{"id":29657,"date":"2025-07-24T06:32:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T10:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29657"},"modified":"2025-07-24T06:32:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T10:32:23","slug":"bryan-kohberger-who-murdered-four-university-of-idaho-students-in-2022-jailed-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/07\/24\/bryan-kohberger-who-murdered-four-university-of-idaho-students-in-2022-jailed-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryan Kohberger who murdered four University of Idaho students in 2022 jailed for life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryan Kohberger who murdered four University of Idaho students in November 2022 has been sentenced to life in prison – as the mother of one of his victims expressed her disappointment that he won’t be executed.<\/p>\n

Kohberger, a 30-year-old former criminal justice student, initially denied the killings but later pleaded guilty<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0as part of a deal that meant he would avoid the death penalty.<\/p>\n

Kohberger sneaked into the rented home in Moscow,\u00a0Idaho<\/a><\/strong>, which is not far from the university campus, through a kitchen sliding door and murdered Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.<\/p>\n

He has never revealed his motive and it is not clear why he spared two roommates who were in the home.<\/p>\n

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\"Kaylee<\/div>
Kaylee Goncalves (bottom left), Maddie Mogen (top left) and Xana Kernodle, and Xana’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Post-mortem examinations showed the four who died were stabbed multiple times and were likely asleep when they were attacked – with some sustaining defensive wounds.<\/p>\n

Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania around six weeks after\u00a0the killings<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>following a nationwide search.<\/p>\n

Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four life sentences without parole for four counts of first-degree murder at Idaho’s Fourth District Court in Boise, the state capital, today. He was also given a 10-year sentence for burglary.<\/p>\n

Kohberger declined the opportunity to give a statement to the court where he could have finally revealed why he carried out the murders.<\/p>\n

A ‘delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser’<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Family members of the victims gave statements in court today ahead of the sentencing – with the murderer’s mother Maryann Kohberger also in attendance for the hearing.<\/p>\n

Ms Kohberger quietly wept at times as the other parents described their grief.<\/p>\n

Ms Goncalves’ mother Kristi Goncalves said she was disappointed that Kohberger won’t be executed by firing squad but revelled in how he would suffer in prison.<\/p>\n

“You will always be remembered as a loser, an absolute failure,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Hell will be waiting,” she added.<\/p>\n

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\"Steve<\/div>
Steve and Kristi Goncalves in court today. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Alivea Goncalves, the victim’s sister, drew applause after belittling Kohberger, who remained expressionless as she insulted him.<\/p>\n

“You didn’t win, you just exposed yourself as the coward you are,” she said. “You’re a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser.”<\/p>\n

Steve Goncalves, the victim’s father, spoke to Kohberger directly and said: “Today we are here to finish what you started.”<\/p>\n

Kohberger nodded subtly in response.<\/p>\n

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\"Alivea<\/div>
Alivea Goncalves speaks during the sentencing hearing. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Goncalves added: “You tried to break our community apart, you tried to plant fear, you tried to divide us. You failed.”<\/p>\n

In a statement read on her behalf by her lawyer, Ms Mogen’s mother Karen Laramie said: “Any one of us would have given our own life to have been outshone by hers.”<\/p>\n

Ms Laramie declined to address Kohberger directly, as he remained expressionless, but closed her statement by saying the family might never forgive him or “ask for mercy” for what he did.<\/p>\n

“His acts are too heinous,” her statement read.<\/p>\n

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\"Karen<\/div>
Karen and Scott Laramie, the mother and stepfather of Madison Mogen, outside court. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Too terrified to close my eyes’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bethany Funke, who survived the attack, said about her roommates in a statement to the court: “I hated and still hate that they are gone, but for some reason, I am still here and I got to live. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why did I get to live, and not them?”<\/p>\n

She described one of the victims, Ms Kernodle, as “one in a million. She was the life of the party”.<\/p>\n

Much of her statement was devoted to remembering her four close friends who died – recounting the nights they spent binge-watching reality television, making dinner together, going to parties at their university and the love that they had for each other.<\/p>\n

Her testimony reduced many at the hearing to tears.<\/p>\n

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\"Dylan<\/div>
Dylan Mortensen speaks at the sentencing hearing of Bryan Kohberger. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Dylan Mortensen, the second surviving roommate, said in court that she has panic attacks that force her to relive the trauma of what she experienced.<\/p>\n

She said: “I was too terrified to close my eyes, terrified that if I blinked, someone might be there. I made escape plans everywhere I went… He may have shattered parts of me but I’m still putting myself back together piece by piece.”<\/p>\n

Ms Mortensen described Kohberger as being a “hollow vessel, something less than human… A body without empathy, without remorse”.<\/p>\n

Kohberger’s head bobbed slightly as she spoke.<\/p>\n

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\"Jazzmin<\/div>
Jazzmin Kernodle, sister of Xana Kernodle arrives at court with her father Jeff Kernodle. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trump administration condemns ‘vicious and evil killer’<\/strong><\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the sentencing of Kohberger at a news briefing this evening.<\/p>\n

Ms Leavitt started the briefing with condolences to the families of the victims and called Kohberger a “vicious and evil killer”.<\/p>\n

“If it were up to the president, he would have forced this monster to publicly explain why he chose to steal these innocent souls,” Ms Leavitt said.<\/p>\n

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\"Bryan<\/div>
Bryan Kohberger in court. (Image: AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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How police caught Kohberger<\/strong><\/p>\n

The small farming community of Moscow, in the northern Idaho panhandle, had not had a homicide in about five years when the murders took place.<\/p>\n

The killings grabbed headlines around the world as police searched for Kohberger across the US.<\/p>\n

Police arrested him after investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.<\/p>\n

They were also able to access mobile phone data to pinpoint his movements on the night of the killings.<\/p>\n

Online shopping records showed that Kohberger had purchased a military-style knife months earlier – as well as a sheath like the one found at the scene.<\/p>\n

Source: \u00a0\"Sky<\/a> news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Kohberger who murdered four University of Idaho students in November 2022 has been sentenced to life in prison – as the mother of one of his victims expressed her disappointment that he won’t be […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[9267,7018,3365,497,770,11436],"class_list":{"0":"post-29657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-bryan-kohberger","10":"tag-idaho","11":"tag-knife-crime","12":"tag-knife-murder","13":"tag-moscow","14":"tag-university-of-idaho","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29659,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29657\/revisions\/29659"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}