Bryan Kohberger gets new attorney after saying he wants to withdraw his guilty plea for murders of four Idaho students

By ELIOT FORCE, US NEWS REPORTER Published: 23:45, 3 August 2026 | Updated: 02:21, 4 August 2026 Idaho college killer Bryan Kohberger has been appointed a public defender after petitioning to revoke his guilty plea for murdering four students. Kohberger, 31, announced his intent to reverse his plea last week, roughly a year after he entered the deal with prosecutors and received four consecutive life sentences plus an additional 10 years in prison.  He had admitted in July of last year to the November 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, both 20. But in a recent interview with the New York Times, the convicted murderer said he had an 'absolute claim of innocence.'  'My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,' Kohberger told the outlet.  The killer was appointed taxpayer-funded attorney Greg Rauch, of Moscow, Idaho, on Monday morning, after claiming in a July 27 handwritten petition to the court that he had been 'convinced to falsely confess' by his former defense team. He claimed that the team, composed of attorneys Anne Taylor, Elisa Massoth and Bicka Barlow, did not tell him about an 'exculpatory discovery' of a hair found at the crime scene that was ruled not to be Kohberger's through physical analysis. Kohberger's new lawyer, Rauch, told Fox News Digital on Monday afternoon that he had not yet spoken to his client, read the petition or reviewed the case file.  Bryan Kohberger has been appointed a public defender after petitioning to revoke his guilty plea in the 2022 killings of four Idaho college students  Kohberger was convicted of stabbing friends Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, while they were sleeping in the same bed Young couple Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, were also murdered by Kohberger Rauch added that he expects to speak to Kohberger over the phone in the near future and that he will then visit the convicted killer in person at the J-Block unit of the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador called Kohberger's U-turn 'deeply painful' for the victims' families and said he was standing by them. In 2022, Kohberger acknowledged he committed the 'willful, unlawful, deliberate' murder of the victims 'with premeditation and with malice aforethought,' but his plea did not require him to provide a narrative or say why he did it. In exchange for Kohberger's initial guilty plea and waiving his right to appeal, prosecutors agreed not to seek his execution. Both sides recommended that he serve four consecutive life sentences without parole. Although he waived his right to appeal the case, Kohberger was still able to file a petition for post-conviction relief, which if successful would revoke the guilty plea and allow his case to go to trial.  If that happens, the death penalty would once again be on the table for Kohberger.  A spokesperson for the Goncalves family called Kohberger 'the mosquito you just can't seem to swat,' and suggested he now wants more attention. The spokesperson added: '(Kohberger) appeared in court for a hearing before a judge, accompanied by his four lawyers. He chose not to leave his fate - or the facts of the case - to a jury. From left: Dylan Mortensen, Goncalves, Mogen (on Goncalves's shoulders), Chapin, Kernodle and Bethany Funke 'He never cried foul, never claimed he was uninformed or pressured... He admitted his guilt.' Mogen, Kernodle, Goncalves and Chapin were found stabbed to death on November 13, 2022, in a rented off-campus house in the small, rural town of Moscow. Prosecutors say that Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at nearby Washington State University, snuck into the home wearing a mask and brutally murdered the students. He was arrested in Pennsylvania, where his parents lived, roughly six weeks later.   A Q-tip from the garbage at his parents' house and genetic genealogy were used to match Kohberger's DNA to material recovered from a knife sheath found at the home, investigators said. They also used surveillance camera footage to help locate a white sedan that was seen repeatedly driving past the home on the night of the killings. It's unclear why Kohberger killed the four students and spared two roommates who were home at the time. Investigators also never found a connection between Kohberger, the four victims or the two surviving roommates. The off-campus house in the small, rural town of Moscow where the murders were committed is pictured Kohberger snuck into the house at night while wearing a mask on the night of November 13, 2022, and stabbed four University of Idaho students inside Should convicted killers be allowed to withdraw guilty pleas after sentencing if they claim innocence? What's your view?Judge Steven Hippler suggested in court that he too wanted to know why Kohberger did it, but he cautioned against continuing to wonder. 'By continuing to focus on why, we continue to give Mr Kohberger relevance, we give him agency and we give him power,' the judge said at the defendant's sentencing. 'The need to know what is inherently not understandable makes us dependent upon the defendant to provide us with a reason, and that gives him the spotlight, the attention and the power he appears to crave.'