Plea deal emerges in University of Idaho murder case : NPR

Bryan Kohberger is poised to accept a plea agreement in the stabbing murders of four University of Idaho students in 2022, according to relatives of the victims, some of whom oppose the deal and say it’s being rushed.

A hearing is set for 11:00 a.m. MT on Wednesday, according to a notice posted on the court docket.

Police said DNA samples, cellphone records and other evidence all pointed to Kohberger, who is now 30. He was arrested in Pennsylvania more than a month after the killings.

Kohberger had previously pleaded not guilty, with his attorneys signaling they would push back on DNA evidence and seek to suggest others could have committed the crime. Jury selection for the murder trial had been scheduled to start in August, with opening arguments on Aug. 18.

The case shocked the local college community and made international headlines, as chilling details emerged such as a roommate who told police she saw “a figure clad in black clothing and a mask” who walked past her door on the night of the killings.

The plea deal is being criticized by the slain students’ relatives, who say they want prosecutors to maintain their pursuit of the death penalty for Kohberger.

“After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case,” the family of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, said in a statement released on Facebook. They said the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office told them about the deal in an email Sunday night, with a letter attached.

NPR’s requests for comment from the prosecutor’s office, attorneys for the families and Kohberger’s defense team were not returned. The prosecutors and defense lawyers working on the case have been under a gag order.

News of the plea deal comes days after District Judge Steven Hippler quashed Kohberger’s bid to explore the idea of four “potential alternate perpetrators” at trial. Hippler said evidence related to the four individuals presented by Kohberger’s team was “entirely irrelevant,” noting they had given DNA and fingerprint samples to investigators and weren’t connected to the crime scene.

“Even if there was a shred of probative value in the proffered evidence beyond wild speculation, it is excluded” by Idaho’s rules of evidence, Hippler wrote in his order.

Here’s a rundown of how the case evolved:

Four young people were stabbed to death in fall of 2022

In the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, four college students — Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 — were killed in the off-campus house on King Road shared by Goncalves, Kernodle and Mogen. Kernodle was dating Chapin, who had come to spend the night. Two other students who lived there were also home, but they were not attacked.

The four students had been out on a Saturday night. Goncalves and Mogen visited a local bar, the Corner Club, and a food truck in downtown Moscow, Idaho, before getting a ride home, according to a police affidavit filed in court. Their roommates said all four were home by 2 a.m. and in their rooms by 4 a.m. — around the same time Kernodle received a DoorDash order.

A surviving roommate identified in court documents as “D.M.” who lived on the second floor told police she was awakened sometime after 4 a.m. by strange noises and crying. She then heard voices — and after looking outside her bedroom door, she saw what looked to be a man walking toward her wearing a mask.

“The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a ‘frozen shock phase,’ ” the police affidavit stated, adding that the man walked toward the home’s rear sliding glass door. D.M. locked her door and immediately texted and called her roommates, according to court documents. Hours later, D.M., who was scared, asked friends to come over. Upon seeing bodies in the house, they called 911.

Kohberger implicated by physical and digital evidence, police say

At the time of the murders, Kohberger was a criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University (WSU). That school’s campus in Pullman, Wash., is roughly 10 miles west of the University of Idaho in Moscow.

Kohberger drove a white Hyundai Elantra sedan — and surveillance cameras recorded that type of car passing by the King Road house several times around 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. on the night of the murders, including an attempt to park or turn around in front of the students’ home, according to the police affidavit.

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 D.M.’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.