Bryan Kohberger will have a chance to speak at his sentencing on Wednesday — but will he answer the question everyone is asking?
The sentence that will be handed down to Kohberger is certain: four lifetimes in prison without the possibility of parole or appeal.
But it’s still unclear whether Kohberger will explain why he butchered four University of Idaho students as they slept — and how he chose his victims.
Prosecutors’ deal with the failed criminology PhD student spares him the possibility of facing a firing squad — Idaho’s prefered form of execution — and avoids a protracted trial.
But the agreement made no stipulation that he must explain why he killed Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, in their off-campus house in November 2022.
The murders attracted the attention of millions across the world, and observers — including even President Trump — are hoping that the judge compels Kohberger to reveal his true motive.
“These were vicious murders, with so many questions left unanswered,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, summing how many were left feeling after the three year headline-grabbing saga ended.
“While Life Imprisonment is tough, it’s certainly better than receiving the Death Penalty but, before Sentencing, I hope the Judge makes Kohberger, at a minimum, explain why he did these horrible murders,” he added.
The family members of the victims, too, want to know why he did it. Kernodle’s father said he opposed the plea deal because it prevented all the evidence from coming out — and allowed Kohberger to keep his secrets about why he butchered the coeds with a Ka-Bar knife.
Goncalves’ family said they want, “a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night.”
And Goncalves’ father has been particularly vocal about wanting Kohberger to make a full confession — claiming even that he had evidence indicating Kohberger might have been trying to act out twisted porn fetishes though the murders.
“People got so angry at what was happening in that courtroom that they would literally pick up their phone and call us and say, ‘This is what’s on Bryan’s phone. This is what he was searching. This was sexually motivated,’” Steve Goncalves told NewsNation.
“Weird, weird porn fetishes, but two of the fetishes were in that room — drunk passed out girls and gagging girls,” he said, claiming the coroner who examined his daughter told him “gag” marks were found on her.
That contradicts what prosecutors said during the plea hearing where no motive was offered, though sexual assault was categorically ruled out.
But Goncalves isn’t the only one not buying that. Others think sex — or a lack thereof — might have directly driven Kohberger to kill.
“The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy,” a new book from writers James Patterson and Vicky Ward, suggests Kohberger was an incel — involuntarily celibate — who stalked Mogen in a bizarre tribute to one of the so-called movement’s most prominent figures, Elliot Rodger, who blamed his own murder-spree on a blonde coed named Maddy.
Mogen’s window was clearly visible from the road, the book pointed out, noting that Kohberger went straight to her room when he broke inside and speculating that targeting her may have been a nod to the incel-icon.
And classmates from his Washington State University criminology program told the authors that Kohberger was cruel to women in class, and even openly expressed virulent disdain for them with language and ideas incels frequently use in their dark communities.
During the plea hearing in July, prosecutors laid out in excruciating detail how Kohberger carried out the murders — turning off his phone ahead in an attempt to conceal his movements, driving to the students’ Moscow home with a huge Ka-Bar knife and creeping inside, methodically moving through the rooms and stabbing his victims to death before fleeing — but no insight on his motivation was provided.
Even if Kohberger remains silent about whatever his dark motives were during his sentencing, there is new hope that a picture of what drove him might emerge after a gag order sealing documents related to the case was finally lifted last week.
That means that in the coming weeks and months, documents and evidence investigators and prosecutors used to convict Kohberger will finally come to light — and that maybe the world will finally know why he did it.
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