In July 2025, a judge sentenced criminology graduate student Bryan Kohberger to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to stabbing four college students to death on Nov. 13, 2022, at a house near the University of Idaho’s Moscow, Id., campus. The students were Ethan Chapin, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Madison Mogen, 21.
A year later, Kohberger told the New York Times in a phone call from prison that he’s filed a petition challenging his conviction, arguing that he is innocent and did not mean to confess to the killings. “A lot went wrong in those plea discussions,” he told the Times from a maximum security prison south of Boise. “I really do want that to be heard.”
The comments from Kohberger came days before a new documentary about the case premiered on Netflix. The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, out July 29, traces how police found Kohberger’s DNA on a knife sheath left behind at the crime scene, identified his getaway car, and figured out that his cell phone went off-grid around the time he committed the crime. The three-part series features interviews with families and friends of the victims, people who knew Kohberger, and law enforcement officials to examine what we know about the case.
The mystery of the motive
Because Kohberger pleaded guilty a month before he was scheduled to stand trial, it remains unclear why he targeted these four college students.
“Ultimately we never have been able to answer that question that everybody wants answered: ‘Why?’” says Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger. “We don’t know, ‘Why these four?’ We don’t know, ‘Why this house?’ I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
The documentary’s participants suggest that Kohberger may have been studying criminology so he could carry out the perfect crime. The series features Lilly Karaban, who sat next to Kohberger in an undergraduate criminology class on serial killers at DeSales University and said he dominated class discussions and wouldn’t let her get a word in on a group project. She says she didn’t see him socializing outside of class, describing him as being “in his own world.”
Kohberger was doing a PhD in criminology at Washington State University, a 10-minute drive from the University of Idaho, and several female students told authorities that he was unpleasant to be around. In one instance, a female student said he followed her to her car and spoke to her in an aggressive manner, making her feel uncomfortable. The series also highlights a questionnaire that Kohberger posted on Reddit as part of a supposed research project, asking people who had been incarcerated how they chose and approached victims.
In the aftermath of the murders, Karaban says she believes Kohberger “has a thing against women, based on the description of what he did to those three poor girls. People who brutalize women the way Kohberger did dislike them, find them threatening. So they take all that anger out on them.”
Trying to find closure
Families interviewed in the documentary have mixed feelings about the plea deal and had been anticipating a trial.
As director Skye Borgman says, “If there had been some ask of the perpetrator to—in exchange for this plea deal—give some information as to the why, I think it would have helped the families a lot. They’re angry.”
Some of the victims’ families are disappointed that he didn’t receive the death penalty, feeling like he got off easy. Kaylee Goncalves’ dad Steve dismissed prison as “daycare.” His daughter Alivea says she felt “hurt” by the plea deal and didn’t think it should have been an option for Kohberger, arguing, “Monsters like that should never-ever ever have options ever again.”
Moscow Police’s Dahlinger maintains that, in a way, Kohberger received a form of the death penalty: “He is sentenced to die in prison.”
Xana’s dad Jeff Kernodle says the victims’ families were hoping to hear more from Kohberger, arguing, “He should have to tell them why he did it, tell all of us parents why he did it.”
On the other hand, Xana’s sister Jazzmin Kernodle says in the series she was dreading a trial that could last months. “I think the plea deal did save us a lot of emotional trauma that we would have dealt with going through a trial,” she says. “I am grateful to get it over with and slowly start to heal.”
The post The True Story Behind Netflix’s The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare appeared first on TIME.
