Bryan Kohberger's Sad Life in Solitary Confinement Revealed

Bryan Kohberger isn’t talking to many people these days. Then again, when you’re serving four life sentences for murder, there aren’t many people lining up to chat.

The 30-year-old, convicted for the 2022 killings of four University of Idaho students, has been moved to solitary confinement at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution. That means a single-person cell, a shower every other day, and one hour of outdoor recreation. Everything else happens inside those four walls.

Prison officials say inmates in J Block, where he’s housed, can still buy snacks from the commissary, use the JPay system to send messages, and attend religious services. But they do it alone. Kohberger is now one of 128 inmates in that block, a mix of long-term restrictive housing, protective custody, death row, and general population.

If the name Chad Daybell rings a bell, he’s in the same facility. Daybell is on death row for killing his first wife and two stepchildren with his wife, Lori Vallow. Vallow herself was convicted in 2023 for murdering her kids and found guilty earlier this year for killing her fourth husband.

The prison holds 535 of Idaho’s “volatile male residents” inside a double fence topped with razor wire, with an electronic detection system in case anyone thinks they can climb it.

Life Before Solitary

Kohberger remained incarcerated at the Latah County Jail, virtually three hundred miles away, until sentencing. He also had some strange behaviors documented by a fellow inmate; he would wash his hands hundreds of times a day, shower for 45 minutes, and he would be pacing all night long instead of sleeping. He was “very bright, very courteous”, but would “lose his temper readily”.

He remained tight-lipped about his own, but frequently inquired about others’. It is a disturbing kind of curiosity, given what he was alleged to have done.

The Night of the Murders

On November 12, 2022, Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen went to a local bar, while Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, went to a fraternity party. By 2 a.m., all four were back at the three-story rental house near campus.

Goncalves, 21, was weeks from graduating and had a job lined up in Austin. Mogen, also 21, was planning a move to Boise after graduation. Kernodle, 20, was a marketing major. Chapin, 20, studied recreation and tourism.

Two other roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were home during the attack. Court documents say Mortensen saw a masked man in the house early that morning and texted Funke when no one responded. By late morning, a 911 call reported Kernodle as unresponsive. Police found all four victims inside.

How Police Found Him

Kohberger was a criminology PhD student at Washington State University. DNA on a knife sheath at the scene didn’t match anyone in FBI databases. Investigators used public genealogy websites to narrow suspects, then collected DNA from his parents’ trash. It matched the sheath.

He was arrested in Pennsylvania on December 30, 2022, and extradited to Idaho days later.

His Defense and the Trial That Never Happened

Defense attorneys argued that executing Kohberger would be unconstitutional because he has autism spectrum disorder, saying it affects his behavior, planning, and emotional understanding.

Originally, his trial was set for August 2025 in Ada County after a venue change. But it never happened. On June 30, 2025, Kohberger took a plea deal, admitting guilt to four counts of murder and one count of burglary. The death penalty came off the table.

On July 2, he confirmed in court that he killed the victims “willingly, unlawfully, deliberately and with premeditation and malice.” Families of Kaylee Goncalves and Xana Kernodle condemned the deal.

The Sentence

On July 23, Judge Steven Hippler sentenced him to four consecutive life terms without parole, plus 10 years for burglary, along with $50,000 fines for each murder count and a $5,000 payment to each victim’s family.

Now, his days look the same. Twenty-three hours in a cell, one hour in a yard, a shower every other day. If you think that sounds like a long, slow existence, you’d be right. But for many, that’s the point.