Why Brian Kohberger's guilty plea means he may get the last laugh — and torment his victims further
With a trial averted and the death penalty taken off the table through a plea deal, Kohberger, 30, will go to prison the only person with firsthand knowledge of what he did in the bedrooms of 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, and why.
'With no trial, he gets to keep certain secrets. The air of mystery and in some ways that gives him the upper hand,' Jeff Guinn, author of crime books including 'The Life and Times of Charles Manson,' and 'Waco,' among others told The Post Tuesday.
Indeed, Guinn notes that the lack of a trial means the victims' families and the general public may never hear evidence of what motivated Kohberger to murder four University of Idaho students, which of them – if any – were the intended target or if he had ever met them.
5 Criminal trial experts tell The Post Kohberger will get the power to spin the story of the despicable crime to suit him from prison when he answers a guilty plea.
ZUMAPRESS.com
5 The University of Idaho victims (clockwise from bottom left): Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20.
'If he decides he wants to make a public statement he's taking control through this deal because he's still living, breathing and talking. As long he can talk, he's got some control,' Guinn said.
However, the trauma of the despicable slaughter will continue to burden the grieving families of his victims: Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernoodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.
Furious family members of the murdered students have already said they will fight the plea deal offered by prosecutors, which puts Kohberger behind bars for life without the possibility of appeal or parole.
'Idaho has failed. They failed me. They failed my whole family,' Steve Goncalves, father of Kaylee, told NBC's 'Today' show.
Kohberger, who was a Criminology student at Washington State University, just a few miles from Moscow but over state lines, was arrested in December 2022. He was slated to go to trial in August after a protracted legal back and forth delayed proceedings.
5 'By not having a trial, he [Kohberger] gets to keep certain secrets, the air of mystery and in some ways that gives him the upper hand,' Jeff Guinn, author of crime books including 'Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson,' and 'Waco,' among others told The Post Tuesday.
AP
5 Steve Goncalves, father of University of Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves, speaking during a vigil in 2022
James Keivom
Now, Guinn says, it's most likely the majority of evidence amassed by prosecutors about Kohberger's crimes will remain sealed.
Guinn noted Kohberger's life behind bars could play out much like notorious career criminal Charles Manson, who died behind bars in 2017.
Manson was handed the death penalty for murders carried out by his cult in 1971 in California, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972 when the state briefly abolished the death penalty.
5 Victim Xana Kernodle (middle) with her fahter Jeff and sister Jazzmin in Dec. 2021.
AP
'[Charles] Manson set the paradigm for how much notoriety you can get, for how much you can live off your bloody exploits by getting that life imprisonment. Periodically he would say or do something crazy and get his name back in the news,' Guinn told The Post.
'In [Kohberger's] case, if you commit this kind of crime you tend to think of yourself as sort of a God-like figure anyway. The plea gives him a further chance to exist in a way that will get more attention, and make him seem [to himself] more superhuman … I doubt he's taking this plea to quietly disappear into the penal system.
'The secondary thing is I'm surprised the prosecution would do this if they felt they had a slam dunk case.'
Although Idaho has the death penalty, its last successful execution was in 2012.
An attempt to execute prisoner Thomas Creech in February 2024 was aborted after an hour after the team could not establish a reliable IV line into his body.
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Kohberger then refused to leave when the professor asked, following him down the hall when the professor decided to walk away. 'Preventing him from leaving his office was a way of controlling,' the documents said. Students described to police how Kohberger stood close enough to trap them at their desks. In an office used by female students, one of his professors said Kohberger would position himself in the doorway, physically blocking it until she stepped in, 'allowing the female students to leave.' In several separate interviews, students and professors described stepping between Kohberger and others – intercepting him in hallways and inserting themselves in conversations for others' security. One WSU faculty member said her 'maternal instinct' wouldn't allow her to leave a female student alone in an office on campus with Kohberger, so she kept herself busy until he left. She didn't say any specific behavior of his prompted her to feel this way, the documents said. 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In a December 2022 interview conducted on the day of Kohberger's arrest at his parents' home in Pennsylvania, the student said the class often sat through his hours-long verbal sparring with professors as he tried to come across as the 'strongest, smartest, most important person in the room,' according to the records. The student described having a 'bad feeling' about Kohberger from the moment they met at orientation in the fall of 2022, months before the November 13 murders of Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen. Over the distressing semester that followed, she told investigators, Kohberger would trail her after class, block her path when she tried to leave conversations and stare with such intensity that she kept a tally of the encounters. 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Another professor was asked to escort the assistant to her car after work because of Kohberger's behavior, according to the documents. One student said whenever she looked up, Kohberger, who was a teaching assistant in her class, was 'always' staring, according to the records. He rarely spoke to students, she told police. She felt he would time his exit to leave when she did and then follow her to her car. The graduate student who met Kohberger during orientation said she caught him 'aggressively' staring at her as many as nine times in one class and said she was also followed after class. 'Kohberger always seems to want to be in the general area of her and others in the program that did not want to have anything to do with him,' the student told police, according to the documents. CNN has reached out to WSU for comment. Professors and faculty were troubled by Kohberger's behavior, according to the documents, and had fielded several complaints from students and colleagues. 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Kohberger then refused to leave when the professor asked, following him down the hall when the professor decided to walk away. 'Preventing him from leaving his office was a way of controlling,' the documents said. Students described to police how Kohberger stood close enough to trap them at their desks. In an office used by female students, one of his professors said Kohberger would position himself in the doorway, physically blocking it until she stepped in, 'allowing the female students to leave.' In several separate interviews, students and professors described stepping between Kohberger and others – intercepting him in hallways and inserting themselves in conversations for others' security. One WSU faculty member said her 'maternal instinct' wouldn't allow her to leave a female student alone in an office on campus with Kohberger, so she kept herself busy until he left. She didn't say any specific behavior of his prompted her to feel this way, the documents said. 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