In November 2022, four University of Idaho students went to sleep in their house on King Road and never woke up. Bryan Kohberger was a PhD student in criminology who thought he understood how to commit the perfect crime. He was wrong about the perfect part, but he was devastatingly effective at the crime itself. Today we're talking about what happened that night, how the investigation unfolded, and why Kohberger suddenly decided to plead guilty after maintaining his innocence for years. But first, let's talk about who Xana, Ethan, Maddie, and Kaylee actually were before they became headlines.

When Four Lives Were Lost on King Road

November 2022 started like any other month in Moscow, Idaho. You know the type of college town where everyone knows everyone, where the biggest drama usually involves who's dating who or which fraternity threw the best party last weekend. Then came that phone call to the police department that changed everything.

At 1122 King Road, four University of Idaho students had been murdered in their sleep.

The Victims: More Than Headlines

Let's talk about who these people actually were, because they deserve better than becoming a true crime statistic.

Xana Kernodle was twenty years old and had that rare combination of being both academically driven and socially connected. She was studying marketing at the university while maintaining her spot on the gymnastics team and working part-time at a local restaurant. Her Pi Beta Phi sorority sisters knew her as someone who could balance a full course load, athletic commitments, and still show up for her friends when they needed her.

Her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was also twenty and represented everything you'd expect from an Idaho outdoor enthusiast. The eldest of triplets, he'd come to Moscow to study recreation, sport and tourism management after spending summers working at local resorts. He was a Sigma Chi brother who genuinely preferred being on the water or hitting the slopes over sitting in lecture halls. Ethan had become an unofficial roommate at King Road because that's where Xana was, and where Xana was, that's where Ethan wanted to be.

The house had this constant buzz of activity. Someone was always coming or going, friends dropping by, or people stopping over to see Murphy, the golden retriever who belonged to Kaylee Goncalves.

Kaylee was twenty-one and originally from California, but she'd made Idaho her home while pursuing her degree in elementary education. She'd brought two important things with her from California: Murphy and her best friend Madison Mogen.

These two had the kind of friendship that makes other people slightly jealous. They'd literally argued with their parents about attending the same high school together, and now here they were, enrolled at the same university, living in the same house, and planning their futures in the same general direction.

Madison, who went by Maddie, was also studying marketing and was a year ahead of Xana in the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She was the type of student who made the dean's list every semester while working part-time and still maintaining an active social life. Other students looked up to her, which tells you something about the kind of person she was.

The Night Everything Changed

On the evening of November 12th, 2022, all six people living at the King Road house had been out at various parties around town. Everyone had been drinking, everyone was in good spirits, and everyone came home expecting to sleep off a typical Saturday night.

Four of them would never wake up.

Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, the other two roommates, were sleeping in the lower level bedrooms when Bryan Kohberger decided to make his entrance. They would be the only survivors of what happened next.

Understanding the Perpetrator

Bryan Kohberger was twenty-eight years old and, on paper, seemed like someone who had his life together. He'd grown up in Pennsylvania, earned his bachelor's degree in psychology, then went on to get his master's in criminal justice from DeSales University. At the time of the murders, he was pursuing his PhD in criminology at Washington State University.

But here's where the facade started cracking.

Bryan had applied to be a graduate researcher with the Pullman, Washington Police Department and been rejected. Instead, he'd taken a position as a teaching assistant, which he seemed to use primarily as a way to interact with female students who were essentially captive audiences.

The people who knew Bryan described him as someone who made social situations uncomfortable. He was the guy who sat alone at parties, the one people made polite conversation with before finding excuses to leave. Women, in particular, seemed to sense something off about him.

The owners of Seven Sirens Brewing Company had actually banned him from their establishment after multiple incidents where he'd been inappropriate with female employees. Owner Jordan Serulneck recalled having to confront Bryan about his behavior: "I wanted to talk to you real quick and make sure that you're going to be respectful this time, and we're not going to have any issues."

Bryan's response was predictable denial: "I don't know what you're talking about. You totally have me confused."

He never returned to that bar.

As a teaching assistant, Bryan would critique female students' spelling and grammar, offer unsolicited advice about how they could improve themselves, and generally make classroom interactions uncomfortable. One student was so put off by his behavior that she walked out of class entirely.

This was the man who decided he was going to commit what he believed would be the perfect crime.

