Three upcoming hearings for convicted Idaho student killer Bryan Kohberger have been unexpectedly vacated in what a lawyer for his family says is just the beginning of what is expected to be a much longer court process.
Kohberger was arrested on Dec. 30, 2022, in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students six weeks earlier.
In July 2025, he took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, only to petition the court a year later asking to withdraw it and claiming he’d had ineffective counsel and been misled into pleading out.
“This simply marks the start of a longer post-conviction relief process,” said Jason Goldman, a New York attorney representing Kohberger’s family.
Judge Steven Hippler’s amended scheduling order is expected to shed more light on the vacated hearings, the first of which was set for Thursday.
It has not yet been made public.
Thursday’s hearing was initially scheduled to address a motion from Kohberger’s new Idaho lawyer, Greg Rauch, seeking to have Hippler disqualified from the case over concerns of potential bias.
Two other hearings set for next year have also been vacated, and a series of deadlines in coming months are also expected to be impacted by the new order.
The student stabbings rocked the country. Four undergrads were stabbed to death in a home invasion attack at an off-campus rental home just steps from the edge of school grounds.
The victims were Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
With no suspects publicly identified for weeks, the arrest of Kohberger at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania came as a national surprise.
He had been studying for a Ph.D. in criminology at Washington State University, just 10 miles away and across the state line from the University of Idaho.
Kohberger gave no motive or explanation when he pleaded guilty last year. In July, filing a handwritten motion for post-conviction relief, he claimed he was innocent.
