GUILTY PLEA DEAL ACCEPTED - 4 Univ of Idaho Students Murdered, Bryan Kohberger Arrested, Moscow, Nov 2022 #111

[Equal Justice Under Law]

Now that I think about it, the Judge set a tone yesterday when he opened the hearing. Had he used that opportunity to reach out to the G's and their supporters vs chastise the callers it could have eased the plea deal a bit. Maybe he should have started out saying he appreciated the passion and concern from the public and families of the victims who may or may not agree with the plea deal and not complained about the many calls. They happened for a couple of days and I highly doubt they will be getting many more calls about this other than from the media.

JMO

Many posters agree with you. LYK also said Judge Hippler could have been gentler. I wondered if the events last Friday in Couer d'Alene had any effect on his reaction. Multiple first responders dead & wounded at the hand of someone with a gun and a grudge. Flags flying at half-mast over the courthouse. In his rage, SG is actively fanning flames on social media, and given recent events, JH was stern in telling SG (IMO he was speaking to him, specifically, without naming names) to cool his jets. I don’t think SG was urging violence, but given the number of highly disturbed people with guns in this country, JH's admonition didn’t seem overly harsh to me. Just my personal opinion.

 

[Chimera]

I think some of the other family members of the murdered students probably have tried to talk to him. Clearly MM's family attorney yesterday was doing that in some of his comments.

Thanks for posting this ---good to hear if so.
One can hope they can help him.
The other families would know what he is going through !

 

[Magic8Ball]

A couple of things:

I wonder if SG felt like only when BK was dead (via death penalty) would he feel relief from the pain of losing his daughter, that her death had been avenged. And knowing there would be a future date certain helped him to get through the present. And so when the DP was taken off the table, he lost the only way ( in his mind) that he could ever feel some release from the grief .

BK bought the knife early in 2022 before he moved - do you think he was already considering murder in some form at that point? I wonder if his family knew about the knife? Did he say it was for safety or that he was going to be doing lots of outdoors stuff, hunting/ fishing, etc?

If things had gone as he planned, what would it have looked like? Would he have only killed MM? Was that going to be his serial killer persona in his mind? Sneaking into inhabited houses in densely populated neighborhoods in college towns and murdering a single person? Was the sheath going to be his calling card, if he left it on purpose? (Are there other serial killers who would leave something behind?

BBM:

I do think if it had gone according to plan, BK would have murdered MM, his intended target, then left the house undetected and having left no trace of himself inside.

I think he wanted to kill someone simply to know what it felt like to kill someone.
Having done so, he discovered he liked the feeling it gave him.
So, yes, he would have done it again. And again.

Had his plan come off without a hitch, BK would have become a SK rather than a mass murderer.

He needs to be in a supermax prison.

JMO.

 

[kaen]

Steve wanted the ultimate punishment for his daughter’s murderer, anything less is failure to him. His state has that option. There are individuals on death row for crimes against one person, much less four. He did not want this to be a decision made by a prosecutor and a defense attorney. He wanted that trial with all of the facts exposed, he needs people to hear exactly what his daughter suffered at the hands of Bryan Kohberger. He doesn’t understand how he is expected to quietly accept a plea because it is a sure thing and it is better for others involved. Kaylee was his kid, and he will fight for her right to justice because he feels that is his duty. Do I agree with his methods? No, but who am I to judge? Would we be okay with him if it was just his daughter that was the victim, or are we cringing because she was only one of four and the other families are accepting? I will say that the Judge, who is great, seemed more annoyed by Steve’s request that people tie up the phone lines of the court, than the murderer standing before him. I honestly feel like that start to the proceeding was a Kohberger win. The couple of years spent on this trial that never was is far more disruptive than a day of tied up phone lines. And let’s not forget four dead people.

I understand the desire for the ultimate punishment and the facts exposed. The facts will be exposed once the gag order is lifted. There will be no defense attorney trying to parse or change the narrative. We will know some of his daughter's suffering but will never know fully because she is not here to tell the story. The scum murderer would not describe it (as he would probably be silent and not testify in court). Many will read the accounts of her suffering and the suffering of the other victims.

