Bryan Kohberger’s ‘Passionate’ Prison Calls Amid New Bid for Freedom

When Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty in an Idaho courtroom in July 2025 to killing four University of Idaho students, their families believed the long ordeal had finally come to an end.

There would be no drawn-out trial, no crime-scene photographs shown to a jury and no possibility that he might be acquitted.

But one question would remain unanswered: why did he do it?

As part of the plea agreement, the former criminology PhD student accepted four life sentences without parole, while never being required to explain his motive.

Now, just over a year later, the 31-year-old has brought a Manhattan attorney onto his legal team in an effort to withdraw the guilty plea and obtain a trial—an action that could reopen wounds for families only beginning to recover.

Jason Goldman, a 36-year-old former Brooklyn prosecutor who now works as a defense attorney, joined Kohberger’s post-conviction team in August.

Goldman is also working to overturn the conviction of Rust movie armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was imprisoned after the fatal 2024 shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, Goldman said he accepted Kohberger’s case—his highest-profile assignment—not because of the publicity, but because he believes fundamental legal principles are at stake.

‘It’s not about me,’ he said. ‘I want to make sure the system works correctly, and that’s whether it’s Bryan Kohberger or John Smith on the street.’

Goldman said he has not discussed Kohberger’s innocence or the precise events of November 13, 2022, with his client. That was the night Kohberger admitted entering a student residence in Moscow, Idaho, and fatally stabbing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20.

Instead, the attorney is concentrating on what he calls ‘significant constitutional issues’ involving the plea agreement and whether Kohberger was improperly persuaded or misled into confessing to the killings.

‘We have such a large mountain to climb,’ Goldman said, recognizing how uncommon it is for defendants to succeed in post-conviction challenges. ‘We’re kind of in the first inning of case… we’re only at the very beginning.’

Even if the challenge succeeds, Goldman said a trial could still be ‘years away.’

‘We’re at the phase in a case that is not that juicy. This is a constitutional, potentially Supreme Court, legally thorny issue.’

Kohberger also understands that withdrawing his plea could expose him to the death penalty if prosecutors take the case to trial, Goldman said.

The attorney and Kohberger have yet to meet face to face. However, Goldman speaks with him regularly by phone from the maximum-security Idaho prison where he is serving four life sentences.

‘Sometimes a long time can go by where I don’t need anything from the client. And then there’s other times where day to day I’m speaking with a client because I need them to answer certain things for me and point me in certain directions.’

Goldman said he expects to visit Kohberger ‘at some point when it’s appropriate’—probably next year, as the appeal process begins moving through the courts.

On the convicted killer’s current state of mind, he said: ‘Conditions are tough, no matter what jail you’re in. I’m sure that [Kohberger’s] coping in a very difficult way… sleeping on a metal bed. Every day is difficult.’

Goldman explained that he ends up playing counselor to his clients during their phone conversations.

‘We act as a therapist and it weighs heavily on us,’ he said. ‘A lot of times I don’t delve into the personal mindset of someone. I know the answer. The answer is that it sucks, and they don’t want to be there.’

Goldman suggested Kohberger, with his background in criminology, was ‘passionate’ about his case and wanted to be involved.

‘I love when clients are passionate about their own case. It shows me that they care, as opposed to them just being a product of the system or this is normal for them,’ he said, later adding: ‘And he knows how it works. He knows how the system works.’ 

The brutal murders in Moscow, a college town that had gone seven years without a homicide, gripped the country for weeks as investigators struggled to identify the killer.

Kohberger’s guilty plea brought relief to the community but also fueled mystery and speculation about the murders, as investigators never established a motive or any connection between the killer and the victims.

Goldman suggested that the plea deal had not only let down Kohberger, but the public too.

‘There was no evidence that was presented. There was no motive presented. There was no cross examination that took place,’ he said. ‘Where’s the “why”? The “why” is always important.’

He added: ‘I wish every [defendant] exercised their right to be able to go to trial.’

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On why Kohberger would admit to the crimes if he truly believed in his innocence, Goldman drew on recent developments.

‘You just saw a case in Tennessee where they tried to execute somebody and they injected her and… it didn’t work,’ he said, referring to Christa Pike, a convicted killer who survived a botched lethal injection earlier this month.

‘Why would someone take a guilty plea if they’re not guilty? Well, here’s a great example. He [Kohberger] got off of death row, so now he doesn’t have to deal with what just happened in Tennessee or doesn’t have to deal with a firing squad on national television like was going to happen in Texas recently.

‘That’s example number one of how this system coerces and forces and persuades people into pleading guilty.’

He added: ‘Not saying that happened or didn’t happen in this situation, but I see it all the time.’

While Kohberger has since claimed his ‘absolute innocence,’ Goldman said his guilt was not something the pair had discussed.

‘We have rarely spoken about anything other than his plea and what it means to file a post-conviction motion,’ he said.

‘I don’t have the capacity or the bandwidth to sit down with each client and learn about things that I don’t need right now. I want to find out the things that are the most important issues up front.’

But he did not deny it could be crucial in future.

‘Sometimes there’s questions that I have on a notepad that I’m going to ask them [down the line].’

Kohberger was arrested at his parents’ home in the Poconos in Pennsylvania on December 30, 2022, after a weekslong nationwide manhunt.

Investigators tracked him down 2,000 miles away after getting a DNA match from a knife sheath left at the crime scene.

Cell phone tower data obtained after his arrest then placed him at the student home on multiple occasions leading up to the killings.

On the evidence against Kohberger, Goldman said it was for a jury to decide.

‘Let’s talk about fairness [with the plea system] first, and then we can get things to a jury.’

Goldman is under no illusions about how the public sees his client and argues that is precisely why he is speaking publicly.

‘I don’t think you’re doing the client a favor in a lot of situations by saying nothing,’ he said. ‘If the storm is coming, you have to respond.’

‘So if you don’t speak up for the person… the narrative is only going to be one thing and one thing only: that this person’s guilty and they’re a monster.’

Goldman said he had received an influx of hate mail since taking on the case.

‘There have been internet trolls and I’m deleting emails pretty frequently.’

The news that Kohberger was seeking to withdraw his plea earlier this year prompted backlash from the victims’ families.

But Goldman said he has had no contact with any victim’s family and will not seek it.

‘I have nothing to say,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever reached out to a victim’s family or had contact with them before, during, or after a case.

‘I don’t think that’d be appropriate. Sometimes it could [even be seen as] witness tampering.’

But he also does not want to downplay their pain or the horror that unfolded that night: ‘No one’s disputing that.’

Asked how Kohberger’s family, which the Daily Mail revealed last week were living a reclusive lifestyle in their hometown, were coping, he said they were ‘cautiously optimistic.’

He said the backing Kohberger had received from his family showed ‘this is a person that is cared about, that there’s sympathy and empathy for, and an understanding that maybe all of us don’t even know yet.’