2023: Bryan Kohberger Enters Not Guilty Plea For Idaho Murders Case

Bryan Kohberger has filed a not-guilty plea in front of a judge.

According to NBC News, Kohberger, accused of killing four University of Idaho college students in November, stayed mute during his May 22 arraignment despite being asked to enter a plea. As a result of his lawyer standing up and declining on his behalf, the judge was compelled to enter a not-guilty plea on all murder charges.

Kohberger’s arraignment comes only five days after he was charged with four charges of first-degree murder and one crime of burglary.

Bryan Kohberger has filed a not-guilty plea in front of a judge.

An Idaho grand jury determined the 28-year-old “did unlawfully enter a residence” in Moscow last November and “wilfully, unlawfully, deliberately, with premeditation and with malice aforethought, kill and murder” four college students: Maddie Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.

Kohberger, a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, has denied any misconduct in the case.

“It is a little out of character,” the suspect’s public defender said in January to Today. “It’s not him. He feels he will be exonerated. That’s what he thinks, and those are his words.”

Police found a knife sheath bearing male DNA at the scene of the crime, according to the affidavit. Lab tests were later gathered from that and from garbage located outside of Kohberger’s family home.

According to the affidavit, the DNA “identified a male as not being excluded as the biological father” of the suspect.

According to NBC News, his four charges of first-degree murder carry sentences that could include life in prison to the death penalty.

SOURCE – (AP)