We will never know why ---the scum won't say but, alternatively, if he did say why many would not believe they know the whole truth. Knowing why for a victim or their family doesn't take away from the fact that it has happened but it does help to close a chapter. That said, many criminals don't want to give that kind of relief to victims/survivors. They prefer to keep the power to themselves.

As to the ultimate punishment, I don't have an opinion but will just say that the worst type of death of this scum will not be satisfactory as it never brings the victim back. There is more than one family here and it is a hard decision to make to take one course of action over another.

The lack of communication with families is horrible--- and this is not the only case where prosecution teams are not in touch or make bargains that feel like they are victimizing survivors or victim's families again. The system needs to do better and this is a shining example of it.

The specific father asking for people to flood the zone with calls or communications is creating a mob mentality. People have gone to the Nth degree to create an unsafe environment--- no one in the legal system should be in fear for their lives, their family's lives because someone doesn't like or want a particular outcome. It breeds lawlessness. It all creates an impression that screaming louder gets one the power. It doesn't and shouldn't,IMHO.

The judges statement was appropriate and set a tone for the expectation of decorum (even, if the pain of your loss is too much to bear). I don't feel that it lost it focus on the murdering scum but rather highlighted that all will comport themselves with calm. This way the murdering scum would in no way be able to claim prejudice--- the result was based on his actions alone not the emotions of a judge or family or an inherent flaw in the system that swayed anyone.

Let all of us never speak this murdering scum's name again. Let all of us embrace the families who have lost their loved ones.

JMHO.

 

[Boxer]

<modsnip - quoted post was removed>
And not just the trial but GH pointed out that even with a finding of guilt at the trial there is still the penalty phase.
Even a jury that found him 100% guilty of the crime, then they have to be unanimous on giving the DP.
AT was mostly gathering defense forces for fighting the DP, because having lost the IGG DNA exclusion pretty much made this an open and shut case (minus YT nuts) and the fact is she had a decent chance to get one juror to balk at the DP.

And If its not the DP then it's an appealable lesser sentence life sentences.
BK agreed to a harsher sentence than that.

So now he isn't going to turn up living in anyones town at 65.

 

[Tragg]

This guy, SG, and his wife, worked their a--es off for a very long time so they could have upward mobility and raise their children. They loved their children. They still love their children. They paid a hefty penny to send one of those children through college at University of Idaho, and she loved it.

But one of their children isn't with them any longer. Because BK decided at some point, you know, her time was up. For whatever reason, BK felt the need to "get rid of" Kaylee. and her friends.

What this man SG, her father, and his wife are going through... is unimaginable. It is a living nightmare. And one I hope nobody else has to deal with, but let me tell you, looking at Websleuths daily, with the number of missing people swallowed into a hole-- aside from the murdered-- I know better.

Have you read Watership Down by Richard Adams? It is about a civilization of rabbits, and at one point, the rabbits are dealing with a warren that has snares set. Nobody knows who set them, and nobody cares. They're being fed well. They just know certain victims (unidentified, luck of the draw), won't be with them any longer because-- there are these snares. And they accept that. It's just part of the daily routine. This "warren of the snares" is recognized to be western culture.

That's not "freedom." That makes us all slaves to a bunch of perverts, freaks, and murderers.

I'm sorry, I can see where SG is coming from on this. Because there is not perfect justice in this system of supposed justice, and perhaps in any nation's sytem. But the system should strive towards actual justice.

The system does strive for justice. It is a human system and can never be perfect. And we who observe it are - thankfully - free to criticize it: the many improvements over the decades are a product of that criticism.

As we criticize, we do well to keep in mind an ancient maxim, ably expressed by Harvard Professor and Dean S.S. Curry in 1891:
"It has been well said that we do not see things as they are, but as we are ourselves. Every man looks through the eyes of his prejudices, of his preconceived notions. Hence, it is the most difficult thing in the world to broaden a man so that he will realize truth as other men see it."

I keep it on my desk. It keeps me humble.

I hope SG can benefit from the finality of the court's acceptance of the guilty plea, and come to recognize that a death sentence that remained on appeal for the rest of his lifetime would be a daily source of renewed agony. More important, I hope he comes to realize that his obsessive anger prevents him from making good choices in other aspects of his life - especially that it impairs his ability to offer love to his living family and friends.

I believe Kaylee, who loved him, would not want him to live like that.

