Friends and families of four University of Idaho students killed in their rental home by Brian Kochberger have made emotional statements of love, suffering and condemnation during his sentencing hearing.
“The world is a better place because of her,” Scott Laramie, Madison Mogen’s stepfather, said in court. “Karen and I are ordinary people, but we lived extraordinary lives because we had Maddie.”
Kaylee Gonsalves' father condemned Kochberger for leaving his DNA behind and getting caught, despite being a criminology graduate student at nearby Washington State University at the time.
“You were so thoughtless, so stupid, so ignorant,” Steve Gonsalves said. “A master's degree? You're a joke.”
Judge Stephen Hippler sentenced Kochberger to four life terms without parole for four counts of first-degree murder in the brutal stabbings of Ms. Mogen, Ms. Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on the morning of Nov. 13, 2022. He also received 10 years in prison for burglary.
Earlier this month, just weeks before the trial was set to begin, the defendant agreed to a plea deal that would have spared him the death penalty.
Kochberger entered the house through the sliding kitchen doors and brutally attacked four friends who apparently had no connection to him. A motive for the crime was not revealed, and Kochberger chose not to testify at the hearing.
Dylan Mortenson, a roommate, told police she saw a strange man with thick eyebrows and a ski mask in the house that night, sobbing as he described Kochberger, sitting across the room in an orange jumpsuit, “taking in the light that they brought into every room.”
“He's an empty vessel, something subhuman,” Mr. Mortenson said. “A body without empathy, without remorse.”
Mr Mortenson and another surviving roommate, Bethany Funke, described crippling panic and anxiety attacks after the attack.
“I slept in my parents' room for almost a year, made them double-lock every door, set an alarm and constantly check the entire room in case anyone was hiding,” Ms Funke wrote in a statement read by her friend.
“I haven't slept a single night since it happened. I wake up constantly in a panic, afraid that someone is going to break in on me, or that someone is going to hurt me, or that I'm about to lose someone I love.”
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
