Idaho murderer Bryan Kohberger had one last insult for his victims’ families at his sentencing hearing.
The serial killer, who was hit with four life sentences Wednesday, refused to say why he snuck into an off-campus home to stab four University of Idaho students to death in the middle of the night.
Instead, Kohberger stared forward blankly as loved ones of his four victims—Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, and Xana Kernodle—read blistering impact statements that insulted him.
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Alivea Goncalves told Kohberger, 30, that her slain sister would have “kicked your f--king a--” had he attempted to attack her while she was awake and not sleeping in bed.
“Kaylee and her best friend Maddie were not yours to take,” Alivea continued. “They were everything that you could never be — loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave, and powerful.”
She added, “The truth is, the scariest part about you is how painfully average you turned out to be... You aren’t profound, you’re pathetic.”
Kohberger struck a plea deal with prosecutors earlier this month. In return for his guilty plea, the state agreed to drop its pursuit of the death penalty. This outraged the Goncalves family, especially since the deal did not require Kohberger to apologize or at least explain what drove him to kill on Nov. 13, 2022.
There was a sliver of hope that Kohberger’s motive might emerge at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing. The quadruple murderer gave no such explanation.
Kaylee’s father, Steve Goncalves, said he wished the court had compelled Kohberger to explain his motive.
“No better way to protect them than by getting some of those details,” he told reporters after court adjourned, according to CNN. “If you got those details, then you know—simple as just saying, ‘I did it solo’ would have been, you know, valuable.”
The father also slammed the plea deal as a “shortcut” that did not do his daughter’s life justice.
“We said from the very beginning: We we’re not interested in a shortcut for our daughter, you know,” he said. “We wanted everything.”
The case has been among the most prominent in the U.S. in recent years. While Kohberger will never walk free, we may also never know why he—then a PhD candidate studying criminology at the neighboring Washington State University—drove across state lines to slaughter the four students.
Judge Steven Hippler, who oversaw the case, said Wednesday that Kohberger’s “15 minutes of fame” were up and urged the public to stop giving him the attention he may desire. He said lingering questions about Kohberger’s motive only give him “agency” and “power,” which he does not deserve.
“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?” Hippler 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?”
Hippler suggested Kohberger may divulge what drove him to kill in a “self-serving” way, perhaps by releasing a book from behind bars.
The judge made clear that he does not endorse Kohberger’s silence.
“This unfathomable and senseless act of evil has caused immeasurable pain and loss,” he said Wednesday. “No parent should ever have to bury their child. This is the greatest tragedy that can be inflicted upon a person.
“Parents who took their children to college in a truck filled with moving boxes had to bring them home in hearses lined with coffins.”
