Nightmarish prediction about what Idaho murderer Bryan Kohberger will do now he’s been spared death penalty

Bryan Kohberger will capitalize on being spared the death penalty for murdering four students by writing a book about his crimes and chatting publicly about the horror mass-stabbing,  a victim’s family fears. 

Kohberger, 30, has struck a plea deal that will see him spared the death penalty in return for a guilty plea for the November 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen. 

But Kaylee’s father Steve Goncalves said Monday he fears Kohberger will spend the rest of the agreed-on life sentence capitalizing on his notoriety by writing a book, or communicating with the outside world about what he did.

‘We have a killer who wants a show, and they just gave him one,’ he said of the former criminology student at the University of Washington. 

Steve also branded the plea deal a ‘ridiculous joke,’ with the Goncalves condemning it moments after it was revealed Monday evening.  

Kohberger had been due to stand trial in August, but will instead enter four guilty pleas at a courthouse in Boise on Wednesday.

In return for being spared the prospect of death row, he has agreed to a whole-life sentence with no prospect of parole. Kohberger is set to be scheduled late July. 

Goncalves’ family attorney Shanon Gray told NBC News that they realized the prospect of Kohberger actually being executed within the family’s lifetime was slim if he had been sentenced to death.

But Gray said the Goncalves’ had been comforted by the far harsher routine Kohberger would have faced on death row.

‘You’re basically on lockdown for 23 hours,’ she explained, with inmates given one hour outdoor to exercise each day.

The family of one of the Idaho college students slain by Bryan Kohberger (pictured) fears the attention-seeking killer will spend his days behind bars relishing in his crimes 

Kohberger is accused of murdering University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20. Two other roommates survived

It remains unclear if Kohberger will be allowed to mix freely among the general population of whichever prison he ends up in. 

Other inmates may seek to hurt or kill him in revenge for the quadruple murder in the sleepy college town of Moscow, Idaho. 

Kohberger’s team contacted prosecutors to ask about a plea deal last week as his defense – including claims of an ‘alternate perpetrator’ – fell apart. 

The Goncalves family death ‘as the only option’ and feels there is ‘no justice’ in the plea agreement. They added: ‘We are beyond furious at the state of Idaho. They have failed us.’

Xana Kernodle’s aunt was also reportedly so enraged by the plea deal that she was brought to tears.

Kim Kernodle explained to TMZ that prosecutors told her Kohberger’s defense team approached them with a plea deal over the weekend and prosecutors agreed to go along with it to ‘spare the families’ the pain of a trial.

She claimed the prosecutors were especially concerned that the families would have to see gruesome crime scene photos of their loved ones – though Kernodle said, ‘We know the graphics. They were not trying to spare us.’

Kernodle also claimed that prosecutors did not mention they were taking death penalty off the table when they met on Friday, when she said prosecutors acknowledged they have enough evidence to secure a guilty verdict.

But Madison Mogen’s father Ben says their family finds some comfort in the plea deal because it allows them to avoid a trial that will reopen the wounds they have already started trying to heal, according to the Idaho Statesman. 

There is still a small chance the plea deal could be rejected during Wednesday’s hearing. If that happens, the full trial will move ahead as planned from August 18. 

In Idaho, judges may reject plea agreements, though such moves are rare. If a judge rejects a plea agreement, the defendant is allowed to withdraw the guilty plea. 

Kaylee Goncalves’ father Steve fears Kohberger will spend his four consecutive life sentences trying to write a book or having other communication about his crimes as the proposed plea deal does not ban him from doing so

Goncalves’ family issued a furious statement moments after details of the deal were made public, confirming it was true and that they were blindsided by it

The defense team had previously made unsuccessful efforts to have the death penalty stricken as a possible punishment, including arguing that Kohberger’s autism diagnosis made him less culpable.

The prosecutors said they met with available family members last week before deciding to make Kohberger an offer.

‘This resolution is our sincere attempt to seek justice for your family,’ the letter said. 

‘This agreement ensures that the defendant will be convicted, will spend the rest of his life in prison, and will not be able to put you and the other families through the uncertainty of decades of post-conviction, appeals. 

‘Your viewpoints weighed heavily in our decision-making process, and we hope that you may come to appreciate why we believe this resolution is in the best interest of justice.’

The deal offered by Latah County prosecutors would have the former criminology graduate student plead guilty to the murders and a burglary charge, in exchange for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

A change of plea hearing is set for Wednesday, but the Goncalves family has asked prosecutors to delay it to give them more time to travel to Boise, Gray said. 

Kohberger’s trial was set for August in Boise, where it was moved following pretrial publicity in rural northern Idaho. 

