LiveUpdated July 23, 2025, 11:01 a.m. ETIt’s unclear if Bryan Kohberger, who accepted a guilty plea and will be sentenced to life in prison, will address the question everyone wants to know: Why did he do it?ImageMr. Kohberger agreed to accept four consecutive life sentences as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.Credit...Kyle Green/Associated Press PinnedUpdated July 23, 2025, 11:01 a.m. ETBryan Kohberger, a former Ph.D. student in criminology who pleaded guilty in the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students, will hear from the victims’ families in court for the first time on Wednesday as a judge considers his sentence for the crimes.Mr. Kohberger, 30, has already agreed to accept four consecutive life sentences as part of a plea deal that allows him to avoid the death penalty. But many questions remain unanswered, including one that has vexed investigators and families for years: What was the motive?Relatives of the students will have a chance to address the court in Boise, Idaho, the small college town where fear spread after the murders early on Nov. 13, 2022. In a hearing on July 2, Mr. Kohberger took full responsibility for all four murders, but said nothing about how or why they occurred.It was not clear whether he planned to make a statement during his sentencing, which was schedule to start at 9 a.m. Mountain time but faced a delay as people poured into the courtroom.Here’s what to know:The killer: Mr. Kohberger was a student at nearby Washington State University but was not identified as a suspect until several weeks later, after investigators used DNA found on a knife sheath to build a genetic family tree that led them to him. Questions immediately arose about his training in criminology; he had researched high-profile murders under the teaching of an expert on serial killers.The victims: Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, had spent a typical Saturday night out before returning to the three-story house in Moscow, Idaho, that several of the students shared. Prosecutors have said Mr. Kohberger had no known relationship to the victims.The survivors: Two roommates survived the night. Text messages show that they discussed a masked person one of them had briefly seen inside the home, but neither seemed aware that something so horrific had happened. A 911 call was made more than seven hours later after several additional friends gathered at the home.Explanations wanted: Some family members have expressed outrage that prosecutors agreed to drop the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. Even President Trump urged the judge in the case to press for answers. “I hope the Judge makes Kohberger, at a minimum, explain why he did these horrible murders,” Mr. Trump posted on social media. “There are no explanations, there is no NOTHING.”The evidence: Other evidence tying Mr. Kohberger to the killings includes records showing that he had purchased a Ka-Bar knife and a sheath a few months earlier. Surveillance footage showed a white car similar to his circling the students’ house around the time of the killings. Mr. Kohberger provided only a vague alibi, saying he had been merely driving in the area at the time.July 23, 2025, 10:50 a.m. ETMike BakerReporting from the courthouse in BoiseBryan Kohberger’s sentencing hearing is set to begin at 9 a.m. Mountain time. More than 100 journalists, true-crime influencers and other members of the public are waiting outside the courtroom, hoping to attend the hearing in person.July 23, 2025, 10:40 a.m. ETThe four students were stabbed to death in their house.Credit...Ted S. Warren/Associated PressThe four University of Idaho students killed by Bryan Kohberger were friends who had gone to bed late, after a typical college Saturday night.Earlier that day, the group had donned University of Idaho Vandals apparel to support the football team. One of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, had posted on Instagram a picture that captured all of them together: the four friends who would be killed hours later and two roommates who survived.“one lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday,” Ms. Goncalves wrote.Here is a closer look at the victims:Kaylee Goncalves:Ms. Goncalves had planned to move after graduation to Austin, Texas, with one of her close friends. The friend, Jordyn Quesnell, said Ms. Goncalves had secured a position with a marketing firm and was excited to explore more of the country.“We wanted that adventure,” Ms. Quesnell said. “I would be like, ‘Let’s go do this,’ and she’d be like, ‘Down!’”Ms. Goncalves and another victim, Madison Mogen, had grown up together in northern Idaho, becoming best friends. In the photos Ms. Goncalves posted in the hours before the killings, Ms. Mogen is sitting atop Ms. Goncalves’s shoulders.Alivea Goncalves, Ms. Goncalves’s older sister, said the two of them had been bridesmaids in her wedding.Madison Mogen:Ms. Mogen, who went by Maddie, was a senior from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who was majoring in marketing. Karen and Scott Laramie, her mother and stepfather, said in a statement that Ms. Mogen was a person “full of purpose and promise.”Ms. Mogen’s boyfriend, Jake Schriger, said she had talked about wanting to explore other parts of the world.Ms. Mogen’s father, Ben Mogen, said he did not believe that anyone who had a personal relationship with Ms. Mogen or her friends would want to kill them.“If you knew them, then you loved them,” he said.Ethan Chapin:Mr. Chapin, from Conway, Wash., was one of a set of triplets. The day before the killings, he had spent much of his time with his siblings, who were also students at the university.“My kids are very thankful that it was time well spent with him,” said his mother, Stacy Chapin. “He was literally the life of the party. He made everybody laugh. He was just the kindest person.”Mr. Chapin played basketball in high school and was majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management. He had worked on a tulip farm in Washington State, and his family now raises scholarship money in part by selling a blend of flowers called “Ethan’s Smile.”He had been dating one of the other victims, Xana Kernodle.Xana Kernodle:Ms. Kernodle grew up in Idaho but had also lived in Arizona.Her sister, Jazzmin Kernodle, wrote in a tribute that she was her “other half.” She remembered her as someone who worked hard, brought humor to those around her and wanted to live life to the fullest.“Having the privilege to see my baby sister grow into someone so beautiful was one of the best gifts,” she said.Ms. Kernodle’s father, Jeff, said her absence had left a hole in his life.“Xana is missed every single day,” he said.July 23, 2025, 10:08 a.m. ETMike BakerReporting from the courthouse in BoiseInvestigators at the apartment where four University of Idaho students were found dead near the campus in Moscow in 2022.Credit...Rajah Bose for The New York TimesAfter four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home, investigators were mystified, unable to answer who would want to kill the group of friends, or why.But even the arrest and conviction of Bryan Kohberger, a student at a nearby university who has admitted to the crimes, has not resolved the mystery of motive. Prosecutors have not detailed a theory or even a connection between Mr. Kohberger and the victims. And Mr. Kohberger has not offered any explanation.Some family members have expressed frustration that the plea deal offered to Mr. Kohberger this month did not require him to explain his crimes. Earlier this week, President Trump was among those who expressed a similar sentiment, as he called on the judge in the case to demand an explanation from Mr. Kohberger.Dr. Katherine Ramsland, a professor of forensic psychology who has written extensively about high-profile murderers, and who was one of Mr. Kohberger’s professors at DeSales University, said that she did not know what Mr. Kohberger’s motive might be. She said that when he was arrested in December of 2022, she doubted that he was really the culprit.“I thought, ‘They have to have this wrong,’” Dr. Ramsland said in an interview. “This has to be wrong. It’s not the Bryan Kohberger that I know.”Prosecutors have said that when Mr. Kohberger entered the large house where the deaths occurred, he went up to the third floor and first killed Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves. Coming down to the second floor, they said, he then encountered Xana Kernodle, killing her and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin.Bill Thompson, the Latah County prosecutor, told the court earlier this month that “there is no evidence there was any sexual component or sexual assault on any of the victims.”Prosecutors have also not detailed any evidence of Mr. Kohberger having met any of the victims in person, or having interacted with them on social media, though there has been widespread speculation about the possibility of such encounters.Nor have they discussed any reason that Ms. Mogen and Ms. Goncalves — who were all the way at the top of the house — appear to have been attacked first.