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.
Kohberger, who pleaded guilty in July 2025 to avoid a quadruple murder trial and is serving four life sentences, filed a “petition for post conviction relief” Monday in the Ada County District Court in Idaho.
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.
Kohberger, in court documents obtained by NBC News, stated that he received “ineffective” counsel from his defense lawyers and that he was “convinced to falsely confess” to a crime he says he did not commit.
Kohberger wrote that he was convinced that actual guilt was not an important factor in considering the plea acceptance.
He wrote that he was “advised to lie” and told he would gain a “legal victory” by entering a “false plea.”
Kohberger’s lawyers did not immediately respond Mondayto requests for comment.
The documents echo claims Kohberger made earlier in an interview with The New York Times in which he said he is innocent and had been misled into confessing to the murders.
“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” he said in a statement to the newspaper Sunday night.
Dismissing the state investigators’ account of what happened as a “myopic narrative” and a “work of fiction,” Kohberger said in the statement that “its faulty premises were never challenged at trial.”
“Circumnavigated 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provided the public the clarity conducive to closure, and justice shall remain abjectly miscarried unless that plea is withdrawn,” the statement said.
Kohberger admitted last year to killing the four students — Madison Mogen, 21; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 — at an off-campus house on Nov. 13, 2022.
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 for four counts of first-degree murder and 10 years in prison for a burglary charge.
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.
Before the filing, Kohberger had not made any public statements suggesting he might change his plea.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said his office “stands ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure justice is fully carried out.”
“My heart goes out to the families of Madison, Kaylee, Xana, and Ethan, who have already endured unimaginable loss and now must face today’s deeply painful news,” he posted on X.
The Goncalves family referred to Kohberger in a statement as “the mosquito you just can’t seem to swat” and criticized The New York Times for providing him with a platform.
“The piece had little else to offer beyond a guilty man once again claiming he is innocent,” it said.
The Goncalves family said they wanted Kohberger to face trial — and a possible death penalty. But Kohberger opted to plead guilty.
“He wants another chance to roll the dice,” the family said in the statement. “The defendant will get another day in court—a welcome break from solitary confinement: a ride, perhaps different food, photos taken, and the spotlight once again fixed on him and his supposed ‘innocence’.”
