The man serving four consecutive life sentences for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students is now asking a court to let him take back his guilty plea and proceed to trial, claiming his own defense team manipulated him into accepting the deal.
Bryan Kohberger, 31, submitted a handwritten petition Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is currently imprisoned. He was convicted in the stabbing deaths of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and Madison Mogen, who were killed at a rental home near campus in 2022. The plea was entered just over a year ago and shook the tight-knit community of Moscow, Idaho.
In the petition, Kohberger argues that his attorneys failed to properly represent him and that his guilty plea was not entered knowingly or voluntarily. He claims the plea “was induced by unkept promises” and threats made by his legal team.
Among the specific allegations, Kohberger says his attorneys withheld or failed to review evidence that could have helped his defense during plea negotiations — including what he described as an “unknown hair in Chapin’s hand.” He also wrote that his attorneys told him his plea “need not be truthful, despite petitioner’s vehement denial of actual guilt,” and that they promised prison life would include “immediate contact visits, freedom of movement, employment.” He further alleged they fed him “elaborate lies of DR (death row) life” to frighten him into accepting the deal.
Those claims stand in direct contradiction to what Kohberger said on the record before 4th District Judge Steven Hippler on July 2, 2025. At that hearing, Kohberger confirmed he was pleading guilty “freely and voluntarily” because he was, in fact, guilty — and not due to any outside pressure or incentive. He was asked multiple times, both in a nine-page signed legal document and through direct questioning by the judge, whether he had been coerced or promised anything in exchange for his plea. Each time, he indicated he had not.
When asked on the plea agreement paperwork, “Have any other promises been made to you that have influenced your decision to plead guilty?” — Kohberger checked the box marked “no.”
When Judge Hippler asked him directly in court, “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?” Kohberger answered, “Yes.”
In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the death penalty. Instead, they recommended the four back-to-back life sentences without parole that Kohberger is now serving, along with an additional 10 years.
Under Idaho law, once a defendant has been sentenced, withdrawing a guilty plea requires proving “manifest injustice” — a high legal bar that can be met if a judge is convinced the plea was involuntary or that significant constitutional violations occurred.
For Kohberger’s four court-appointed defense attorneys, the plea agreement had been a lifesaving strategy. Over more than two years of pretrial hearings, the team tried repeatedly to take capital punishment off the table. They challenged DNA evidence, argued that Kohberger’s autism diagnosis reduced his culpability, raised the possibility of an unknown alternate suspect, and contended that the death penalty violates international standards. None of those efforts succeeded, and Kohberger was just one month away from trial when the plea was reached.
The lead defense attorney on the case is considered one of Idaho’s most respected capital defenders, with nearly 30 years of legal experience — more than half of it as a death-penalty-qualified attorney. When a reporter called her office Monday, the person who answered immediately said “no comment” and ended the call before it could be clarified whether the response pertained to Kohberger’s case or another matter.
