Updated July 23, 2025 at 12:48 PM PDT
An Idaho judge sentenced Bryan Kohberger on Wednesday to multiple terms of life in prison for the stabbing murders of four University of Idaho students, weeks after Kohberger agreed to a plea deal that rules out the death penalty.
"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," District Judge Steven Hippler said.
For the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, the judge ordered Kohberger, 30, to serve a term of life in prison without parole, to be serve consecutively, for each killing. He also imposed a $50,000 fine and a civil penalty of $5,000 for each death.
Hippler also ordered an additional 10-year sentence for Kohberger on a related burglary charge.
Several of the victims' friends and relatives spoke at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday in an Ada County courtroom in Boise. Often, they dwelled on a central question that has not been answered: Why would a graduate student brutally kill four students who attended a nearby college, and leave two of their roommates alive?
The first impact statements came from the slain students' roommates Bethany Funke, whose statement was read by a friend, and Dylan Mortensen, who described living with debilitating anxiety after the night their home was invaded by a murderer.
Kohberger "took away my ability to trust the world around me," Mortensen said. "What he did shattered me in places I didn't know could break. I was barely 19 when he did this."
"I had to sleep in my mom's bed because I was too terrified to close my eyes. Terrified that if I blinked, someone might be there," Mortensen said, weeping as she took deep breaths. "I made escape plans everywhere I went: If something happens, how do I get out? What can I use to defend myself? Who can help? Then there were the panic attacks, the kind that slam into me like a tsunami, out of nowhere. I can't breathe. I don't think. I can't stop shaking."
The hearing began at 11 a.m. ET, and lasted more than 2 and a half hours. It was livestreamed by the court.
Many speakers pointedly chose not to address Kohberger, focusing instead on their anxiety and grief, and sharing precious memories of their loved ones. But the father of Kaylee Goncalves began his remarks by sharply pivoting the courtroom's portable lectern, so he could speak directly to the admitted killer.
"Today you've lost control," Steve Goncalves said as he stared at Kohberger. He spoke of how his family and community quickly rallied together with investigators to help find his daughter's killer — whom he described as careless and foolish.
"The world is watching because of the kids, not because of you," Goncalves said. "Nobody cares about you."
Plea deal spares killer from death penalty
The plea deal called for Kohberger to forfeit the right to appeal or request leniency. He formally pleaded guilty on July 2, but he has offered no explanation for his crimes.
Ahead of Wednesday's sentencing, there had been speculation that Kohberger might make an allocution statement, accounting for his actions. The notion has also circulated that he might try to leverage his silence to secure a media deal telling his story — an outcome that Hippler said he doesn't want to see.
"Even if we could get truthful insight" into the killings, the judge said, it would not be satisfying, "because there is no reason for these crimes that could approach anything resembling rationality."
As he prepared to sentence Kohberger, Hippler stated, "In my view, the time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger's 15 minutes of fame. It's time that he be consigned to the ignominy and isolation of perpetual incarceration."
The hunt for a motive for a senseless crime
It's not unusual for a murder trial to end without a clear motive being established, according to Heather Cucolo, a professor at New York Law School.
"The prosecution does not have to put forth any motive" she says. "The only thing that the prosecution has to provide in satisfying the criminal elements is the intent. Motive does not play into it."
Kohberger also has the right to remain silent — and "no obligation to explain his motives or why he chose to do the horrific murders that he did," she adds.
Even in a case that is resolved with a conviction and legal punishment, the lack of clarity about a criminal's actions can be extremely upsetting and prevent closure, says Cucolo, whose work focuses on crime and mental health. She notes that in the Idaho case, the killer clearly showed a cold, calculating resolve to plot and carry out multiple murders.
"You know, this isn't a crime of passion. This isn't the type of crime where it was just a chance encounter," she says. "This is something that was clearly planned out, without any other prior connection to these victims. I think that that's incredibly difficult to wrap your mind around. It's certainly incredibly difficult for these victims' families to make sense of this loss."
Here's a review of the crime that stunned a college community:
Four young people were stabbed to death in fall of 2022
In the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022, four college students — Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Chapin — 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.
Mortensen, identified in court documents as "D.M.," lived on the second floor. She 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. She locked her door and immediately texted and called her roommates, according to court documents. Hours later, Mortensen, 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 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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