Serial killer Bryan Kohberger has been appointed a new public defender as he attempts to withdraw his guilty plea for murdering four college students.
Kohberger avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to the murders of students Idaho University Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, admitting he burst into their off-campus home and attacked them in their sleep in 2022.
But in a blow to the families, the killer now claims he was ‘convinced to falsely confess’ by his lawyers.
The criminology student alleged his defence attorneys also failed to disclose what he described as ‘exculpatory discovery,’ referring to evidence discussed in the recent book ‘Broken Plea’.
The book opens the possibility that the police investigation was botched, the crime scene tampered with and demands police probe whether there was another suspect who could have participated in the murders.
Kohberger offered only a few details in elaboration, saying they failed to disclose or review evidence that might have helped his case during plea discussions, like an ‘unknown hair in Chapin’s hand.’
He also wrote that the attorneys insisted that his plea ‘need not be truthful, despite petitioner’s vehement denial of actual guilt,’ that they promised life in prison would come with ‘immediate contact visits, freedom of movement, employment’ and that they told him ‘elaborate lies of DR (death row) life.’
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed they would not seek the death penalty, and instead would recommend that he be sentenced to four back-to-back life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus an additional 10 years.
For Kohberger’s team of four court-appointed attorneys, the plea deal was a way to save his life. Over two years of hearings, they tried multiple times to get capital punishment off the table.
They challenged the legitimacy of DNA evidence, argued that Kohberger’s autism diagnosis made him less culpable, suggested there might be another unknown suspect to be found, and said the death penalty violates international standards of decency.