 

[Missyrocks5]

Many posters agree with you. LYK also said Judge Hippler could have been gentler. I wondered if the events last Friday in Couer d'Alene had any effect on his reaction. Multiple first responders dead & wounded at the hand of someone with a gun and a grudge. Flags flying at half-mast over the courthouse. In his rage, SG is actively fanning flames on social media, and given recent events, JH was stern in telling SG (IMO he was speaking to him, specifically, without naming names) to cool his jets. I don’t think SG was urging violence, but given the number of highly disturbed people with guns in this country, JH's admonition didn’t seem overly harsh to me. Just my personal opinion.

This. If anyone has seen all the interviews, absolutely his words could inflame others given the times. I thought this as well. There is way too much going on in this country that we have seen where violence is looked to as an answer. Also, it seems that it is not just based on the understandable anger of the horrific loss of a child. In the vein of what is happening in this country as a backdrop, it seems like the ideology of the prosecutor and the officials in that county is part of the unbridled anger of that family.

 

[pittsburghgirl]

OF course, SG feels railroaded. The judge was far more concerned with his office receiving phone calls than he was with four victims who were killed in their home. Imagine how the judge woud feel If his loved one was killed while she slept. The judge was rather irate over receiving phone calls, which are completely harmless. The whole process is a sham, and sadly, SG is recognizing this in realtime. Only criminals have rights. I am sorry for the loss of his daughter as well as the other three victims.

SG was way out of line to urge random people to contact the court and the judge in order to influence his legal decision.

As we ponder murder here daily, we should reflect that judges and prosecutors and law enforcement officers and even firefighters can be the targets for angry people. All SG's words need to do is gin up hate for the judge or the prosecutor and some guy not all that different from BK can take the law into his own hands.

It's not a "sham" to get a confession to each of four murders in court for the families and the rest of us to hear. It's not a "sham" to settle once and for all that the people who were "internet suspects" or were questioned by police are entirely innocent. It's not a sham to put this monster away forever. MOO

 

[iamshadow21]

SG was way out of line to urge random people to contact the court and the judge in order to influence his legal decision.

As we ponder murder here daily, we should reflect that judges and prosecutors and law enforcement officers and even firefighters can be the targets for angry people. All SG's words need to do is gin up hate for the judge or the prosecutor and some guy not all that different from BK can take the law into his own hands.

It's not a "sham" to get a confession to each of four murders in court for the families and the rest of us to hear. It's not a "sham" to settle once and for all that the people who were "internet suspects" or were questioned by police are entirely innocent. It's not a sham to put this monster away forever. MOO

Agreed.

Rallying your internet followers to dogpile a judge to try to subvert the legal process is never okay. Whatever your reasons or emotional state.

MOO

 

[browneyes]

Now that I think about it, the Judge set a tone yesterday when he opened the hearing. Had he used that opportunity to reach out to the G's and their supporters vs chastise the callers it could have eased the plea deal a bit. Maybe he should have started out saying he appreciated the passion and concern from the public and families of the victims who may or may not agree with the plea deal and not complained about the many calls. They happened for a couple of days and I highly doubt they will be getting many more calls about this other than from the media.

JMO

“The law is reason free from passion…Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.”

- Aristotle


JMHO

 

[pittsburghgirl]

Oh trust me I'm not disputing or demeaning any of that. I cannot imagine the pain and anger he's feeling and all of his feelings about the plea deal are valid and justified. I can understand that his blind rage fueled lashing out is his choice right now, but that doesn't mean I cannot speak up as to how damaging it may be for him personally y'know? Nobody wants to see him get into any trouble but I fear that if he carries on as he is right now, that may happen. I don't believe anything would help ease his suffering. Say trial went ahead with BK maintaining his not guilty plea, the prosecutions evidence would be laid out there (we don't know if they have any more evidence than what's in the PCA) would he be satisfied with that? Say a jury determined he is guilty, would that satisfy him fully? Say the jury sentenced him to death and the lonnnnng drawn out speel began of appeal after appeal, is that satisfactory? Regardless of a trial or this plea, that creep is not going to give the answers that SG has stated he wants. Even if pigs got up and grew wings and he did, would that satisfy SG? I truly feel like there's nothing at all possible that would be "enough" for SG and there isn't nothing that will ease his pain but time. Time where he is still in the horrific ocean of grief, he's just developed the ability to stay afloat better That's not to say that I don't admire his passion for justice for his daughter, I just don't believe that his version of justice exists unless he was put in a room with BK alone with zero legal repercussions.

