Court filings reveal that Bryan Kohberger appeared on witness lists for both sides days before he accepted his plea deal. The newly unsealed documents show that Amanda Kohberger, Bryan’s sister, was named on the state’s amended witness list and also on the defense’s mitigation witness list by lead attorney Anne Taylor. The overlapping filings demonstrate that Amanda was positioned as a potential witness for both sides in the weeks leading up to Kohberger’s plea deal. Within days of the June 25 filing that listed his sister as a prosecution witness, he accepted a plea deal that spared the case from going to trial.
The filings highlight the contrasting strategies at play. Prosecutors’ June 25 witness list includes 180 names, from investigators and forensic experts to victims’ relatives, notably including Kohberger’s sister, Amanda. By contrast, the defense’s mitigation list, filed June 6, named 56 witnesses intended for the sentencing phase, including psychologists, corrections experts, and nearly every member of Kohberger’s immediate family. The case has drawn national attention since November 13, 2022, when four students — Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Kaylee Goncalves — were found stabbed to death in an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho.
Kohberger, a former Ph.D. criminology student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested in December 2022 after a cross-country investigation. According to an ABC News report citing 2014 police records, Michael Kohberger, Bryan’s father, once told officers that his son had stolen his sister Melissa’s iPhone. Police declined to comment but confirmed the case had been expunged and the record ‘no longer exists.’ Bryan Kohberger, 30, pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary on October 24, 2023.