The University of Idaho murder case took a shocking turn this week. On Monday we learned Bryan Kohberger‘s team had done a 360 — and he reached out to agree to a last-minute plea deal rather than face trial.
On the one hand it should be good news for the families of the victims, right? Because it means the whole thing is coming to an end without a messy trial. But so far we’ve mostly heard the opposite. The families of both Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle spoke out strongly against the decision.
Xana’s aunt Kim Kernodle blasted the prosecution for how they handled everything. For instance she’s calling BS on their claim they just wanted to “spare the families” — because they already heard the graphic details of the crime. What they wanted was to see Kohberger found guilty in court.
The Goncalves family is upset this plea deal means the death penalty is off the table. Kohberger will be getting “four consecutive (back-to-back) life sentences on the four murder counts” instead, per the DA’s letter to families. But Kaylee’s family want the death penalty — and believe that’s where a trial was headed. They said in a fiery statement through their attorney that prosecutors “should be ashamed” the two-year ordeal they’ve been put through is ending in such a “secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families on the plea’s details.”
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But not all the families feel the same. Maddie Mogen‘s father told CBS News their family is relieved this will be over so soon:
“We can actually put this behind us and not have these future dates and future things that we don’t want to have to be at, that we shouldn’t have to be at, that have to do with this terrible person. We get to just think about the rest of lives and have to try and figure out how to do it without Maddie and the rest of the kids.”
Not only that, he’s glad Kohberger won’t be getting the death penalty — because to his way of thinking, that’s too easy:
“If you get that quick death sentence, you don’t have to spend decades thinking about how terrible you made the world.”
Interesting. Obviously capital punishment is a hugely controversial topic, but rarely do we see it cause such a rift with victims of the same crime.
The Goncalves family is not relieved at all. And they aren’t ready to put anything behind them. In a new statement to social media on Tuesday, they “will not stop fighting for the life that was stolen unjustly”:
“We stand strong that it is not over until a plea is accepted. At a bare minimum, please – require a full confession, full accountability, location of the murder weapon, confirmation the defendant acted alone, & the true facts of what happened that night.”
We definitely can all agree on that! No plea deal without a full confession. That’s only fair for everyone who needs that closure of getting everything that would have come out in a trial.
What do YOU think of the families’ mixed feelings?
[Image via Ada County Sheriff’s Office/Maddie Mogen/Instagram.]
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