I watched the first Pike County massacre trial in 2022 for 8 murders that happened in 2016. There's still one trial to go nine years into this mess. The man convicted in 2022 is appealing. The new judge in that case altered the plea deals. And the trial I saw didn't answer all the questions although there was testimony from two of the killers who got plea deals, particularly the question of why getting 50/50 custody of a little girl wasn't good enough for the father's family. 9 years and still the killers are fighting to stay out or get out of prison.

Every trial is about competing narratives. The prosecution gathers evidence and testimony and creates a narrative of what happened, how it happened, and sometimes why it happened. The defense presents a counter-narrative, if they put on a defense other than "you didn't prove it."

The Manson murders happened 56 years ago and this year a documentary based on a newish book gave yet another explanation for why the victims were murdered. In this case, we know who (BK), how (the stalking, the Kbar), and pretty much why (he's a disordered psychopath who hates women). Waiting 20 years to put him in front of a firing squad after a jury verdict--not a confession--isn't going to reveal much more than that.

 

[loveplace]

I have enornous sympathy for everyone impacted by Bk's crimes, especially the families and parents of the victims. Nothing will bring back their children-no punishment or justice or death penalty will ever even partially correct that wrong. That said, years ago my husband was a victim of a mass shooting in which others died. The process of testifying and facing the shooter in court was exhausting and retraumatizing in many ways for him and the others who lived to testify. I cannot imagine that it would not be the same for the other housemates and witnesses. A plea made it possible for them to avoid all of that additional potential trauma and angst, a very real benefit to living people, who will still have to find a way to live with this for the rest of their lives. The shooter in my husband's case WAS sentenced to death and last year after more than two decades on death row he finally died of natural causes....all those years of appeals and worry about things like mistrial, or resentencing...it would have been a blessing to be saved from that by a plea deal that eliminated all of the time he carried those worries. It is only in the last year that he has been able to finally process and begin putting to rest the trauma and fears he carried with him for all of those years. I hope that SG is able to make his peace with the fact that this was likely the best thing to do for the still living members of the house, the door dash driver and others.

 

[kaen]

I watched the first Pike County massacre trial in 2022 for 8 murders that happened in 2016. There's still one trial to go nine years into this mess. The man convicted in 2022 is appealing. The new judge in that case altered the plea deals. And the trial I saw didn't answer all the questions although there was testimony from two of the killers who got plea deals, particularly the question of why getting 50/50 custody of a little girl wasn't good enough for the father's family. 9 years and still the killers are fighting to stay out or get out of prison.

Every trial is about competing narratives. The prosecution gathers evidence and testimony and creates a narrative of what happened, how it happened, and sometimes why it happened. The defense presents a counter-narrative, if they put on a defense other than "you didn't prove it."

The Manson murders happened 56 years ago and this year a documentary based on a newish book gave yet another explanation for why the victims were murdered. In this case, we know who (BK), how (the stalking, the Kbar), and pretty much why (he's a disordered psychopath who hates women). Waiting 20 years to put him in front of a firing squad after a jury verdict--not a confession--isn't going to reveal much more than that.

This massacre, which left few Rhodens alive to advocate for justice, has been the saddest, most heartbreaking injustice stories on this site, IMHO. Everything that could thwart justice for these people seems to have happened. IT is a story that exemplifies how wrong prosecutions can go.

I agree with both of the cases cited as reasons why a plea bargain can be an option that allows for the families of victims to move forward.

 

[bearfossils]

I know there is a lot of anger about BK being able to take a plea and avoid the death penalty, but I have to agree with others that this option seems to be the best: no endless appeals, no opportunity for the defense to further traumatize the living witnesses, no decades spent on death row with only the chance that execution will actually be carried out, no more weeks and months of the media descending like vultures on this case, and so forth.

