Bryan Kohberger Seeks to Withdraw Guilty Plea in Idaho Student Murders, Claims He Was “Duped”

Bryan Kohberger, the man serving four consecutive life sentences for the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students, has filed a petition seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he was misled into falsely confessing and now wants his case to go to trial.

The petition, filed Monday in Ada County Court, argues that Kohberger’s original plea was built on “threats,” “false promises,” and inaccurate information provided by his own defense team. In a handwritten filing citing ineffective assistance of counsel, Kohberger claimed his attorneys failed to disclose or properly review exculpatory evidence, including what he described as clumps of unidentified hair found in victim Ethan Chapin’s hand. He also alleged he was given a “gross misrepresentation” of what conditions on death row and a life sentence would actually look like, and said he was told that whether he was actually guilty was not an important factor in deciding whether to accept the plea deal. In a statement provided to the New York Times, which first reported the petition after interviewing Kohberger by phone from the maximum-security prison in Kuna, Idaho, he said his “actual innocence is my truth,” insisting the plea “MUST be withdrawn.”

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Kohberger pleaded guilty on June 30, 2025, to killing Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, all found stabbed to death in an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, in the early hours of November 13, 2022. The plea deal took the death penalty off the table in exchange for four consecutive terms of life without parole. At his change-of-plea hearing, Kohberger answered “yes” when Judge Steven Hippler asked whether he had killed each of the four victims, and confirmed under oath that he understood the agreement, was entering it voluntarily, and was pleading guilty because he was in fact guilty. As part of the deal, he also formally waived his right to a direct appeal, though that waiver does not prevent him from filing a separate petition, as he has now done, challenging the validity of the plea agreement itself.

Legal experts say that waiver puts Kohberger’s legal team in a difficult position. Because he has already been sentenced, his attorneys must convince the court that letting the conviction stand would amount to a clear miscarriage of justice, a high evidentiary bar that generally requires showing the plea was entered involuntarily, that his defense counsel was constitutionally ineffective, or that prosecutorial misconduct affected the outcome. Overcoming his own sworn courtroom statements affirming his guilt and understanding of the deal will require concrete evidence rather than broad claims, according to legal analysts who reviewed the filing. Attorney Kevin Curtis, commenting on the case, said the burden of proof Kohberger would need to meet is extremely high should a judge decide to review the matter further.

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The families of the victims reacted with visible anger to the filing. The Goncalves family, in a statement released Monday, described Kohberger as “the mosquito you just can’t seem to swat” and pushed back forcefully against the framing of his claims, noting that he had appeared in court with four lawyers present, chose not to leave his fate to a jury, and never raised concerns about being uninformed or pressured at the time. “He admitted his guilt,” the family said. “When asked whether he was actually guilty, he answered, ‘Yes.'” The family also criticized the New York Times for giving Kohberger a media platform, saying the resulting piece offered little beyond “a guilty man once again claiming he is innocent,” and added that Kohberger simply “wants another chance to roll the dice.” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said his office “stands ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out,” and expressed sympathy for the families, who he said must now face what he called deeply painful news.

The office of Anne Taylor, one of Kohberger’s attorneys at the time of his plea deal, declined to comment on the allegations of ineffective counsel. Kohberger is currently representing himself in the newly filed petition, according to court records.

The timing of the filing has drawn additional attention, arriving just two days ahead of the premiere of a new Netflix documentary examining the case, titled “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare,” which chronicles the crime and the weeks-long manhunt that followed. Investigators ultimately linked Kohberger to the murders through phone records, DNA evidence recovered from his family’s trash in Pennsylvania, and genetic material found on a knife sheath at the crime scene. He was arrested on December 30, 2022, roughly seven weeks after the killings, on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.

The case now returns to the Idaho courts, where a judge will need to determine whether Kohberger’s petition merits further review or an evidentiary hearing. Legal experts caution that such petitions rarely succeed once a defendant has affirmed guilt under oath during a formal plea hearing, though the case is likely to remain a focal point of public attention given both the high-profile nature of the crime and the renewed media coverage surrounding its anniversary.