The Attack on King Road

Bryan entered the house through a back sliding door that, due to the way the house was built into a hill, put him on the second floor of the structure. Below him were Bethany and Dylan's bedrooms. On his level were Xana and Ethan's room. Above him were Maddie and Kaylee.

The sequence of events, based on evidence and investigation, appears to have started with Xana and Ethan's room. Bryan attacked Ethan first, stabbing him while he slept. Xana woke up during the attack and attempted to escape. She was found in the middle of her bedroom floor, and the defensive wounds on her hands indicated she fought for her life.

From there, Bryan went upstairs to where Maddie and Kaylee were sleeping in the same bed. He killed them both, but for reasons that may never be fully understood, he focused particularly brutal attention on Kaylee, stabbing her more than thirty times and causing facial injuries with what investigators believe was a second weapon.

Then he disappeared into the woods behind the house, leaving tracks in the snow that investigators would later find.

The Evidence Trail

Here's what's fascinating about this case from an investigative standpoint: Bryan Kohberger had no apparent connection to his victims. They didn't know him, he didn't know them beyond following some of them on Instagram. There should have been no trail leading back to him.

Except Bryan made mistakes.

The murder weapons were never recovered, but he left behind the sheath to the KA-BAR knife he'd used, complete with his DNA. Investigators traced the purchase of this knife to a gift card transaction on Amazon that led directly back to him.

Multiple witnesses had seen a car matching Bryan's white Hyundai Elantra driving erratically in and around the area throughout the night. Law enforcement had already begun tracking down the owner of this vehicle.

But here's the move that really sealed his fate: a few hours after committing the murders, Bryan returned to King Road. While he was there, his mother called him, and he answered the phone. This placed him at the scene at a time when there was absolutely no innocent reason for him to be there.

The Investigation and Arrest

The murders sent shockwaves through the University of Idaho community and beyond. Parents pulled their children out of school, and an estimated 40% of students stopped attending classes. The fear was palpable and justified.

Meanwhile, Bryan's family had become concerned about his increasingly erratic behavior. His father flew from Pennsylvania to Idaho to drive Bryan back home for the holidays, unaware that his son's car matched the description of the vehicle police were seeking.

During that cross-country drive, Bryan's father sat in the passenger seat, completely unaware that he was traveling with a quadruple murderer.

Once they reached Pennsylvania, Bryan's behavior became even more concerning. His sister noticed him washing his car while wearing latex gloves and separating his garbage to dispose of it in neighbors' bins rather than his family's trash.

His parents were apparently too frightened of what they might discover to confront him directly about this behavior.

But investigators were able to collect evidence from the Kohberger family's trash, which provided the DNA match they needed. This evidence confirmed that the person who had killed the four students in Idaho was directly related to Bryan's father, which was sufficient for an arrest warrant.

The Legal Resolution

Bryan maintained his innocence throughout his arrest and the preliminary stages of his case. However, in July 2025, facing the possibility of the death penalty, he suddenly changed his plea to guilty for all charges related to the murders of Maddie, Kaylee, Xana, and Ethan.

Bryan Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, ensuring he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The Families' Response

During the sentencing, Kaylee's older sister Alivea delivered a victim impact statement that perfectly captured the senselessness of these murders:

"You are not profound but pathetic. You felt powerful lurking in the shadows because no one would pay you attention. There is a name for your condition, your inflated ego wouldn't let you see it: wannabe. You worked so hard to prove that you were dangerous, but real control doesn't have to prove itself. The truth is the scariest thing about you is how painfully average you turned out to be. You want the truth? Here's the one you'll hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your ass."

The Lasting Impact

This case represents more than another true crime story. It's a reminder that evil can be devastatingly ordinary, that people can harbor dangerous obsessions while maintaining seemingly normal lives, and that four promising young people lost their futures because one man decided his twisted fantasies were more important than human life.

The University of Idaho community, the families of the victims, and everyone who followed this case have been forever changed by what happened on King Road. While Bryan Kohberger will spend his life in prison, the ripple effects of his actions will continue to impact countless people for years to come.

The most important thing to remember is that Xana, Ethan, Maddie, and Kaylee were real people with real dreams, relationships, and futures ahead of them. They deserved better than becoming victims of someone else's delusions, and they deserve to be remembered for who they were, not how they died.