Why Plea Deals, Like the 1 Taken By Bryan Kohberger, Don’t Always Bring Closure

When Steve Goncalves learned his daughter’s killer struck a plea deal, he was beyond livid.

“He hunted and killed these kids, and the state rewarded him,” he tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

His daughter, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was one of four University of Idaho students slaughtered in their sleep by quadruple murderer Bryan Kohberger in November 2022.

Kohberger, now 31, and a former Ph.D. student of criminology at Washington State University, made the eight-mile trek across state lines to Moscow, Idaho, in the middle of the night November 13, 2022. Just after 4 a.m., he slipped into the off-campus house on King Road where Goncalves, Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and two other roommates lived. Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, also spent the night.

One by one, Kohberger brutally stabbed Chapin, Goncalves, Kernodle and Morgan while they slept. He spared the remaining roommates for reasons unknown and fled back to Washington State before anyone knew the students were dead.

“These were cold, calculated, premeditated murders,” Steve believes. “My kid was fighting for her last breath.”

Kohberger was arrested more than a month later on December 30, 2022, while visiting his parents in Pennsylvania. Authorities extradited him on the murder charges to Idaho.

Steve anticipated finally facing his daughter’s murderer at Kohberger’s trial, where he expected to hear the heartbreaking details of her final moments and allow a jury to decide if the ex-doctoral student’s heinous crimes warranted the death penalty. But weeks before opening statements were set to begin in a Boise, Idaho, courtroom in August 2025, Steve said he and some of the other victims’ families were blindsided when they started to hear whispers Latah County prosecutor Bill Thompson was considering offering Kohberger a plea deal.

“I said, ‘Hell no, we don't want any plea deal. My daughter was stabbed 30-something times and she fought for her life,’” Steve recalls of his conversation with the state. He and the Kernodles made it clear they wanted Kohberger to stand trial: “I want the ultimate level of justice.”

On June 30, 2025, in a stunning turn of events, Kohberger accepted a deal and pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings.

As part of the agreement for admitting to one count of burglary and four counts of first-degree murder, Kohberger’s life was spared and execution by firing squad was taken off the table.

Instead, he was handed down 10 years for burglary and four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the slayings. He also agreed to waive his right to an appeal—an arrangement too cushy and lenient for a quadruple murderer, according to Steve.

The shocking move left him without a sense of closure.

“Justice would have been the community putting him on trial and then making the decision on his punishment,” he says, adding he would have preferred a jury determine if the death penalty were an appropriate punishment for Kohberger.

He believes the state of Idaho “failed to protect” his daughter and the three other students killed by Kohberger that November night. “They basically told the world, ‘If you want to be a psychopath and come to our state and kill our kids, we will negotiate with you and protect your life,’” Steve alleges. “That's a failure at the state level.”

University of Washington School of Law professor Mary Fan tells A&E Crime + Investigation it’s common for victims’ loved ones to feel they’ve been denied the sense of validation, accountability and transparency a full trial might have provided.

“Families can have different reactions to plea bargains, and sometimes the reaction is that they want more. They may want to be in court and have the offenses aired,” she explains. “They may want a different sentence or outcome.”

On the other hand, the Chapin and Mogen families indicated they were in support of the plea agreement after it was announced.

The Mogens’ family attorney said they “100%” support the deal, and asked for the public to “respect our belief that this is the best outcome possible for the victims, their families and the state of Idaho,” NBC News reported.

“For some survivors, it can be painful and traumatizing to have to sit through a long trial and see all the heartbreaking evidence, and have to relive a painful experience and testify. For some, that can be harmful and painful, and so some folks may prefer to be spared that; other folks want to have their day in court,” Fan says. “Healing is a highly individual process.”

While prosecutors may consult families while taking into consideration a plea deal—it’s just that, Fan says.

“Consultation is not a veto. It's keeping the family updated, letting them know new developments, but the ultimate decision as to what to offer remains with the prosecutor,” she says. “The prosecutor doesn't need the family's permission or necessarily their blessing.”

As the third anniversary of the murders draws near, Steve says he still has not made peace with the prosecutor’s decision.

“This case was such a f—ing nightmare,” the grieving father admits. “Hopefully he'll [Kohberger] get killed in prison. Somebody will take him out.”

The Goncalves family aren’t the only ones who’ve spoken out against plea deals.

The mother of Boston teen Alissa Farrell, a rising basketball star who was shot and killed by a friend in 2020, slammed the Suffolk County District Attorney's office decision to offer a deal to her daughter’s murderer, Anthony Kelley.

Kelley claimed he thought Alissa was recording him during a gang dispute and shot her to scare her off.

As part of the agreement, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and avoided trial.

"I feel like a sucker! Someone killed my kid, and he's going to get 14 to 17 years. Whose mother would agree to that?" Farrell lambasted prosecutors in an interview with WCVB-TV in February 2025.

Farrell felt the decision "takes away justice” for her daughter. "The plea is like saying, ‘All right, I killed her. Let me admit to killing her just because I know I'm going to get less time,’” she said. “That's what a plea deal is to me."

The daughters of Texas mom Gloria Lofton, who was murdered by accused serial killer Raul Meza Jr. in 2019, also condemned the plea agreement their mother’s killer worked out with Travis County prosecutors.

Meza sexually assaulted and strangled Lofton to death.

He previously served time for the 1982 rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl and was sentenced to 30 years behind bars. He was released after serving 11 years due to laws at the time that gave him credit for good behavior while imprisoned. Lofton also killed his roommate, 80-year-old Jesse Fraga, in 2023.

“This is someone that took multiple lives through multiple decades,” Lofton’s daughter, Christina Fultz, told FOX 7 Austin in September 2024. “He needs to face the community.”

Lofton’s other daughter felt similarly. "When we went in to even discuss the idea of possibly accepting said plea deal, it was more of a, ‘Hey, we’re doing you a courtesy by letting you know. This is what it was. It’s going to be life without parole and life,’” she said. “You kind of wrap your heads around that.”

Fultz added, “We were told, not asked.”