BOISE, Idaho (AP) — One after another, the friends and family of the four University of Idaho students killed in their home by Bryan Kohberger vented their emotions in sobs, insults and curses before a packed courtroom Wednesday as he was sentenced to life in prison.
Ben Mogen, the father of Madison Mogen, credited her with helping keep him alive through his fight with addiction. He called her “the only thing I’m proud of.”
Dylan Mortensen, a roommate of the victims who told police of seeing a strange man with bushy eyebrows and a ski mask in the home that night, called Kohberger “a hollow vessel, something less than human.” She shook with tears as she described how Kohberger “took the light they carried into each room.”
“Hell will be waiting,” Kristi Goncalves, the mother of Kaylee Goncalves, told the killer.
Judge Steven Hippler ordered Kohberger to serve four life sentences without parole for first-degree murder in the killings of Mogen, Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. Kohberger was also given a 10-year sentence for burglary and assessed $270,000 in fines and civil penalties.
Kohberger, 30, pleaded guilty weeks before his trial was to start in a deal to avoid the death penalty. Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on the sentence.
Kohberger gives no explanation
When it was his turn to speak in court, Kohberger said, “I respectfully decline,” shedding no light on why he slipped into the rental home in Moscow through a sliding glass door early on Nov. 13, 2022, and stabbed four of the students inside.
“I share the desire expressed by others to understand the why,” Hippler said. “But upon reflection, it seems to me, and this is just my own opinion, that by continuing to focus on why, we continue to give Mr. Kohberger relevance, we give him agency and we give him power.”
The crime horrified the city, which had not seen a homicide in about five years, and prompted a massive search for the perpetrator. Some students took the rest of their classes online because they felt unsafe. Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at nearby Washington State University, was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived, roughly six weeks later.
A Q-tip from the garbage at his parents’ house and genetic genealogy was used to match Kohberger’s DNA to material recovered from a knife sheath found at the home, investigators said. They used cellphone data to pinpoint his movements and surveillance camera footage to help locate a white sedan that was seen repeatedly driving past the home the night of the killings.
But investigators told reporters after Wednesday’s hearing that exhaustive efforts failed to find the murder weapon, the clothes Kohberger was wearing at the time or any connection between him and the students.
Within hours of the sentencing, the Moscow Police Department posted hundreds of documents about the investigation on its website. They detailed how investigators processed the gruesome crime scene; ran down tips from people who claimed to have gone on a Tinder date with Kohberger or to have seen him walking along a highway; and tested soil and pollen found on a shovel in his car to see if they could narrow down where it had been used.
Loved ones express loss and fury
“This world was a better place with her in it,” said Scott Laramie, Mogen’s stepfather. “Karen and I are ordinary people, but we lived extraordinary lives because we had Maddie.”
Goncalves’ father, Steve, taunted Kohberger for getting caught despite his education in forensics.
“You were that careless, that foolish, that stupid,” he said. “Master’s degree? You’re a joke.”
Kernodle’s father, Jeff, recalled that his daughter had not been feeling well that night and he thought about driving the 7 miles (11.3 km) to the rental home to be with her. He decided against it because he had been drinking.
Mortensen and another surviving roommate, Bethany Funke, described crippling panic attacks afterward.
“I slept in my parents’ room for almost a year and had them double lock every door, set an alarm and still check everywhere in the room just in case someone was hiding,” Funke said in a statement read by a friend.
Alivea Goncalves’s voice did not waver as she asked Kohberger questions including what her sister’s last words were. She drew applause after belittling Kohberger, who remained expressionless.
“You didn’t win, you just exposed yourself as the coward you are,” Alivea Goncalves said. “You’re a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser.”
Chapin’s family did not attend.
Kohberger’s mother and sister sat in the gallery near the defense table. His mother quietly wept at times as the other parents described their grief. She sobbed briefly when Mogen’s grandmother said her heart goes out to the other families, including Kohberger’s.
Xana Kernodle’s aunt, Kim Kernodle, said she forgave Kohberger and asked him to call her from prison, hoping he would answer her lingering questions about the killings.
“Bryan, I’m here today to tell you I have forgiven you, because I no longer could live with that hate in my heart,” she said. “And for me to become a better person, I have forgiven you. And any time you want to talk and tell me what happened, get my number. I’m here. No judgment.”
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Dylan Mortensen’s last name.
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Johnson reported from Seattle.