Bryan Kohberger asks to withdraw guilty plea in Idaho university murder case

BOISE, Idaho (TCN) -- The 31-year-old man convicted in the 2022 deaths of four students at the University of Idaho has filed a handwritten petition asking to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial. 

Last summer, Bryan Kohberger, a former Ph.D. student in criminology, pleaded guilty to burglary and four counts of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbings of students Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Ethan Chapin at an off-campus house near their university.

After killing the students, Kohberger drove from Idaho to his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested approximately six weeks later.

At trial, prosecutors presented evidence including home surveillance footage and cellphone data that placed Kohberger’s car in the area and DNA from a knife sheath found under one of the deceased victims, according to The Associated Press. Kohberger pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty.

He was sentenced to four consecutive life terms. 

On July 27, Kohberger filed a handwritten petition asking to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial, KSL reports. In the petition, he alleges his defense team did not provide him adequate representation, manipulated him, and made promises about the quality of life he would experience on death row. 

The petition claims he pleaded guilty because he felt threatened and his defense did not share details with him that could have helped their case, including information about “an unknown hair in Chapin’s hand,” per KSL.

The outlet reports Kohberger’s four attorneys spent two years trying to remove the death penalty from the table, including citing a diagnosis of autism and questioning whether the DNA evidence that was collected was legitimate. A plea agreement was reached about a month before the trial was set to begin. 

When Kohberger pleaded guilty last year, he responded in the affirmative when the judge asked him if he pleaded guilty because he was guilty, CNN reports. Part of his plea agreement included waiving his right to appeal, but it does not forbid filing a request for a new case. 

In a statement to The New York Times, Kohberger said, “My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” per CNN.

After the petition was filed, CNN reports Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador told the outlet he is “ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out.”

In response to the filing, Goncalves’ family called Kohberger “the mosquito you just can’t seem to swat.” A statement on the family’s Facebook page continues, “Regardless of how this turns out, our family is 100% ready. An actual trial this time? Let’s go! We are confident he will get the death penalty that he escaped by pleading guilty the first time around. Just an absolute waste of time and taxpayers money. It’s a disgrace. So we are moving on lol.”

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