Just over a year ago, Bryan Kohberger accepted a plea deal in the case against him. In exchange for pleading guilty to four murders, the death penalty was taken off the table. At the time, some of the families were very vocal about not being told about the deal in advance.
The deal involves Kohberger pleading guilty to four counts of murder in exchange for the government not pursuing the death penalty, a person familiar with the details confirmed to CNN. Shanon Gray, attorney for the family of victim Kaylee Goncalves, also confirmed the deal to CNN…
In a statement shared with CNN, the Goncalves family said that they “weren’t even called about the plea; we received an email with a letter attached.”
“After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families on the plea’s details,” reads the statement. They said victims’ families had been “treated as opponents from the outset.”
Part of the deal was that Kohberger would waive his right to appeal the sentence. So he’d get life and he’d serve life. But this week Kohberger is in the news again. He’s apparently trying to have his plea deal overturned. He’s claiming he was tricked into confessing.
In an interview with The New York Times, Bryan Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences, said he had filed a petition challenging his conviction, citing concerns about how the plea deal came together.
“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Mr. Kohberger said in a statement provided to The Times on Sunday night. He reiterated in a phone call from prison in Idaho that he had an “absolute claim of innocence.”
I’ve walked through all of this many times but the evidence against Kohberger was overwhelming, which is why he took the plea.
In court, law enforcement officials outlined the evidence against Mr. Kohberger. His DNA was found on a Ka-Bar knife sheath that had been left next to two of the victims. Amazon records showed he had purchased a Ka-Bar knife and sheath months prior. He drove a white Elantra, the type of car that investigators determined had been on surveillance video circling the crime scene and then speeding away from it. Mr. Kohberger’s phone showed he was out that night, with his phone turned off at the time of the murders…
In the handwritten filing made public by court officials on Monday, Mr. Kohberger focused on a claim of ineffective legal counsel. He said his lawyers failed to disclose or review exculpatory evidence and had made promises about what life in prison would look like, including details about visits and employment. These pledges, he said, had induced him to agree to the plea.
Honestly, I’d be fine with giving Kohberger a new trial so long as the death penalty was back on the table. It’s a shame that this sadistic murderer was allowed to live. It’s also a shame that he’s getting lots of attention for what he did. Kaylee Goncalves’ younger sister wrote a lengthy response to Kohberger’s demand for a trial.
1,352 days.
That’s how long it’s been since Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, and Xana Kernodle were murdered.
I wasn’t planning on saying anything today.
But after seeing that the man who admitted in court to murdering four innocent people now wants to withdraw his guilty plea, I couldn’t stay silent.
For him, this may be another legal filing.
For me, it’s another day without my sister.
I’m Aubrie Goncalves. I’m Kaylee’s little sister, and Maddie wasn’t just Kaylee’s best friend she was family. She was my big sister too. I don’t know life without November 13, 2022 anymore. Every birthday, every holiday, every family gathering, every milestone has two people missing who should still be here.
They were silenced without a choice, without a second thought.
They were murdered while they were sleeping, in the place they should have been safest. They never got the chance to tell their story. They never got the chance to ask for mercy. Mercy was never going to be shown to them.
So why should the person convicted of taking their voices continue to have one?
This isn’t a Netflix documentary.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory.
This isn’t entertainment.
This is my life.
These were real people.
And every time this case is dragged back into the spotlight because of another filing, another theory, or another attempt to rewrite history, families like mine are forced to relive the worst day of our lives.
For years, people have ignored the evidence because it doesn’t fit the narrative they’ve convinced themselves is true. They ignore the DNA recovered from the knife sheath left beside my sister, the surveillance footage tracking the white Hyundai Elantra before and after the murders, the cellphone data documenting his movements that night, his phone disconnecting from the network during the window of the murders before reconnecting afterward, the repeated trips investigators documented to the King Road neighborhood before November 13, the eyewitness testimony, the forensic evidence, the digital evidence, and the countless hours law enforcement spent piecing everything together until it all pointed to one person.
Then there are the people who insist it would have been impossible for one person to commit these murders in the amount of time investigators established.
It wasn’t impossible.
Experts explained why. The victims were asleep or caught completely off guard. They were attacked inside the same home, on two floors, in rapid succession. A large fixed blade knife is capable of causing fatal injuries within seconds. It’s a horrifying reality, but it is a scientifically possible one. Refusing to accept that doesn’t change the facts.
What hurts almost as much as losing them is watching strangers turn their murders into content.
People make videos for views.
People create conspiracy theories for attention.
People argue over evidence as if this is some fictional mystery they get to solve.
When they’re done, they close the app and go back to their lives.
We don’t.
We walk past an urn every day holding what we have left of Kaylee.
That’s our reality.
People tell families like mine to “move on,” but how do you move on when your sister’s life has been reduced to an urn sitting in your family’s home? How do you move on when every birthday, every holiday, every accomplishment reminds you of everything she should still be here for?
You get to put this case away when you’re tired of hearing about it.
My family doesn’t.
We live it.
Every single day.
So I’ll leave you with this.
Why should the man convicted of taking four innocent voices continue to have a platform loud enough to reopen old wounds, while Kaylee, Maddie, Xana, and Ethan will never get another chance to tell the world who they were?
Aubrie and Erika Kirk have a lot in common. Both are living through the celebrity of the trial turning their deceased relative into a plaything for dishonest hacks, i.e. people like Candace Owens and Baron Coleman who’ve decided they can make a living off someone else’s tragedy.
One of the reasons this is getting attention now is that Netflix just released a new documentary about the case. I haven’t seen it but it’s apparently not at all sympathetic to Kohberger. Nevertheless, it keeps the trial in the spotlight and that means it’s food for the conspiracy clowns.
Kohberger is not going to get a new trial. Even if he did, there is no new evidence that would change the outcome of a trial because he’s guilty. But he’s got decades behind bars and nothing else to do, so we’ll probably keep hearing from him every few years. Again, that’s a real shame.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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