Bryan Kohberger

Bryan Christopher Kohberger grew up in the Pocono Mountain communities of Albrightsville and Effort, Pennsylvania. He attended Pleasant Valley High School in Brodheadsville, graduating in 2013. During his school years, he took up running and kickboxing, later working as a security officer for the Pleasant Valley School District.

Kohberger earned an associate degree in psychology from Northampton Community College in 2018. He continued his education at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, completing a bachelor's degree in psychology in 2020 and a master's degree in criminal justice in 2022. In August 2022, he moved to Pullman, Washington, to begin a doctoral program in criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University, where he also worked as a teaching assistant.

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death inside an off-campus rental residence on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. The victims were roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, and Xana Kernodle, along with Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin. Two surviving roommates were inside the house during the attack but were not physically harmed.

Autopsy findings revealed that the victims sustained a combined total of at least 150 stab wounds from sharp force injuries. Investigators recovered a leather Ka-Bar knife sheath stamped with the United States Marine Corps insignia from the crime scene, which yielded a single source of male DNA.

Law enforcement utilized surveillance video showing a white Hyundai Elantra in the neighborhood around the time of the attacks, along with mobile phone location data placing Kohberger's phone near the King Road house multiple times prior to the crime. By late December 2022, Kohberger and his father drove his white Hyundai Elantra from Washington to his family's residence in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, for the winter holidays.

Federal and state law enforcement placed the Pennsylvania residence under surveillance and gathered discarded trash items to construct a DNA profile. The sample demonstrated a familial match with the DNA left on the knife sheath. On December 30, 2022, authorities arrested Kohberger at the Albrightsville home on a fugitive warrant. He waived extradition and was transported to Idaho in early January 2023.

A grand jury indicted Kohberger on May 17, 2023, on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. When asked for a plea at his arraignment, Kohberger stood silent, prompting the judge to enter a plea of not guilty on his behalf. Prosecutors subsequently announced they intended to seek the death penalty upon conviction.

To avoid capital punishment, Kohberger entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors on July 2, 2025, pleading guilty to all five charges. Later that month, Judge Steven Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four consecutive life terms in prison without parole for the murders, alongside a 10-year term for burglary. In July 2026, Kohberger announced through a public statement that he intended to petition the court for postconviction relief to withdraw his plea, claiming he was misled by his legal counsel.

Kohberger is incarcerated at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Boise, where he is housed in J Block. The high-security unit features single-person cells, restricted daily recreation time, and mandatory restraints during inmate transport.