The route allegedly driven Bryan Kohberger allegedly drove on the night of the brutal Idaho murders, based on cellphone data

Goncalves, Chapin, Kernodle and Mogen were all likely asleep when they were attacked and killed in November 2022. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times, autopsies revealed.

The murders shocked the small farming community of about 25,000 people, which hadn’t had a homicide in about five years, and prompted a massive hunt for the perpetrator. 

The manhunt included an elaborate effort to track down a white sedan that was seen on surveillance cameras repeatedly driving by the rental home, to identify Kohberger as a possible suspect through the use of genetic genealogy and to pinpoint his movements the night of the killings through cellphone data.

Kohberger was arrested while staying with his parents in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, around six weeks after the killings, on December 30 2022.

No motive has emerged for the killings, nor is it clear why Kohberger spared two roommates who were in the home.

In a court filing before the plea deal, Kohberger’s lawyers said he was on a long drive by himself around the time the four were killed.

Authorities said cellphone data and surveillance video shows that Kohberger visited the victims’ neighborhood at least a dozen times before the killings.

The State has previously laid out how Kohberger purchased a balaclava from Dick’s Sporting Goods store months before the savage murders inside the victims’ off-campus home. 

Surviving housemate Dylan Mortensen later told police she saw a man wearing ‘the same kind of mask’ during the crime spree. She also described seeing a man with ‘bushy eyebrows’ – which fit Kohberger’s appearance.

The murder suspect also bought a Ka-Bar knife, sheath and sharpener from Amazon back in March 2022, according to a prosecution filing, and was ultimately linked to the murder of the four students by DNA found on the sheath of a knife found at the scene of their off-campus home.

Data from Kohberger’s cellphone also showed it connected to a cellphone tower near the victims’ off-campus house a total of 23 times over the course of four months leading up to the grisly murders, according to court documents.

Then, on the night of the November 13, 2022, prosecutors say Kohberger broke into the University of Idaho students’ home on King Road shortly after they had gone to bed from a night of partying and stabbed them all to death.

Investigators have claimed Kohberger went directly upstairs to Mogen’s bedroom, where he killed her and Goncalves (pictured together, left) on the night of November 13, 2022. He then allegedly turned his attention to Kernodle on his way back out the house, and then targeted her boyfriend, Chapin (right), whom Kohberger allegedly ‘carved’

His white Hyundai Elantra was allegedly caught on a neighbor’s home security footage at around 3.30am, and was seen circling around the block multiple times over the next half hour.

By 4.07am, the vehicle came back drove by once again – then didn’t come back into view until 4.20am, when it was seen speeding off.

During that 13-minute window, sources close to the investigation told NBC’s Dateline that Kohberger went directly upstairs to Mogen’s bedroom, where he allegedly killed her and Goncalves.

He is accused of the turning his attention to Kernodle on his way back out the house, killing her as she was up ordering food, and then targeting her boyfriend, Chapin, whom Kohberger allegedly ‘carved’.

Meanwhile, data from Kohberger’s phone indicate he turned it off before 3am that morning, and when he apparently turned it back on at around 4.48am, it connected with a cellphone tower south of Moscow.

But the phone also appeared to be briefly back in the city shortly after 9am, when Kohberger reportedly returned to his apartment in Pullman, Washington, where he took a chilling selfie, giving the thumbs up pose in a bathroom mirror.

In the aftermath, Kohberger allegedly searched to buy a replacement knife and sheath.

He was ultimately arrested nearly six weeks after the students were found dead at his parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania where he had returned for the holidays. 

Kohberger has remained behind bars ever since, and has been desperately trying to get the death penalty off the table over the past few months – even arguing at one point that his autism diagnosis precludes him from facing the ultimate punishment.  

The extraordinary picture taken hours after the alleged crime shows Kohberger smirking and offering a ‘thumbs up’ to the camera

In more recent efforts, Kohberger’s defense attorneys tried to get his purchase of the balaclava deemed inadmissible to the upcoming trial, but prosecutors argued it was crucial to their case. 

It now appears that the defense moved to reach a plea deal after Judge Hippler slapped down their efforts to point the finger at four alternate suspects – blasting his legal team’s evidence as ‘entirely irrelevant’ and ‘wild speculation

‘Nothing links these individuals to the homicides or otherwise gives rise to reasonable inference that they committed the crime; indeed, it would take nothing short of rank speculation by the jury to make such a finding,’ the judge wrote in his decision last week.

Just hours before news of the plea deal broke, the defense faced another setback after they apparently called the wrong witness and other witnesses expressed their bewilderment at being called at all.