The criminology student convicted last year of murdering four University of Idaho students in their home is seeking to abandon his guilty plea and obtain a trial, claiming he is innocent and was misled into confessing to the high-profile killings.

In an interview with The New York Times, Bryan Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences, said he had filed a petition challenging his conviction, citing concerns about how the plea deal came together.

“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Kohberger said in a statement provided to the Times on Sunday night. He reiterated in a phone call from prison in Idaho that he had an “absolute claim of innocence.”

Kohberger had not granted an interview or made public comments before speaking with the Times. He declined to discuss any evidence or other details.

It is rare for defendants to win post-conviction challenges, which often revolve around claims of newly discovered evidence or an ineffective assistance of counsel.

The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Kohberger, who had court-appointed representation throughout the case, ending with his guilty plea, said he prepared the documentation to challenge the case on his own. He will seek to have a lawyer appointed to help him going forward. Records show the filing reached the court Monday morning.

After he was arrested in December 2022, Kohberger’s initial lawyer said his client was eager to be exonerated. Court-appointed lawyers spent more than two years challenging the evidence collected against Kohberger, only for a surprise plea deal to come together a few weeks before a trial was to begin.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, after a typical Saturday night out, four victims were stabbed to death in an off-campus home. The bodies of Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were found together in a bed on the home’s third floor. The bodies of Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were found in a bedroom on the second floor.

Kohberger accepted responsibility for the murders at a July 2025 hearing.

Kohberger had signed a plea agreement agreeing that he “knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waives all rights to appeal any and all issues in this case.” Still, defendants can make other claims about the legal process through post-conviction relief.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Mike Baker
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