'I Don’t Hate Bryan Kohberger': How 10 Months in Jail After Daughter's Death Allowed Victim's Mom to Forgive Killer By Chris Spargo

The mother of one of the four University of Idaho students murdered by Bryan Kohberger delivered a powerful and emotional speech about forgiveness over the weekend.

Cara Northington, the mother of Xana Kernodle, said that she forgave her daughter’s killer and had no ill will towards him, reports the Coeur d’Alene Press.

“I don’t hate Bryan Kohberger,”  Northington said, according to the The Spokesman-Review.

She went on to say that she arrived at a place of forgiveness after she spent 10 months in jail following her daughter’s murder.

Northington shared all this while participating in “Journey of Forgiveness,” at the Altar Church in Coeur d’Alene on Sept. 6.

She was part of a three-person panel who shared their stories about learning to forgive individuals who had committed unconscionable crimes against either them or members of their family.

At the time of her daughter’s death, Northington said she was in the midst of a 30-year-long battle with drug addiction.

Northington said she got sober after being sent to jail for a probation violation shortly after her daughter’s death.

She said that she managed to get sober after rediscovering her faith.

“The Lord just had me surrender it all. And I did, and I haven’t gone back,” Northington said.

Her newfound sobriety resulted in an “overwhelming joy that I couldn’t explain,” and put her on the path to forgiving the man who took her daughter’s life.

She said that Kohberger was no different than her in that he was “still made in God’s image,” while also saying she refused to allow him to control her emotional state.

“I do not fear you or let you have space in my head anymore,” Northington said.

A very emotional Northington also shared happy memories of her daughter, who she described as a “beautiful soul.”

Northington said: “She was funny. She just had a way of making you feel special.”

And while she will always cherish the time and memories she had with her daughter, Northington said she is “washing her hands” of Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences at a maximum security prison.

Kernodle, 20, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, and her roommates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21, were stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022, at their off-campus rental home in Moscow.

Kohberger’s motive and any connection he had to the four roommates is still unknown, but prosecutors have suggested that Kernodle was not one of the convicted killer’s intended victims that night.

Kernodle was unfortunately awake when Kohberger began his rampage though, and it is believed that she discovered the killer upstairs before he followed her to her room and stabbed her to death.

Despite being much smaller and unarmed, Kernodle put up a fight, with the medical examiner noting that she sustained over 50 stab wounds which were largely defensive.

She also managed to cause a likely panicked Kohberger to leave behind a knife sheath containing trace amounts of his DNA when he followed her downstairs after being discovered in Mogen’s bedroom.

That DNA linked Kohberger to the crime scene after it was run through genetic genealogy databases and returned with a DNA profile for the killer’s father.

Police then matched that DNA profile to Kohberger’s father using a discarded ear swab recovered from the family’s trash.