A man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November chose to stand silent when asked to enter a plea in court. In response, a judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Bryan Kohberger, 28, was indicted for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20, on November 13. He is also facing burglary charges for allegedly breaking into someone’s home near the UI campus in Moscow, Idaho.
In court on Monday, a judge read through the charges one by one and asked Kohberger if he understood them. Kohberger said “yes” to all of them. Then, District Court Judge John Judge in Latah County asked if he was ready to enter a plea.
“Your honor, we will be standing silent,” Kohberger’s lawyer Anne Taylor said, per a video shared by CNN. Standing silent is not an admission of guilt, it is Kohberger using his constitutional right to remain silent per the fifth amendment. In cases where it’s utilized, it is common practice for the judge to enter a not-guilty plea.
A trial is set for October 2, and the state has 60 days to notify Kohberger as to whether it will seek the death penalty or not. The plea is the latest twist in a grisly murder case where four students were killed in their sleep. According to police, the four were stabbed to death multiple times.
After police discovered the brutal killings, they honed in on Kohberger as a suspect after seeing a white Hyundai Elantra near the crime scene in security footage. They put out a notice for Law Enforcement to be on the lookout for the vehicle, and a few days later, it was found at Washington State University.
Police found that Kohberger’s description on his driver’s license matched a description of the killer, given by the lone surviving roommate in the house. There is no motive released yet, and police have not released just what connection Kohberger, a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, has to the victims.
According to a former student of Kohberger’s — in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett — Kohberger started acting unusually right after the killings.
“Definitely around then, he started grading everybody just 100s. Pretty much if you turned something in, you were getting high marks,” Hayden Stinchfield said. “He stopped leaving notes. He seemed preoccupied. The couple times that he did come after, or around that time period, he had a little more facial hair, stubble, less well-kept. He was a little quieter.”
A tan leather knife sheath found at the crime scene matched DNA recovered from Kohberger’s family home. After the Elantra was seized, it was dismantled for evidence. Also recovered were masks, gloves, dark shoes, dark clothes, a cell phone, and laptops.