Idaho Victims’ Families Cry Foul Over Kohberger’s Plea Deal: Where’s the Accountability

Folks, it’s a gut punch for the families of the four University of Idaho students brutally murdered in 2022. Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old accused of knifing to death Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin in a chilling 4 a.m. home invasion, has reportedly taken a plea deal to dodge the death penalty. 

And get this, according to a source close to the case, he won’t even have to explain why he committed these heinous, horrible crimes. Talk about a slap in the face to justice--it really sucks.

The Goncalves family, still reeling from the loss of their daughter Kaylee, isn’t staying silent. They’re demanding the scumcrumpet stand in court and confess, lay it all bare, from the location of the murder weapon to whether he acted alone. “We deserve to know when the beginning of the end was,” their Tuesday statement reads, adding that a confession “should be the minimum price to pay for his own life.” They’re calling on supporters to flood Ada County Judge Steven Hippler with calls for accountability. 

“Those families have been victimized by the very prosecutors who should have had their backs,” said Ted Williams, a Fox News contributor and former D.C. homicide detective and a lawyer who’s been on this case from the jump. 

The Goncalves family echoed that sentiment, slamming what they called a “secretive deal” cooked up by the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office. They’re livid, and rightfully so, claiming they were kept in the dark. “They vaguely mentioned a possible plea on Friday, without seeking our input, and presented the plea on Sunday,” their statement reads. “Latah County should be ashamed of its Prosecutor’s Office. Four wonderful young people lost their lives, yet the victims’ families were treated as opponents from the outset.”

The family says they got just one day to scramble and show up at the courthouse for a plea hearing set for Wednesday in Boise, after Kohberger got his change of venue. “Who do they think they are?” they fumed, pointing out the prosecutors’ failure to even call them directly about the deal. For a family living over seven hours away in Rathdrum, that’s not just inconvenient—it’s insulting.

The Kernodle family is equally pissed off.

Xana’s aunt, Kim Kernodle, told TMZ they were dead-set against the plea when prosecutors first floated it over the weekend. The families’ frustration isn’t new, they’ve questioned the investigation from the start, only to be “branded as adversaries” by the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office. A gag order and pressure from school officials didn’t help matters, either. Calling them adversaries is like calling the IDF attackers of innocent Palestinian and Iranian victims.

Now, let’s talk about this plea deal. 

Kohberger, a Ph.D. student in criminology at Washington State University, just 10 miles from the crime scene, allegedly left his DNA on a Ka-Bar sheath near Mogen’s body. He's definitely not a forensics genius or perhaps he skipped that class.

The evidence seemed damning, and prosecutors fought tooth and nail to keep the death penalty on the table. Yet, somehow, this deal materialized out of thin air. Boise defense attorney Edwina Elcox told Fox News Digital it’s a shocker but means Kohberger “has insulated himself from a sentence that would require his execution.” Elcox hopes it brings the families peace, sparing them the agony of a trial and appeals, but peace feels far off when the families are this blindsided.

But the families want him dead, like he did to their kids, and I don't blame them one bit.

Paul Mauro, a retired NYPD inspector, called it “the most incomprehensible deal of all time” if Kohberger isn’t forced to explain himself. Williams agrees, insisting, "These four kids did not deserve to die this way, and as a part of any plea, he should be required to tell when, how and why he committed these offenses." The families and the public deserve answers, not a rushed, hush-hush deal.

The Goncalves family isn’t giving up. "We stand strong that it is not over until a plea is accepted. We will not stop fighting for the life that was stolen unjustly," they declared. They’re pushing for "a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, [and] the true facts of what happened that night." Anything less, they argue, is a betrayal of justice.

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This case has been a nightmare for these families from day one, and now they’re left grappling with a system that failed them again. As they put it, "The notion that someone can plead guilty to a crime and still face years of appellate delays reveals a systemic failure." That’s not just a critique—it’s a call to action. 

Will the court listen? Only time will tell, but one thing’s clear: these families won’t stop fighting for the truth.

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Suspect in U. of Idaho slayings arrested: who is this guy

The suspect in the murders of University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, has been arrested. He is Bryan Kohberger whose age has been listed both as 25 and 28, so it isn't clear, nor important how old he is.

Kohberger was taken into custody in Scranton, PA, NBC news reported Friday.

The bodies of the four students were discovered a week before Thanksgiving by a friend in the Kings Road rental home in Moscow, ID.

Local Moscow police had been joined by the FBI and State police in a huge investigation to find the killer since the brutal killings, that likely took place while they were asleep. There had been about 20 thousand tips and thousands of pieces of evidence but little information was released to the public during the entire investigation. Law enforcement sources told the media that the horrifying crime scene was “the worst they’ve seen.”

A Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team entered the residence where Kohberger was staying and took him into custody at about 3:00 p.m. Friday. Cops seized a white Hyundai Elantra that matched the description of the vehicle that police had said they were seeking out from the scene.

The suspect appeared briefly in a Monroe County court a few hours after his arrest and he is being held without bail and due to be extradited after a January 3rd hearing.

According to online records, the suspect was pursuing a PhD in criminal justice at Washington State University in Pullman, which is less than 10 miles from Moscow. A man with the same name is also listed as having received a MA in criminal justice from DeSales University in Center Valley, PA, this year.

Police say the students were murdered sometime between 3 and 4 a.m. but they were not discovered by roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke until much later that morning. Mortensen and Funke had become worried when they could not reach their friends and called police, who made the grim discovery on November 13th.

Hopefully, law enforcement has the right person in custody and he receives the justice he deserves.

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