Xana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were all stabbed to death in their off-campus home in November 2022
Credit: AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool; Latah County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office
NEED TO KNOW
- Xana Kernodle, 20, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, and their two friends Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were all found fatally stabbed in their off-campus home on Nov. 13, 2022
- Bryan Kohberger, a former Ph.D. criminology student at Washington State University, pleaded guilty to the murders last year
- This week, Kohberger, now 31, filed a petition to obtain a new court case and reverse his guilty plea
Xana Kernodle’s father thought about stopping by his daughter’s house on the night she was killed.
Jeff Kernodle was at a Washington State University football game in Pullman when he considered driving over to his daughter’s off-campus home in nearby Moscow, Idaho and staying the night, but decided against it.
“I should give Xana a call and maybe I’ll just go over and stay at her house tonight,” he said in Netflix’s three-part docuseries, The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, which premiered on Wednesday, July 29. “And I kind of thought about it and I drank quite a bit that night. Xana probably would get mad if I drove over there, so I didn’t go but I could have gone, and things would have been different. Maybe they would have had a chance, you know? Some of them.”
Xana, 20, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, and their two friends Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, also 21, were found fatally stabbed on the second and third floors of the residence on Nov. 13, 2022.
Credit: Kyle Green-Pool/Getty
“It is just the wrong thing to have to deal with,” said Kernodle. “It is like everybody’s worst nightmare.”
Bryan Kohberger, a former Ph.D. criminology student at Washington State University, was taken into custody more than a month after the killings.
Kernodle said he was shocked to learn that Kohberger was attending the same school as his other daughter Jazzmin.
“When I found out that he lives a little ways away from Jazzmin on [the] WSU campus, I flipped out and wished that Jazzmin wouldn’t have been still staying there at that school … but at least they got him,” he said. “That’s what I was happy about — the only thing.”
Kohberger pleaded guilty to murder in July 2025 in a deal with prosecutors that spared him the death penalty, and was ultimately sentenced to four lifetimes in prison without the possibility of parole.
Credit: Courtesy of Chapin Family; Maddie Mogen/Instagram; Kaylee Goncalves/Instagram; Xana Kernodle/Instagram
“I was surprised they gave him a plea,” said Kernodle. “He shouldn’t have got one … He should have to tell them why he did it. Tell all of us parents why he did it if he was going to get the plea.”
However, on Monday, July 27, Kohberger, now 31, filed a petition for post-conviction relief to reverse his plea claiming he had “ineffective counsel” and was unaware of potential “exculpatory evidence” before agreeing to the deal, PEOPLE previously reported, citing his interview with The New York Times.
Kaylee’s father, Steve Goncalves, said in a statement Monday that he wasn’t surprised by Kohberger’s recent claim of “actual innocence,” referring to the convicted killer as “the mosquito you can’t seem to swat.”
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
Steve added that he was not concerned if Kohberger’s request for a new trial is granted by a judge.
“Regardless of how this turns out, our family is 100% ready … We are confident he will get the death penalty that he escaped by pleading guilty the first time around,” he said.
The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare premiered Wednesday, July 29, on Netflix.
Read the full article here
