Bryan Kohberger, the man convicted of killing four University of Idaho students in 2022, is seeking to abandon his guilty plea and wants his day in court.<\/p>\n
Kohberger, who pleaded guilty in July 2025 to avoid a quadruple murder trial and is serving four life sentences, filed a \u201cpetition for post conviction relief\u201d Monday in the Ada County District Court in Idaho. <\/p>\n
A petition for post-conviction relief is a way to challenge a conviction outside the appeals process. The court record indicates that Kohberger is representing himself.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear on what grounds he was seeking the petition.<\/p>\n
But in an interview with The New York Times<\/a>, Kohberger claimed he is innocent and was misled into confessing to the murders.<\/p>\n \u201cMy actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,\u201d he said in a statement to the newspaper Sunday night. <\/p>\n Dismissing the state investigators\u2019 account of what happened as a \u201cmyopic narrative\u201d and a \u201cwork of fiction,\u201d Kohberger said in the statement that \u201cits faulty premises were never challenged at trial.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCircumnavigated by a broken plea, the trial never provided the public the clarity conducive to closure, and justice shall remain abjectly miscarried unless that plea is withdrawn,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n Kohberger admitted last year to killing the four students \u2014 <\/a>Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 \u2014 at an off-campus house on Nov. 13, 2022. <\/p>\n A doctoral student in criminal justice at the time of the murders, Kohberger took a plea deal and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences<\/a> for four counts of first-degree murder and 10 years in prison for a burglary charge.<\/p>\n While he told a judge that he broke into the off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, and killed four of the six students there, most of them as they slept, he has never said what motivated the killings.<\/p>\n Before the filing, Kohberger had not made any public statements suggesting he might change his plea. <\/p>\n Idaho Attorney General Ra\u00fal Labrador said his office \u201cstands ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out.\u201d<\/p>\n