Bryan Kohberger Did Not Plan to Murder All 4 Victims, Suggests Prosecutor as He Fights Back Tears in Court

Bryan Kohberger did not plan to murder all four of his victims on the night of Nov. 13, 2022, according to the lead prosecutor in the case.

The former criminology student, 30, entered the off-campus home of a group of University of Idaho students with the intention of killing one or two of his young victims, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson suggested in court on July 2.

Thompson detailed how events transpired on the night of the murders after Kohberger confessed to killing the four victims: Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Towards the end of his 10-minute presentation, Thompson suddenly became overwhelmed with emotion and, after a brief pause, began to cry.

He then finished his remarks trying to fight back those tears while telling Judge Steven Hippler: “As the defendant has just admitted and pleaded guilty, on November 13, 2022, Mr. Kohberger entered the residence at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. He did that with the intent to kill.”

Thompson then added: “We will not represent that he intended to commit all of the murders that he did that night, but we know that that is what resulted.”

The lawyer then finished his remarks by saying that even if Kohberger’s actions were not planned, he did kill his four victims “intentionally, willfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice aforethought.”

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Thompson explained to the court that on the night of the murders, Kohberger entered the victims’ house through a sliding door on the second floor and immediately went to the third floor, where Mogen and Goncalves were laying in bed together.

While not mentioned in Thompson’s remarks, the family of Goncalves has previously said she had moved out of the home because she had lined up a job in Austin, but then decided to return to see her friends.

This, and the fact that Kohberger went right to the third floor when there were two bedrooms on the second floor where he entered, suggests that Mogen, and possibly Goncalves, were Kohberger’s initial targets.

The other murders may have just been a result of an individual being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“The state’s evidence would show that Xana Kernodle was still awake [when Mogen and Goncalves were stabbed]. In fact, Xana had taken a Door Dash order not long before this started.”

Thompson said that while Kohberger was either “coming down the stairs or leaving” he ran into Kernodle and stabbed her to death.

Then he went into Kernodle’s bedroom, said Thompson, where her boyfriend Ethan Chapin was asleep and killed him.

“Each victim suffered multiple wounds,” Thompson said, while also stressing there was no evidence or proof of sexual assault.

Then, on his way out, Kohberger spared a life.

Thompson said one of the two surviving roommates watched Kohberger exit through the second-floor sliding door with a container in his hand.

That young woman then ran downstairs to the bedroom of the other surviving roommate, where they spent the night together, unaware that four people were dead upstairs.

The man who ended the lives of those four victims will now spend the rest of his life in prison after making a deal with prosecutors, sparing him the death penalty.

Kohberger’s sentencing is scheduled for July 23.