(NewsNation) — Trial attorney Mercedes Colwin believes Bryan Kohberger’s acceptance of a plea deal in the deaths of four Idaho college students will likely rob the victims’ families of an explanation.
NewsNation confirmed the prosecution has proposed dropping the death penalty in exchange for Kohberger, 30, pleading guilty to committing the killings and to a burglary charge.
The plea deal has angered the family of one of the four victims. The family of Kaylee Goncalves said on Facebook they were “beyond furious” at the state of Idaho.
Given Kohberger’s acceptance of the deal, the families may never gain an understanding as to why he fatally stabbed the four college students — Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin — at an off-campus house near the University of Idaho in 2022.
“What the allocution is, generally, is, you’ve accepted this plea, you understand that you’re going to be in prison for life. No explanation [is needed],” Colwin told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
“It’s going to be gut-wrenching, because you’re going to hear from these parents whose children were slaughtered, and they’re going to continue to live the nightmare, not knowing why their children were slaughtered,” she said. “All they know is that this man’s life is spared and their children are dead.”
In explanations provided to families, prosecutors said that while they felt “very confident about the strength of the state’s case,” every trial carries inherent risks, including mistrials and hung juries that could force families to endure the process again.
The prosecution team argued that a monthlong jury trial would impose “an emotional, mental, financial and physical toll on the families, friends, roommates of the victims, without any certainty of an outcome.” They said the plea deal would provide “some measure of finality” through Kohberger’s admission of guilt.
“This is the opposite of our will,” Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s father, told NewsNation’s “Banfield” on Monday evening in his first national interview since the plea deal report. “There was no majority (of victims’ families) believing that this was acceptable.”
Kohberger, 30, a former graduate student in criminal justice at Washington State University, faces murder charges for the deaths of Kernodle, Mogen, Goncalves and Chapin, who were killed on Nov. 13, 2022. He had pleaded not guilty.
NewsNation’s Brian Entin contributed to this report.