Bryan Kohberger's family has publicly endorsed his effort to withdraw the guilty plea that spared him the death penalty for killing four University of Idaho students, a move that forces the victims' families back into a legal fight many thought was finished.
In a statement issued exclusively to ABC News, Kohberger's family said their support "does not come from a place of disregard" but from "our family's need to see that the complete and unvarnished truth is told." They said the answers they seek "can only be addressed through a proper trial, as opposed to an improper plea."
Kohberger, a former doctoral student in criminal justice, is serving four consecutive life sentences without parole plus ten years on a burglary charge for the November 13, 2022, stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. He pleaded guilty in July 2025 to four counts of first-degree murder shortly before his trial was set to begin. Prosecutors had made clear early in pre-trial hearings that they intended to seek the death penalty.
Now, from prison, Kohberger has filed a handwritten petition for post-conviction relief claiming he was "convinced to falsely confess" to a crime he says he did not commit. He alleges his court-appointed defense team pressured him into the deal with false promises, failed to disclose or review exculpatory evidence, and told him it was legally acceptable to submit a false guilty plea.
Kohberger told the New York Times last month that his "actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn." His family's statement to ABC News echoed that framing while striking a softer tone, saying they did not want their support of their son "to compound the unimaginable grief the families have borne so courageously."
"As a family, we continue to carry the victims, their families, and the entire Moscow community in our hearts and daily prayer. We continue to love and support Bryan and we continue to respect the memory of those lost. We seek to find justice and a conclusive resolution through the legal process."
Sympathy for the victims' families is easy to express in a press release. But Kohberger's legal maneuver is the opposite of closure, it drags four grieving families back into a courtroom for a fight over whether a man who admitted to killing their children should get to take it back.
Shanon Gray, an attorney for the family of victim Kaylee Goncalves, pushed back on the defense team's claims about evidence. Gray told Just The News that while certain hair evidence "suggests there were other people involved, it doesn't prove Kohberger wasn't" involved.
Dr. Brent Turvey, a forensic criminologist hired by Kohberger's legal team to analyze the crime scene, has become one of the most vocal advocates for the post-conviction effort. Turvey told ABC News that Kohberger "took the plea because he was frightened out of his mind" and that "his lawyers told him it's okay to lie to the court."
Turvey also claimed "the hair evidence points to someone else" because FBI analysis "excluded Kohberger." An FBI lab determined that hair found near the victims did not belong to Kohberger, Turvey said. He dismissed the video and cell tower data that prosecutors used to place Kohberger near the crime scene, calling it evidence that "has no value or meaning."
His explanation for Kohberger's phone activity near the scene was striking in its casualness:
"College students drive around all the time. That's normal behavior. What's really interesting is turning off the cell phone; it is riddled throughout his cell phone behavior. He'll turn it off and drive around. Why? He's a college student who doesn't want to be bothered. You ignore the behavior of real people."
Turvey is a paid expert retained by the defense. His claims carry the weight of an advocate, not an independent investigator. And the victim family's attorney has already disputed the significance of the hair evidence he highlights.
Meanwhile, a former defense expert witness named Sy Ray offered a different warning. Ray told the New York Post that unreleased evidence could actually hurt Kohberger further: "They've got to release this report, because the report that changes everything has not been released." That cuts against the narrative Kohberger and his allies are building.
Beyond the post-conviction relief petition, Kohberger filed a motion this month requesting a new judge and asking that the case be moved back to Latah County, where the killings took place. His sentencing had been held at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise.
Kohberger's basis for seeking a new judge: comments made by Judge Steven Hippler during the July 2025 sentencing. Hippler said he could identify nothing redeeming about Kohberger because his conduct had buried anything "good or intrinsically human." He called Kohberger "the worst of the worst."
Those are harsh words. They are also the kind of words judges routinely deliver at sentencing after a defendant has admitted to killing four people. Kohberger now frames them as proof of bias, a convenient reinterpretation from a man who stood in that courtroom and pleaded guilty.
A hearing on the new-judge and venue request is set for October 15. A separate hearing on the post-conviction relief motion is scheduled for June 17, 2027. Fox News reported that Judge Hippler granted those court dates despite prosecutors' request to dismiss Kohberger's petition outright.
Jason Goldman, one of Kohberger's new defense attorneys, told ABC News that plea deals can be thrown out "by bringing evidence to support the notion that you were coerced into accepting a plea through false promises, misrepresentations, or through undue duress." Goldman added that "many individuals take a plea deal even when they are otherwise innocent or believe the evidence against them is weak."
Andrea Lewis Hartung, director of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, offered context. She told ABC News that withdrawing a plea after a final conviction is "not impossible but not common." She noted that people accept guilty pleas for many reasons beyond actual guilt, including fear of harsher punishment.
"A lot of consideration is 'what is the worst case scenario that will happen if you lose.' Whereas if you take a plea, you'll have a guaranteed result or at least guarantee that you won't have as harsh of a punishment."
That framing matters. Kohberger faced the death penalty. He took a deal that guaranteed life in prison. Now he wants to undo that deal while claiming he was tricked into it, by his own lawyers, who spent more than two years fighting his case in pre-trial hearings.
Greg Rauch, a Moscow, Idaho attorney newly appointed to represent Kohberger, told the New York Post he had not yet read the case file or spoken with his client. "Today, my goal is to set up phone contact with him. I gotta read the case file... I gotta check out the police reports. I gotta talk to him," Rauch said.
Statistics from national legal organizations paint the broader picture. The American Bar Association reports that 98 percent of criminal cases in federal courts end with a plea bargain in any given year. The National Registry of Exonerations found that about 28 percent of all exonerated people since 2014 had pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit. The Innocence Project puts the figure at about 12 percent in known DNA exoneration cases.
Those numbers show that false guilty pleas happen. They do not show that this is one of them. Kohberger admitted to four murders, accepted a sentence that spared his life, and never offered a motive for the killings.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador responded to Kohberger's petition with a statement expressing sympathy for the victim families "who have already endured unimaginable loss" and who now "must face today's deeply painful news." Labrador said his office "stands ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out."
Ann Taylor, the Coeur d'Alene-based attorney who led Kohberger's original court-appointed defense, did not respond to ABC News' request for comment on Kohberger's allegations against her.
Four students went to sleep in their home in a small Idaho college town on a November night in 2022 and never woke up. A man confessed to killing them, took a deal to avoid execution, and is now asking the courts to let him take it all back. His family calls it a search for truth. The families of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin might call it something else entirely.
A guilty plea that saves your life is not a trap. It is a mercy. Kohberger received one, and now he wants the system to pretend it never happened.
