A man charged with the murder of four students in the northwestern US state of Idaho is set to plead guilty this week to avoid the death penalty, according to a lawyer representing a victim’s family and a relative of another victim.
Bryan Kohberger has agreed to the deal with prosecutors, Shanon Gray, a lawyer representing the family of one of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, said on Monday, adding that his clients were upset about it.
Kohberger, 30, is accused of the stabbing deaths of Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen at a rental home near the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, early on November 13, 2022.
“We are beyond furious at the State of Idaho,” Goncalves’ family wrote in a Facebook post. “They have failed us. Please give us some time. This was very unexpected.”
Gray said prosecutors informed the families of the deal by email and letter.
They spoke with the prosecution on Friday about the idea of a plea deal and explained they were firmly against it, the Goncalves family wrote in another post.
But 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.
“Unfortunately all of our efforts did not matter. We DID OUR BEST! We fought harder than anyone could EVER imagine,” the family wrote.
“After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families on the plea’s details,” the family added.
A change of plea hearing was set for Wednesday, but the family has asked prosecutors to delay it to give them more time to travel to the court.
At the time of the murders, Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, about 9 miles (14km) 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.
No motive has emerged for the killings, nor is it clear why the attacker spared two roommates who were in the home.
The murders shocked the small farming community of about 25,000 people, which had not had a homicide in about five years, and prompted a wide hunt for the perpetrator.
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