cheeky said:

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Why on earth would they offer a deal after the state has been forced to spend millions preparing his prosecution and public defense?

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People that work for government don't care about money. They've never had to worry about it, other than "spend this **** so we can get more next year".

agcrock2005 said:

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cheeky said:

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Why on earth would they offer a deal after the state has been forced to spend millions preparing his prosecution and public defense?

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People that work for government don't care about money. They've never had to worry about it, other than "spend this **** so we can get more next year".

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The actual trial can be a significant part of the total expenses (witness fees, hotels, overtime for courthouse staff, etc) especially if you try it twice because the foreman hates the primary witness, or one juror refuses to vote guilty because they didn't ping the cell phone of a witness who never was alleged to have been at the scene.

I promise generally no one wants a guilty verdict with significant punishment more than the DA and the ADAs. Most of them do it for a reason, because they could make a heck of a lot more money doing something else.

More from Goncalves family: “I would like to clarify a couple of things...we DID talk to the prosecution on Friday about the possibility of a plea deal and it was a HARD NO from our family. Sunday night we received an email that sent us scrambling. We immediately jumped into…

— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) July 1, 2025

New statement from Goncalves family on plea deal.
"The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office’s treatment of our family during this process is something I wouldn’t wish on anyone." pic.twitter.com/O97FwgJUy7

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) July 1, 2025

Steve Goncalves on @NewsNation right now is asking people who know Judge Hippler to urge him not to accept the plea deal on Wednesday.

— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) July 1, 2025

BQ93 said:

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It's distasteful but if you can get the plea for life without parole you take it (especially in a state that doesn't exercise the death penalty anyway). Jurors are just too unpredictable. Some of them will sit there and see absolute proof the defendant is guilty and still vote not guilty for the dumbest reasons. Think of the most BSC person you know - now imagine that person on a jury.

I mean - I know you wouldn't do it but think of all the things you've heard of smart, rational people doing to get off a jury.

Take the LWOP plea. No crazies, and no appeal.


(I have no idea how the winky face got there.)

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I agree with this.

If I was the DA in this case, I would have thought and prayed long and hard about what the right thing to do. But seeing has how Idaho does not carry out executions very often, if at all, this is probably the right call.

One dumbazz on the jury and prosecution could get a hung jury. One anti death penalty nut who lied so he/she could get on the jury and hang the jury on punishment, and at least $1M of the county's money is gone. And for naught. And juries can and do very strange things.

So, a tough call but one that is probably the right call.

And this case would have been very expensive to try. FBI agents who may now be stationed across the country. LE officers from Spokane to Pennsylvania and some in between. Expert witnesses from who knows where
would cost a bundle to fly these people to Spokane and put them up for a few days. Expert witness fees from the time the expert gets on a plane until he/she gets home.

And doing all this while trying to keep your office focused on what comes into the DA's office on a daily basis from local LE.

IIRC this was the very vocal family who was criticizing the investigation from the beginning. They didn't like that the investigators were not sharing all the information with them. They were complaining the case wasn't moving fast enough. I'm not surprised they are not on board with the plea deal. I don't think there's anything the state can do to make them happy.

The Gonsalves dad went on a YouTube show a few months ago and if I'm not mistaken revealed some previously non-public information.

Another thing that this could indicate is the state may have been concerned that the leak investigation would have come back on someone involved in the investigation. Maybe they were worried some evidence was going to be thrown out.

Thats pretty damning on the prosecutors. Despicable.

These are the living victims but you treat them as if they don't even matter

There are very good reasons for not involving the family in every detail of an active investigation, or allowing them to make prosecutorial decisions.

Biggest objection I'd have as a family member is
That some yahoo either pardons him or changes the law to allow release. But I guess that could happen with a death sentence also.

Yeah. Google Kenneth McDuff.

northeastag said:

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Biggest objection I'd have as a family member is
That some yahoo either pardons him or changes the law to allow release. But I guess that could happen with a death sentence also.

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Look up what happened with Adnan Syed of the serial podcast Fame.

More likely with the death sentence after a jury trial. A plea where he confesses and takes all appeals off the table, not gonna happen.

I understand his anger boiling over. I have 2 college age daughters and I'd be spending nights awake thinking of how I'd torture this guy to death. But the end of the day, (1) the investigation did a bang-up job with this case. They took a trace amount of contact dna from a guy that doesn't exist in any dna database, some cellphone location records, and bushy eyebrows and not only found him before he killed again (which he would have), they painted him into such a corner that he's willing to take life with no parole. And (2) it's the state of Idaho vs Kohberger. Maybe a callous way to look at it, but it's not just Goncleves vs Kohberger.

