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Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger is expected to plead guilty Wednesday when he returns to court after accepting a deal earlier this week in a move that has been slammed by some of the victims’ family members.
Kohberger, 30, is accused of killing University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, in a 4 a.m. home invasion attack Nov. 13, 2022.
He may not have to explain the crime as part of the plea agreement, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital Tuesday. He is scheduled to appear at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise at 11 a.m.
“By taking a plea deal, Bryan Kohberger has insulated himself from a sentence that would require his execution,” Idaho defense lawyer Edwina Elcox, who has had cases in front of Ada County District Judge Steven Hippler, told Fox News Digital. “Only a jury can sentence him to death. Regardless, he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison, without the possibility of ever being in society again.”
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Two sources confirmed Kohberger’s intent to accept a plea deal to Fox News Digital Monday, just weeks before jury selection was slated to begin for his trial in August.
Hippler will now decide at Wednesday’s hearing whether to accept or deny Kohberher’s plea.
“Hopefully, this will bring the families some peace, if that is even possible after such a horrifying crime,” Elcox said. “They will not have to go through the stress of a trial and the virtually guaranteed appeal process, in the event Kohberger was convicted at trial. The judge will take his guilty plea and then set a hearing for Kohberger to be sentenced. He can absolutely expect to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
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The Idaho defense lawyer further described the decision as “a good deal” for Kohberger, who could have faced execution by firing squad in Idaho if convicted of the four murders.
“[I]f death is off the table, this is a good deal. From all the information that came out, it was becoming an insurmountable task to mount a defense. I would expect that Judge Hippler will make him allocute to the crimes though,” Elcox said before more details of Kohberger’s deal emerged.
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Former NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor Paul Mauro said he was shocked by Kohberger’s decision to accept a plea deal.
“At this stage, we’re going right into jury selection. We’re a couple of weeks out from the beginning of this thing. You’ve had a change of venue. The defense has lost every motion. The prosecution could not have looked more like they were in the driver’s seat on this thing. And, all of a sudden, you get a deal that looks like the prosecution almost dealt from weakness,” Mauro said.
Mauro noted that the Idaho Victims Rights Act requires prosecutors to confer with victims’ families prior to this type of decision, but the Goncalves family said in statements Monday they received an email with a letter attached about the plea deal, rather than a phone call.
“It’s almost like snatching a defeat from the jaws of victory,” Mauro said.
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Shanon Gray, an attorney for the Goncalves family, said in a statement the “death penalty is merely an illusion in the criminal justice system.”
“When available, it serves as a bargaining tool for the state, and when rarely applied, it’s never enforced due to a highly inefficient appellate process,” Gray said. “The notion that someone can plead guilty to a crime and still face years of appellate delays reveals a systemic failure.
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“We weren’t even called about the plea; we received an email with a letter attached,” the statement continued. “That’s how Latah County’s Prosecutor’s Office treats murder victims’ families. Adding insult to injury, they’re rushing the plea, giving families just one day to coordinate and appear at the courthouse for a plea on July 2.”
Steve Goncalves told NewsNation Monday the plea deal decision is “anything but justice.” He further commended law enforcement for their work in investigating the case, noting that “the failure was at the court level.”
“The fault is in leadership and the people that you place this evidence upon. They were weak,” Goncalves said.
Goncalves added that he met with prosecutors regularly, but no one called him about Kohberger’s decision to accept a plea deal.
Gray told NewsNation he expected Hippler to accept Kohberger’s plea Wednesday and move on to his sentencing in the next “few weeks,” when victims will be able to give victim impact statements in court.
Ethan Chapin was a triplet. His two siblings recalled the moment they found out from a friend what had happened to the 20-year-old and his girlfriend, Kernodle, in their home off the University of Idaho campus Nov. 13, 2022, in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” recorded before news of the plea deal emerged.
“I was like, ‘Where’s Ethan and Xana?'” Hunter Chapin, Ethan’s brother, said of that morning, when he walked to the house where Ethan was staying after hearing there were police outside. “And [a friend was] like, ‘They’re not here anymore.’ It’s like, ‘What do you mean they’re not here anymore?’ He’s like, ‘I think they were murdered last night.'”
Stacy Chapin, Ethan’s mother, told GMA she was in a grocery store when she received a call from Hunter, who repeatedly said, “He’s not here anymore,” to which he responded, “‘Well, go get him. Go find him.’
“And he just kept saying it,” Stacy Chapin said. “And he goes, ‘No, Mom. You don’t understand. Ethan and Xana,’ I think he said, ‘are not on this earth anymore.'”
She said that within hours of receiving the news about Ethan, she made a commitment to keep her family intact.
“The first thing that I told these kids was, ‘I do not know what in the hell has just happened to our family right now, but this isn’t gonna sink us. We will carry on,'” Stacy Chapin told GMA. “It will look different, it’s gonna feel different. But we will do it.
“These two deserve a lifetime of happiness. I mean, they have seen the very bottom,” she told GMA. “I’d do anything for them.”
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