Bryan Kohberger petitions to revoke guilty plea of murdering 4 college students and is demanding to stand trial after previously admitting guilt and to slaughtering four students, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin at an off campus Idaho house. Blames his guilty plea on ‘false promises’ and wrong information.
Idaho college killer Bryan Kohberger has petitioned to revoke his guilty plea and is demanding to stand trial after he previously admitted to slaughtering four students.
Kohberger, a criminology student who is currently serving four life sentences, revealed his decision to file the petition in an interview with the New York Times and claimed he had an ‘absolute claim of innocence.’
Idaho college killer insists he is innocent, cites false promises and disinformation
‘My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,’ he told the outlet.
“A lot went wrong in those plea discussions. I really do want that to be heard,’ Kohberger allegedly told the nytimes in a phone interview.
Kohberger pleaded guilty to the November 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20, last July.
He was sentenced to life without parole in August 2025.
Alleged evidence which exonerates convicted Idaho college killer
Kohberger accepted responsibility for the murders at a July 2025 hearing. He was not required to offer a motive for the killings — and never has.
Despite pleading guilty, Kohberger has never spoken out about his crime spree or the motive behind the horrific attack.
He declined to comment on specifics about the alleged evidence that he says will exonerate him, the Times reported.
He also reportedly refused to talk about the concerns he has surrounding the plea process the dailymail reports.
Steve Goncalves, the father of one of the victims, declined to comment Monday morning, saying he wanted to discuss the issue with his family. The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment the nytimes reported.
Mogen, Kernodle, Goncalves and Chapin were found stabbed to death on November 13, 2022 in a rented off-campus house.
Prosecutors say that Kohberger, who was masked, snuck into the home and brutally murdered the students.
Kohberger grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Pullman, Wash., in 2022 to pursue a Ph.D. in the criminal justice and criminology program at Washington State University, just across the state border from the University of Idaho. He had long been interested in serial killers and the minds of criminals.
