A man who murdered four University of Idaho students in November 2022 is being sentenced.
Bryan Kohberger, a 30-year-old former criminal justice student, initially denied the killings but later pleaded guilty as part of a deal that meant he would avoid the death penalty.
Kohberger was accused of sneaking into a rented home in Moscow, Idaho, which is not far from the university campus, and murdering Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.
Kohberger has never revealed his motive and it is not clear why he spared two roommates who were in the home.
Post-mortem examinations showed the four who died were stabbed multiple times and were likely asleep when they were attacked – with some sustaining defensive wounds.
Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania weeks after the killings following a nationwide search.
Family members of the victims have given statements in court today.
Ms Goncalves’ mother Kristi Goncalves said she was disappointed that Kohberger wouldn’t be executed by firing squad but revelled in how he would suffer in prison.
“You will always be remembered as a loser, an absolute failure,” she said.
“Hell will be waiting,” she added.
Kristi Goncalves at a hearing earlier this month. Pic: AP
Steve Goncalves, the victim’s father, spoke to Kohberger directly and said: “Today we are here to finish what you started.”
Kohberger nodded subtly in response.
Mr Goncalves added: “You tried to break our community apart, you tried to plant fear, you tried to divide us. You failed.”
In a statement read on her behalf by her lawyer, Ms Mogen’s mother Karen Laramie said: “Any one of us would have given our own life to have been outshone by hers.”
Ms Mogens’ mother declined to address Kohberger directly, as he remained expressionless, but closed her statement by saying the family might never forgive him or “ask for mercy” for what he did.
“His acts are too heinous,” her statement read.
Karen and Scott Laramie, the mother and stepfather of Madison Mogen, outside court. Pic: AP
Bethany Funke, who survived the attack, said about her roommates in a statement to the court: “I hated and still hate that they are gone, but for some reason, I am still here and I got to live. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why did I get to live, and not them?”
She described one of the victims, Xana Kernodle, as “one in a million. She was the life of the party.”
Much of her statement was devoted to remembering her four close friends who died – recounting the nights they spent binge-watching reality television, making dinner together, going to parties at their university and the love that they had for each other.
She described one of the victims, Ms Kernodle, as “one in a million. She was the life of the party”.
Her testimony reduced many at the hearing to tears.
Bryan Kohberger. Pic: Reuters
Dylan Mortensen, the second surviving roommate, said in court that she has panic attacks that force her to relive the trauma of what she experienced.
She said: “I was too terrified to close my eyes, terrified that if I blinked, someone might be there. I made escape plans everywhere I went… “He may have shattered parts of me but I’m still putting myself back together piece by piece,”
Kohberger’s head bobbed slightly as she spoke.
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