BOISE (Statesman of Idaho) Bryan Kohberger’s childhood friends, who have followed his murder case from a distance, expressed disbelief that the former Pennsylvania resident accepted to a plea agreement to spare his life after he entered a guilty plea on Wednesday for stabbing four University of Idaho students to death in November 2022.
Casey Arntz, 32, texted the Idaho Statesman on Thursday, saying, “I won’t lie, I kind of spiraled yesterday.” Had such thoughts ever occurred to him before? Did he ever consider killing me or my companions? Because we were friends with him, were we exempt?
Together with Kohberger, Arntz and her younger brother Thomas grew up in the Pocono Mountains, close to the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border, with a select group of friends. After school, they spent time together playing video games and going outside into the densely wooded area.
They said that Kohberger’s involvement with narcotics during high school caused a rift. Later on, Kohberger recovered from his heroin addiction. They hadn’t communicated for years, with the occasional exception, which is why his arrest at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania in December 2022 was so shocking. They claimed that their ungainly, fat adolescent companion had a keen sense of observation and humor to match.
He was now charged with the murders of four students across the nation in a well-publicized inquiry that tragically culminated in their hometown. Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20 years old, and Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21 years old, were the casualties. Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson told the court Wednesday that each was injured numerous times in the attack at an off-campus residence on King Road in Moscow.
Similar feelings were evoked last week after Kohberger, 30, acknowledged repeatedly stabbing the four college students with a big, fixed-blade knife he allegedly purchased on Amazon in March 2022 while residing in Pennsylvania. The accusations stunned them back then.
A few months later, Kohberger moved to Pullman for a Ph.D. program at Washington State University, bringing with him the knife and the leather sheath of the Ka-Bar brand that he had left at the crime scene with his DNA.
In order to escape a potential death sentence at trial, Kohberger entered a guilty plea on Wednesday to four charges of first-degree murder and one count of criminal burglary. He consented to the highest penalties for each, which means he will probably go behind bars for the rest of his life. As stipulated in the deal, Kohberger will not be eligible for parole and will not be able to appeal. On July 23, a sentencing hearing is planned.
Kohberger’s high school guidance counselor, Donna Yozwiak, responded in a startled manner.
In fact, she wrote in an email to the Statesman, “I was hoping that he wasn’t the murderer who killed these four students.” It is my prayer that his family will make it through this terrible hardship and go on with their lives. In addition, I wish for the relatives of the victims to get much-needed closure and recover from this tragedy.
As a society, we might never find out why Bryan Kohberger committed the killings or whether he feels regret for his brutal behavior.
Let the inside deal with him
For Jack Baylis, 31, another member of their group of friends at the time, Kohberger’s admissions in court finally put an end to any doubt about his guilt.
In a phone interview on Thursday, he stated that unless you did it, you wouldn’t enter a guilty plea. You would be battling tooth and nail if you were framed.
Kohberger claimed that his decision to kill people was especially depressing because he had overcome his drug addiction and appeared to have a purpose in life. However, Kohberger’s curiosity in murderers took over, and it’s possible that he wanted to see if he could get away with the ideal crime, according to Baylis.
I believe he did it to feel it, to see what it was like. “To be accurate, you have to experience it yourself to truly understand it,” Baylis said, referring to his desire to publish a thesis about the feelings and motivations of killers. I suppose you have to be a killer in order to understand what a killer thinks.
After two years of court proceedings, Casey Arntz told the Statesman that she felt conflicted about her former friend’s admission that he was responsible for the early morning triple killing, which is arguably the most talked-about crime in Idaho history. She cheered the case’s impending completion but felt bad for the victims’ relatives, particularly those who were angry that the plea deal eliminated the possibility of the death penalty.
“That he could really do something so horrible disgusts me,” she remarked. I completely understand the families’ distress; they were denied justice, and I would feel the same way. But there was never any assurance that he would receive the death sentence. Therefore, I believe that everyone benefited more by him accepting the plea bargain.
He is permanently imprisoned. Let him be handled by the inside.
On Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Boise, Idaho, Bryan Kohberger, who is accused of killing four University of Idaho students, shows up in the Ada County Courthouse. | (Photo by Kyle Green, Pool, AP)
29-year-old Thomas Arntz agreed with his sister. He claimed that Wednesday’s outcome eliminated any possibility that his childhood friend would be found not guilty and escape punishment for murder.
