The University of Idaho murders case cost over $8 million in public money, with at least $5.5 million being spent on convicted killer Bryan Kohberger’s defense, according to a report.
The Idaho Statesman reported the estimated expenditure, based on its own analysis, on Friday, June 26.
According to the newspaper, the large majority of taxpayer dollars were spent on Kohberger’s defense, including attorneys, investigators and experts as the case prepared to go to trial in August 2025, reporter Kevin Fixler told NewsNation in an interview published on Wednesday, July 1.
“Those are for the attorneys themselves, but also for all the expert witnesses and the investigators and all the work that was done as they were building toward trial, which obviously didn’t happen,” Fixler said.
Before the case could go to trial, Kohberger, 31, pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in July 2025 as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
The Washington State UniversityP hD criminology student admitted to killing University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022.
Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole. He is currently serving his sentence at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, Idaho.
As well as the estimated $5.5 million spent on Kohberger’s defense, the Idaho Statesman reported that over $1.7 million in public money covered costs incurred by the University of Idaho following the murders. The newspaper said that more than $1 million was spent on heightened campus security in the months after the killings.
In June, People reported that medical examiner Dr. Veena Singh had planned to testify for the prosecution had the case gone to trial, speaking to the severity of the four students’ injuries on the night they were killed.
According to court documents obtained by the outlet, Singh found that Goncalves, Kernodle and Mogen “endured a high degree of pain and/or suffering prior to their deaths as a result of the injuries.”
Chapin, meanwhile, “experienced a high degree of pain and/or suffering prior to his death as a result of the injuries inflicted but to a lesser degree than the other decedents.”
In a June interview with the Daily Mail, Goncalves’ mother, Kristi Goncalves, said she is still trying to understand why Kohberger committed the murders. (To date, the convicted killer has not offered a motive for his crimes.)
“I would ask him, ‘Why? Please, please, please. Do you not think that our family has been through enough?’” Kristi Goncalves said. “Do you not think what you did to our daughter — when we found out that you stabbed her 38 times with a seven-inch KaBar military model knife, 24 times to her face, to her head, 11 times to her chest and neck, and three defensive wounds as she sat up in that bed, and she fought for her life? … Can you just tell me why? I’m a mother, and you have a mother, too. Can you please just tell me why?”
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