Bryan Kohberger, a former criminology student, was set to go on trial this summer in the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students.
Bryan Kohberger, the man charged in the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, has reached a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, according to a lawyer for the family of one of the victims.
Mr. Kohberger had been set to go on trial for the murders in August, nearly three years after the killings, which occurred at a residence near the university in Moscow, Idaho.
The lawyer, Shanon Gray, who represents the family of Kaylee Goncalves, said the family had been notified that a plea agreement had been reached to take the death penalty off the table. The Goncalves family wrote in a message on Facebook that they were “beyond furious at the State of Idaho.”
“They have failed us,” the family wrote on Monday afternoon. “Please give us some time. This was very unexpected.”
The Goncalves family had been pressing for the state to pursue the death penalty and had pushed to expand Idaho’s capital punishment rules to allow executions by firing squad.
Prosecutors did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment, nor did lawyers for Mr. Kohberger.
