Bryan Kohberger, the man charged in the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, has reached a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, according to a lawyer for the family of one of the victims.
Mr. Kohberger had been set to go on trial for the murders in August, nearly three years after the killings, which occurred at a residence near the university in Moscow, Idaho.
Shanon Gray, a lawyer for the family of Kaylee Goncalves, said the family had been notified that a plea agreement had been reached to take the death penalty off the table. The Goncalves family wrote in a message on Facebook that they were “beyond furious at the State of Idaho.”
“They have failed us,” the family wrote on Monday afternoon. “Please give us some time. This was very unexpected.”
The Goncalves family had been pressing for the state to pursue the death penalty and had pushed to expand Idaho’s capital punishment rules to allow executions by firing squad.
Prosecutors did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, nor did lawyers for Mr. Kohberger.
Mr. Kohberger’s defense team had tried unsuccessfully for months to undermine key pieces of evidence that investigators had collected against him. Prosecutors have said that his DNA was found on a knife sheath recovered at the crime scene, and that records showed he had purchased a knife of a kind matching the sheath in the months before the killings. Video footage showed a car similar to his circling the neighborhood around the time of the deaths.
But investigators have yet to suggest a motive or offer any details on how the victims were chosen.
Investigators have said that the murders happened sometime around 4 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022. The victims — Ms. Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 — had spent a typical Saturday night out near the university campus and returned to the house in the early hours of Sunday.
Mike Baker is a national reporter for The Times, based in Seattle.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice. He is from upstate New York.
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