He gets to go into the bowels of prison and watch as the attention his crimes have afforded him slowly dissipates until it dries up completely; then he’s nothing more than a body and a number among hundreds of others. I doubt his peers will be impressed with his pseudo-intellectual ramblings. He’ll disappear, and have plenty of time to sit and stew over what could have been, and all that he’s lost. No more midnight stalking through the woods or supposed “star-gazing”. No more condescending and harassing the women in his orbit. No obsessive crawling through the internet or writing low-rate academic papers that anyone will have to pretend to care about. He gets to spend his time living in a concrete cell without a moment of privacy or power ever again.

JMO.

 

[Arkay]

IMO only:
Judge Hippler’s consistent rulings shutting down AT’s fanciful motions of alternative suspects, Bryan’s DNA being invalid, wanting to unearth generations of Bryan’s family etc. are the reason that AT had to at last give up and approach the prosecution for a plea deal.

To say that the judge began yesterday with more concern about Steve’s stirring up a mob than the fact that four young people were murdered does not ring true to me.

I ache for all the families but there are some things law-abiding citizens cannot do, and one of them would be to urge the public to swat the judge.

The public has no legal say in this matter unless there had been a trial and then those jurors’ opinions would count.

I think Steve has nowhere to put his very real grief but the judge is not the enemy. I would be okay with BK dying at the hands of a firing squad, but there are many, many steps that would have had to be taken to ensure that outcome.

A jury unanimous on guilty of all charges. The jury coming back to agree on the DP. The vast amount of years that would go by before the DP would be enacted.

My heart truly breaks for Steve and his family, but there are two families that are relieved by the guilty plea, and they matter, too. I think Xana’s family also wanted a trial.

Of course I am not a victim here so my opinions don’t matter, but as anguished as Steve is, the judge is not the bad guy.

There is punishment for Bryan. He may have escaped with his life, but he will be imprisoned until his natural death.

My heart hopes that Steve will find some peace in that, someday.

JMO

 

[Justice101]

Now that the perpetrator (BK) has fully admitted his guilt and will be sentenced soon, justice has been served. The killer will not be able to harm anyone else out in the general public...will be locked away forever. For that, I am satisfied. Sadly, that doesn't bring the victims back.

Justice is my main purpose in following these various cases. Not perfect justice, just some sense of justice that a terrible crime did not go unpunished and the perpetrator was identified and prosecuted. They got the right guy and he will no longer be a threat.

I will be leaving this particular forum and will moving on to other cases, but I wanted to thank all the dedicated and talented posters here for their amazing research, knowledge and insight into this bizarre case. Even though I have some experience in identifying individuals like this, I always learn more and more from people like you. The details revealed by research by many of you in this case in particular to his personality traits, are the most interesting to me and will be added to the volumes of documented research compiled and used for identifying other murder suspects in the future.

You do really make a difference when you contribute like you do.

Thanks again, I really appreciate it. See you on the other side....

 

[Sundog]

Cannot find even 1 image of BKs family attending the events of today. No interviews. No videos. No photos. Nothing. Highly protected. JMOO

Perhaps the defense team met with them before and after court in a side room, etc. It's likely they took care of their privacy, which I am glad is the case.

 

[Sundog]

But in today's hearing the judge listed each of the 4 charges as the premeditated with malice murders.

He intended to kill Xana and Ethan when he saw Xana and then when he saw Ethan he decided/intended to kill him, too. That's premeditation. Even though it was seconds or minutes before he murdered them.

 

[turaj]

Many posters agree with you. LYK also said Judge Hippler could have been gentler. I wondered if the events last Friday in Couer d'Alene had any effect on his reaction. Multiple first responders dead & wounded at the hand of someone with a gun and a grudge. Flags flying at half-mast over the courthouse. In his rage, SG is actively fanning flames on social media, and given recent events, JH was stern in telling SG (IMO he was speaking to him, specifically, without naming names) to cool his jets. I don’t think SG was urging violence, but given the number of highly disturbed people with guns in this country, JH's admonition didn’t seem overly harsh to me. Just my personal opinion.

i think the judge knows SG will up his rhetoric big time until sentencing and judge has a duty to keep law and order and that courthouse has other work to do. He made it pretty clear that calling and emailing etc. is pointless. SG seems to be chasing windmills. I don't recall but does he not have other children. I mean he is just not helping anyone.

 

[sans_soleil]

I know basically nothing about this case and I have no idea where to start. Wikipedia is not providing me with potential motives and news articles also say BK had no obvious motive.