“I am personally relieved that the guilty plea was accepted,” Arntz told the Statesman, adding that he will offer prayers for the relatives of the four victims. I’m so sad Bryan’s parents also have to deal with this. They didn’t deserve this, and I’ve always believed they were good people. And may God grant Bryan’s soul mercy.
He was kind of nonexistent
Wednesday’s guilty pleas felt overdue to Ben Roberts, 33, a former graduate school colleague of Kohberger’s in criminology at WSU.
According to him, the DNA of his old classmate at the crime site, along with the absence of any other suspects, confirmed his own assumptions, despite the fact that the American legal system is based on the idea that an individual is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, he recalls being appalled by Kohberger’s arrest.
“I thought that a plea deal would never be reached, so I’m surprised that it took so long,” Roberts told the Statesman over the phone on Thursday. In general, I thought he would continue to fight it, so it was a wonderful surprise to see him suddenly make this about-face.
In the weeks immediately following the killings, Roberts worked a few desks apart from Kohberger for several weeks in the run-up to the fall 2022 semester. He claimed that while his graduate school classmate did not always show any signs of concern, they also did not always show a lot of emotion around him.
According to Roberts, “I noticed that unless he was purposefully trying to put on an appearance, he was kind of nonexistent, or hollow, if he didn’t have the mask.” You feel as though you are looking into a chasm. Something human should be present, yet it isn’t.
Roberts, a casual hunter, admitted that he had felt awful after shooting and killing a deer in the past. He claimed that he couldn’t even imagine killing someone by stabbing them.
“I simply cannot comprehend the mindset of someone who could do such a thing and then go to class as if nothing had happened,” Roberts remarked. I’m just not familiar with that.
Roberts claimed not to have watched the change-of-plea hearing on Wednesday. Even though it has been hard to avoid Kohberger’s face and voice during the last two years, he said he didn’t want to see them again. He was relieved that the well-known case had finally ended without a protracted trial that lasted months.
First of all, I told Roberts that it was about damned time the poor thing was laid to rest.
We will heal
For now, the court s gag order in the closely watched case, which restricts attorneys and their agents including members of law enforcement for the state is still in effect. During sentencing, Thompson requested that it stay that way, and Kohberger’s defense did not object.
The University of Idaho released a statement this week after word broke that Kohberger planned to change his plea to guilty in the shocking crime.
We keep the families of the victims in our hearts as each deals with this outcome in their own way, the state s namesake university wrote in the statement. We will never forget the four incredible lives taken on King Road, they are forever Vandals and each holds a place in our Vandal Family. Since that fateful day in November 2022 our university has become stronger, more intent on its purpose and more supportive of each other. We shall recover even though we won’t forget.
Similarly, Moscow Mayor Art Bettge, in office in 2022 when the murders took place and upended the community, shared optimism that the city s residents might finally be freed from the clutches of the tragic incident.
I recognize and understand that we all desire justice for the victims and their families, he said in an emailed statement. My heart, and that of our entire community, go out to the families of the victims. It is my hope that this resolution can begin to provide a small measure of closure for the families and our community. What is clear is that no matter what form justice would have taken, nothing will bring back Ethan, Madison, Xana, and Kaylee, and our world will be forever darkened because of it.
WSU s comment after Kohberger s hearing was more succinct. A Statesman request to speak with professors in its criminal justice and criminology department who knew and taught Kohberger, including the semester he killed the U of I students, was again declined.
Our hearts go out to the families, friends and colleagues impacted, WSU s statement read. We do not have anything to add at this time.
After Wednesday s hearing, one main question remains for everyone, including the victims families: Why? Why did Bryan Kohberger choose to take these four young lives, thereby essentially also ending his own, to some degree?
That question was on the mind of Casey Arntz, Kohberger s Pennsylvania friend thrust into the spotlight and forced to deal with her own form of grief over the past two-plus years.
I wasn t as close to him as my brother or my other friends, but we still hung out and talked a lot, she said. He was in my parents house. I was alone with him.
I guess the one thing I would say to him is what everyone wants to say to him: Why would you do this? Why would you take the innocent lives of four beautiful people? I can t even begin to imagine what he would say. How does someone justify their actions when they re so morbid?
