Updated @ 3:48 PM EDT on July 23, 2025
Weeks after he accepted a plea agreement that excludes the death penalty, Bryan Kohberger was sentenced on Wednesday by an Idaho judge to multiple terms of life in prison for the stabbing murders of four University of Idaho students.
“I remand the defendant to the custody of the Idaho State Board of Corrections for him to be imprisoned in an appropriate facility … where he will remain until he dies,” stated District Judge Steven Hippler.
The judge sentenced Kohberger, 30, to life in prison without the possibility of release, to be served consecutively for the killings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. For every fatality, he additionally assessed a civil penalty of $5,000 and a fine of $50,000.
Hippler also sentenced Kohberger to an additional 10 years in prison for a similar burglary charge.
At the sentencing hearing held in a Boise, Ada County courtroom on Wednesday, a number of the victims’ friends and family members spoke. They frequently pondered a major, unsolved question: Why would a graduate student murder four students from a nearby college while leaving two of their housemates alive?
The first impact statements were from Dylan Mortensen, who talked of having crippling anxiety following the night a killer broke into their home, and Bethany Funke, whose statement was delivered by a friend of the killed teens.
“Took away my ability to trust the world around me,” Mortensen said of Kohberger. I was shattered in unexpected ways by what he did. He did this while I was just 19 years old.”
“I was too scared to close my eyes, so I had to sleep in my mom’s bed. Mortensen sobbed as she inhaled deeply, “I’m terrified that if I blink, someone might be there.” “Everywhere I went, I had escape plans: how would I get away if things went wrong? What am I able to protect myself with? Who is able to assist? And then there were the panic attacks, the ones that suddenly hit me like a tsunami. I’m having trouble breathing. I doubt it. I’m shaking uncontrollably.”
The session lasted more than two and a half hours, starting at 11 a.m. ET. The court livestreamed it.
Several presenters purposefully avoided talking about Kohberger, instead concentrating on their own pain and anxieties as well as sharing priceless memories of their departed loved ones. However, Kaylee Goncalves’ father started his speech by abruptly turning the portable lectern in the courtroom so he could address the confessed murderer directly.
Steve Goncalves said, “Today you’ve lost control,” while he gazed at Kohberger. He talked about how his community and family swiftly joined forces with detectives to assist identify the person who killed his daughter, whom he called reckless and stupid.
“The world is watching because of the kids, not because of you,” Goncalves stated. “Nobody cares about you.”
Plea deal spares killer from death penalty
Kohberger was required to give up his ability to appeal or ask for mercy as part of the plea agreement. Although he entered a formal guilty plea on July 2, he has not provided an explanation for his offenses.
There had been conjecture that Kohberger would deliver an allocution statement to explain his behavior prior to Wednesday’s sentencing. There have also been rumors that he would attempt to use his silence to get a media agreement that would reveal his story—something Hippler stated he doesn’t want to happen.
The judge stated that it would not be satisfying “even if we could get truthful insight” into the deaths, “because there is no reason for these crimes that could approach anything resembling rationality.”
“In my opinion, the time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger’s 15 minutes of fame,” Hippler said as he was ready to sentence Kohberger. It is time to condemn him to the shame and loneliness of life in prison.
The hunt for a motive for a senseless crime
According to Heather Cucolo, a professor at the New York Law School, it is not uncommon for a murder trial to conclude without a clear motive being established.
“The prosecution does not have to put forth any motive” she states. “The intent is all that the prosecution needs to prove in order to meet the criminal elements. Motive has no bearing on it.
She adds that Kohberger has “no obligation to explain his motives or why he chose to do the horrific murders that he did,” as well as the right to silence.
“The lack of clarity about a criminal’s actions can be extremely upsetting and prevent closure, even in a case that is resolved with a conviction and legal punishment,” adds Cucolo, whose work focuses on crime and mental health. She points out that the murderer in the Idaho case exhibited a ruthless, strategic determination to plan and execute several killings.
“This isn’t a crime of passion, you know. She claims that this is not the kind of crime where the encounter was purely coincidental. “This was obviously prearranged, and there was no other prior relationship to these victims. That’s really hard to understand, in my opinion. The relatives of these victims are undoubtedly finding it extremely difficult to cope with this tragedy.
The crime that shocked a college community is summarized as follows:
Four youths were fatally stabbed in the fall of 2022.
Four college students—Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Chapin—were murdered in the early hours of November 13, 2022, at the residence they shared off-campus on King Road. Chapin, who had arrived for the night, was in a relationship with Kernodle. Although they were not attacked, two other students who resided there were also home.
On a Saturday night, the four students had gone out. According to a police affidavit submitted to the court, Goncalves and Mogen went to a food truck and a nearby pub, the Corner Club, in downtown Moscow, Idaho, before obtaining a ride home. At roughly the same time that Kernodle received a DoorDash order, their roommates reported that all four of them were home by 2 a.m. and in their rooms by 4 a.m.
According to court records, Mortensen, who went by “D.M.,” resided on the second floor. She told police that she was awakened by weeping and weird noises after four in the morning. Then she heard voices, and as she glanced out her bedroom door, she saw what appeared to be a man in a mask approaching her.
The police affidavit said, “The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase,'” and proceeded to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. According to court filings, she texted and called her housemates as soon as she locked her door. A few hours later, a terrified Mortensen invited friends to visit. They dialed 911 after discovering bodies inside the residence.
Kohberger implicated by physical and digital evidence, police say
Kohberger was a Ph.D. candidate in criminology at Washington State University (WSU) at the time of the killings. The University of Idaho in Moscow is about 10 miles west of that school’s campus in Pullman, Washington.
According to the police affidavit, Kohberger was driving a white Hyundai Elantra sedan, and surveillance cameras captured that kind of vehicle driving past the King Road residence multiple times between three and four in the morning on the night of the killings. This included an attempt to park or turn around in front of the students’ residence.
Surveillance footage showed the car departing the area “at approximately 4:20 a.m. at a high rate of speed,” the affidavit stated, adding that investigators believe the car took a route leading to Pullman, Wash. When Moscow police asked area agencies to be on the lookout for a white Hyundai Elantra, two WSU officers flagged Kohberger’s car and a Moscow officer noted that Kohberger’s driver’s license information matched Mortensen’s description of the unknown person she saw.
Police also had Kohberger’s cellphone number on file, from an earlier traffic stop. They determined that the phone disconnected from the local network for roughly two hours on the morning of the murders, from 2:47 a.m. to 4:48 a.m. When it reconnected with the cellular network, investigators said, the phone was determined to be on a highway south of Moscow and then heading back into Pullman movements consistent with camera footage of the Elantra, according to the affidavit.
Law enforcement agents in Pennsylvania, where Kohberger is from, then delivered another piece of evidence: a piece of trash from his family’s home in Albrightsville, Pa., that was determined to have DNA on it suggesting a strong relation to a sample from a knife sheath found in the house in Moscow, the affidavit stated.
The tan leather sheath was found on the bed next to Mogen, bearing an insignia reading “Ka-Bar” and “USMC” along with Marine Corps symbols. Lab technicians retrieved “a single source of male DNA” from the sheath’s button snap, according to the affidavit.
Days after that finding, Pennsylvania police arrested Kohberger. He was then extradited to Idaho.
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