Bryan Kohberger admitted to 4 Idaho murders. Why did prosecutors offer a plea deal?

BOISE, Idaho — The murder trial for the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students was approaching swiftly. Opening statements were scheduled for August.

But on Monday, plans quickly changed after prosecutors reached a plea deal for 30-year-old Bryan Kohberger, the suspect who had previously maintained his innocence.

Kohberger agreed to plead guilty to all four counts of first-degree murder — each carrying a life sentence — as well as a felony charge for burglary. In exchange, the prosecution dropped the possibility of the death penalty, which Kohberger’s team had repeatedly tried and failed to toss out. Kohberger also waived his right to any future appeal of his conviction.

The prosecution’s offer for a plea deal shocked much of the public who had closely followed the evidence anticipated against Kohberger — and who had seen the strong call for the death penalty from one of the victims’ families. Prosecutors appeared to have a case backed by eyewitnesses, surveillance footage and DNA tied to Kohberger. They were eager to move to trial.

But legal experts told the Idaho Statesman the prosecution had myriad motivations for agreeing to extend a deal, from sparing surviving victims and families the strain of a trial, to mitigating the cost of an already expensive case.

Jordan Gross, a professor of law at the University of Idaho’s College of Law, told the Statesman in an interview that most cases in the United States resolve in plea bargains or plea agreements. In cases like Kohberger’s, she said, both the defense and prosecution feel the pressure for a deal because the death penalty is on the table.

Gross also said the deal came at a normal juncture for a criminal case. All pretrial motions had been exhausted, and the majority of the available facts were on the table for both sides.

“To plea much sooner, to plea before you have all the information and before you have all your major rulings from a court is deeply problematic in a case like this,” Gross said.

Prosecution likely weighed family input, possible trial risks

In a letter to victims’ families about the plea deal, prosecutors said the defense requested an offer from the prosecution, which then met with families of the victims to discuss the possibility. The victims were seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21; junior Xana Kernodle, 20; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20. The three women were roommates in the Moscow home where the homicides occurred, and Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, had stayed over for the night. Two other roommates were unharmed in the attack.

The Latah County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has remained tight-lipped throughout the case, citing an ongoing gag order.

The four victims’ families were torn, with the Goncalves family and Kernodle’s father expressing frustration over the deal. Legal experts told the Statesman that while the families’ desires likely played a role in the decision, they were just one of several considerations for the prosecution.

Prosecutors had presented the framework of an airtight case against Kohberger. Evidence included cellphone geolocation data that repeatedly put him in the general area of the crime scene, surveillance video and eyewitness accounts from surviving roommates that appeared to place him and his vehicle at and around the house when the attacks took place and, critically, DNA from a knife sheath found next to Mogen’s body that matched Kohberger.

Even that may not have been enough for prosecutors to want to risk a trial.

“For the prosecutor, even if they had a really strong case, you never know what the jury (could do),” Tarika Daftary-Kapur, co-director of the Legal Decision Making Lab at Montclair State University in New Jersey, which studies choices attorneys make in the legal system.

“A jury can hang. There could be a mistrial. Anything can happen, so there’s always a chance of losing a trial,” Daftary-Kapur added.

For the defense, the benefits were more obvious: Their client avoids the possibility of being put to death if convicted by a jury. A death sentence would have opened a new realm of potential concerns over appeals and court costs.

Death penalty could have proved costly for Idaho

By April 2024, the cost of the case had already ballooned to more than $3.6 million, a Statesman investigation found. It’s unclear how long a trial would have lasted and how much it could have cost taxpayers. Latah County, which has 41,000 residents, has been responsible for the costs of Kohberger’s public defense team, and County Prosecutor Bill Thompson in 2024 requested an 800% increase in the county’s trial expenses budget — from $15,000 to $135,000 — to help offset costs, the Moscow-Pullman Daily news reported.

What’s more, if Kohberger had been sentenced to death, he would have been afforded the right to numerous appeals on the state and federal level — another cost.

Carrying out an execution would come with an even higher price tag. Idaho recently paid $100,000 for lethal injection drugs only to have them expire after its most recent execution attempt was unsuccessful.

“It generally costs less to keep somebody incarcerated for the rest of their natural life, which includes giving them food, medical and dental care and security and safety,” Gross said. “It usually costs less than to put somebody to death because of the litigation costs, and then there’s always uncertainties with death penalty cases.”

Gross and Daftary-Kapur noted that a death penalty conviction in the case could potentially have been overturned. With the plea deal’s assurance that Kohberger won’t be allowed appeals, they said, he’s guaranteed to stay behind bars.

“Here we have somebody who’s 30 years old, and if this plea goes he will never see the light of day,” Gross said. “Life expectancy of an inmate is lower than people on the outside, but you know, at 30, that’s possibly another 30, 40 years behind bars.”

It’s unclear what, if any, details about the deal may be revealed during plea proceedings or sentencing. Daftary-Kapur said the opaque nature of plea deals, which happen behind closed doors, can prove frustrating.

“The plea process and what goes on in terms of negotiations between defense and prosecution is such a black box process,” she said. “It is just very difficult sometimes to understand the logic behind the decision making.”

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