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Brian Coberger admitted to the murder Wednesday in 2022 with brutal stabbing wounds of four University of Idaho students.
Coberger, a criminal justice student at nearby Washington State University, pleaded to kill him before entering a formal guilty plea in a deal with prosecutors that would allow him to avoid the death penalty. He was scheduled to go to court in August.
A small farming community in Moscow in the Panhandle in northern Idaho had not committed any murder in about five years when it was discovered that Kayley Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Zana Carnordal and Madison Morgen were dead in a rental home near campus on November 13, 2022.
Together, Coberger kills Morgen and Goncarves, then comes across Carnodor. Carnodor was still awake, prosecutor Bill Thompson said at the hearing Wednesday. He then stabbed Karnordle and her boyfriend, Chapin. He was still asleep, Thompson said.
Idaho’s fourth Judicial District Judge Stephen Hippler named each victim individually and described each offence to Coberger, making family members more emotional. Some screamed at the tissue, others wiped their tears with their hands. Kohberger remained calm as he confirmed with the judge that he had stabbed the four victims.
When he pleaded guilty, some of the family section looked down and others crand to meet him.
Kohberger told the judge that he understands the terms of the plea bargain. The judge established an official verdict on July 23rd.
Hippler said he would not consider public opinion when deciding whether to accept the agreement when the hearing began.
“This court cannot require the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, and it is not appropriate for this court to do so,” he said. “This court cannot force the state to seek the death penalty.”
Idaho’s murder grabbed the national attention
The killing grabbed headlines around the world and caused a nationwide hunt. This includes elaborate efforts to track a white sedan found on surveillance cameras repeatedly driving a rental home. Police said they used genetic genealogy to identify Coberger as a possible suspect and accessed cell phone data to identify his movements on the night of the murder.
At the time, Kohberger was a graduate student of Criminal Justice at nearby Washington State University, just completed his first semester and was a teaching assistant for the criminology program.
Coberger was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived a few weeks later. Investigators said he matched his DNA with genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.
Online shopping records showed Kohberger purchased a military-style knife several months ago and sheaths, as well as the sheaths found on the scene.
The motive for the murder remains unknown
No motive for the murder was shown, and it is not clear why the attacker escaped the two roommates at home. Nor was there any indication that he had any connection to any of the victims.
Authorities say mobile phone data and surveillance video indicate that Kohberger has visited the neighborhood of the victims at least dozens of times of the murder, and that he traveled to the same area that night.
Kohberger’s lawyer said by the time the four were killed he was simply on a long drive himself.
The case was moved to Boise for pretrial promotion in northern Idaho. Hipplers must approve the plea agreement. If Kohberger pleads guilty as expected, he could be sentenced in July.
The family split up in plea bargain
Goncalves’ family said they opposed the agreement and tried to stop it, but they argued that such a deal should require Coberger to make a full confession.
“It deserves to know when the end started,” they wrote in a Facebook post.
Their spokesman, Christina Tevez, said on Tuesday that Chapin’s family (one of the three triplets who attended the university together) were supporting the deal, their spokesman, Christina Tevez.
Leander James, the lawyer representing Morgen’s mother and stepfather, refused to express their views, but said he would make a statement on their behalf after a hearing Wednesday. Morgen’s father, Ben Morgen, told CBS News that he was relieved by the agreement.
“We can actually put this behind us and we don’t have to be these future dates, what we have to be, what we have to be, what we have to be, what we have to be, what we have to be, what we have to be, what we have to be,” he said. “We just have to think about the rest of our lives and think about how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids.”
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Johnson reported from Seattle.
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