BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The man convicted of murdering four University of Idaho students is asking a court to let him withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial, saying his attorneys manipulated him into making the deal by promising him better prison conditions and scaring him about the quality of life on death row. Bryan Kohberger, 31, filed the hand-written petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near campus in 2022. It’s been just over one year since he pleaded guilty to the stabbing deaths that scarred the close-knit community of Moscow, Idaho. In his request, Kohberger said his attorneys didn’t adequately represent him and that his guilty plea wasn’t knowingly or voluntarily entered because it “was induced by unkept promises” and threats.
He 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.”
