think about the rest of lives and have to try and figure out how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids.”

But it enraged the Goncalves clan, who posted statements on Facebook criticizing the deal and urging any supporters who “feel called or moved to try to make a difference” to contact the Ada County Courthouse.

“We are beyond furious at the State of Idaho,” the Goncalves family wrote Monday. “They have failed us.”

In another post Tuesday, they added: “We stand strong that it is not over until a plea is accepted. We will not stop fighting for the life that was stolen unjustly. ... At a bare minimum, please - require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night. We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was.”

The family spoke with the prosecution on Friday about the idea of a plea deal and said they were firmly against it. By Sunday, they received an email that “sent us scrambling,” and met with the prosecution again on Monday to explain their views about pushing for the death penalty.

“Bryan Kohberger facing a life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships, and engage with the world,” Kaylee Goncalves’ 18-year-old sister, Aubrie, wrote. “Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever. That reality stings more deeply when it feels like the system is protecting his future more than honouring the victims’ pasts.”

The plea agreement must be approved by the judge

In Idaho, judges may reject plea agreements, though such moves are rare. If Kohberger pleads guilty Wednesday as expected, he would likely be sentenced in late July. His trial is set for August in Boise, where it was moved following pretrial publicity in rural northern Idaho.

At the time of the killings, Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, about nine miles (14.5 kilometres) west of the University of Idaho. He was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived, weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

Autopsies showed the four victims were all likely asleep when they were attacked. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times. Online shopping records showed that Kohberger months earlier had purchased a military-style knife -- and a sheath like the one found at the scene.

No motive has emerged for the killings

No motive has emerged for the killings, nor is it clear why the attacker spared two roommates who were in the home. Authorities have said cellphone data and surveillance video shows that Kohberger visited the victims’ neighbourhood at least a dozen times before the killings.

The murders shocked the small farming community of about 25,000 people, which hadn’t had a homicide in about five years, and prompted a massive hunt for the perpetrator. That included an elaborate effort to track down a white sedan that was seen on surveillance cameras repeatedly driving by the rental home, using genetic genealogy to identify Kohberger as a possible suspect, and using cellphone data to pinpoint his movements the night of the killings.

Telisa Swan, whose tattoo shop is in Moscow, described the town as “shocked and devastated” after the killings.

“I never really locked my doors at night before and I have ever since,” she said. “I think the town is healing, but I don’t think it’ll ever be the same.”

In a court filing, Kohberger’s lawyers said he was on a long drive by himself around the time the four were killed.

Last week, the judge rejected an effort by the defence team to suggest at trial that any one of four other people could have committed the crimes, ruling that the evidence offered to support that theory was “entirely irrelevant.”

“Nothing links these individuals to the homicides or otherwise gives rise to a reasonable inference that they committed the crime; indeed, it would take nothing short of rank speculation by the jury to make such a finding,” Hippler wrote.

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By Manuel Valdes And Gene Johnson

Johnson reported from Seattle.