Idaho murders suspect Bryan Kohberger has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murders of University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. The 30-year-old former PhD student of criminology is accused of stabbing the students to death in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, at a rental home near their campus in Moscow, Idaho. The sentencing took place in a Boise court on Wednesday, July 23.
Kohberger could be sent to Idaho’s only maximum-security prison, the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, CNN reported. The prison opened in 1989 to confine the state’s “most disruptive male residents.”
Before the sentencing, Judge Steven Hippler asked the suspect, “Mr. Kohberger, you have an opportunity to make a statement. I take it you are declining?”
“I respectfully decline,” Kohberger replied
Hippler then addressed Kohberger’s decision not to address the court. “Even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how could anyone ever be assured that what he speaks is the truth?” the judge said. “Do we really believe after all this, he’s capable of speaking the truth or giving up something of himself to help the very people whose lives he destroyed?”
The judge went on to say that he believes the truth will eventually come out in a “self-serving” way. Hippler said that he anticipates “the time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger’s 15 minutes of fame.”
{{/usCountry}}The judge went on to say that he believes the truth will eventually come out in a “self-serving” way. Hippler said that he anticipates “the time has now come to end Mr. Kohberger’s 15 minutes of fame.”
{{/usCountry}}‘Unfathomable and senseless act of evil’
Hippler called the murders an “unspeakable evil,” adding that on the day of the murder, a “faceless coward breached the tranquility of six beautiful young people and senselessly slaughtered them, four of them.”
He added, “Who committed this unspeakable evil was unknown for several weeks, but due to the killer’s incompetence and outstanding police work,” the person was caught “and now stands before the world and this court, unmasked.”
Hippler also said that Kohberger “slithered through that sliding glass” of the house to kill the young students. “This unfathomable and senseless act of evil has caused immeasurable pain and loss. No parent should ever have to bury their child. This is the greatest tragedy that can be inflicted upon a person,” he further said.
He added, “Parents who took their children to college in a truck filled with moving boxes had to bring them home in hearses lined with coffins.”