I'd be curious to know how the other families really feel, although I imagine this guy will have them somewhat cowed.

Anything goes sideways with that dna, he walks. And with the techniques they had to use to match it, that is not a complete impossibility.

DannyDuberstein said:

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Anything goes sideways with that dna, he walks. And with the techniques they had to use to match it, that is not a complete impossibility.

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The IGG stuff wasn't going to be used at trial. Just the fact that the cheek swab when he was arrested was a direct match to the DNA found on the sheath.

The DNA in the sheath wasn't a trace amount. It was a large amount.

But to your point, it only takes one dumbass juror to hold out and hang the case

Or some yahoo appellate judge that sees things differently than this one did on the dna. Highly unlikely but not impossible, and this case does not hold up without it. It's the only thing that really puts him there. Everything else helps back it up, but outside of the one major mistake he made in dropping the sheath, anything else is pretty thin on its own.

I've always been uncomfortable with that sheath. As said, it was the only source of evidence. Cops have been known to plant evidence (frequently).

And what we know about this case has almost entirely come from the prosecution's side.

Bottom line: the plea deal is great for everyone.

I think they have inevitable discovery with the Wazzu cops finding and making a report about his car before the DNA/IGG came back

I think so too, but again, as we have seen too many times, judges can be wild cards too. Not just jurors. They seemed to be in a good place with this one, but also counting on every appellate judge that ever looks at this case to be good too. Like I said, highly unlikely it's ever a problem. Extremely unlikely. But 0.0% chance? I don't know, and that's the bet your making to probably not end up killing him for decades, if ever, anyway

KingofHazor said:

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I've always been uncomfortable with that sheath. As said, it was the only source of evidence. Cops have been known to plant evidence (frequently).

And what we know about this case has almost entirely come from the prosecution's side.

Bottom line: the plea deal is great for everyone.

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But planted without him being a typical suspect. And it took them 6 weeks to find him. He's not an ex or a stalker or a friend or have any connection to the victims or house.

Planted makes more sense like in the Karen Read case where she was the SO of the victim or OJ where he has a history of domestic abuse of the victim.

Planting in this case doesn't make sense.

Yeah, no way was it planted.

Guitarsoup said:

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KingofHazor said:

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I've always been uncomfortable with that sheath. As said, it was the only source of evidence. Cops have been known to plant evidence (frequently).

And what we know about this case has almost entirely come from the prosecution's side.

Bottom line: the plea deal is great for everyone.

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But planted without him being a typical suspect. And it took them 6 weeks to find him. He's not an ex or a stalker or a friend or have any connection to the victims or house.

Planted makes more sense like in the Karen Read case where she was the SO of the victim or OJ where he has a history of domestic abuse of the victim.

Planting in this case doesn't make sense.

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Maybe, maybe not. Most of what we all know about the case and its timeline has come from the prosecution side.

The length of time it took to find him is irrelevant to him being a suspect. What was it that first turned the cops attention to him, and when did that occur?

Cops plant evidence all of the time to the point that it's almost ingrained in their DNA.

From the very first, I was very suspicious of that magic sheath. It was just too convenient and no explanation how it got there. There's been lots of speculation on this board on how he dropped it, forgot it, or the like, but no hard evidence.

I'm just real suspicious of cops and prosecutors. Over and over again they show that they're willing to do just about anything to get a conviction. They rationalize it by believing that their suspect is guilty anyway, or if the suspect is not guilty of this crime, they're a bad person anyway and deserve to be punished.

Well, he killed 4 people in knife-to-hand combat, seems to be pretty clear how it could have been dropped.

But you are proving why they are accepting a plea because there are some people that will speculate on all sorts of nonsense

DannyDuberstein said:

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Well, he killed 4 people in knife-to-hand combat, seems to be pretty clear how it could have been dropped.

But you are proving why they are accepting a plea because there are some people that will speculate on all sorts of nonsense

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"pretty clear" "how it could have been dropped" is not evidence. It's speculation.

Sort of ironic that you claim not to like people speculating "on all sorts of nonsense".

So the SCOTUS decision on moving criminal illegals to other countries........... Was that only for illegals?

What if we outsourced all our "Lifers" prison occupants to Rwanda or El Salvador? It must be crazy less expensive and out of sight, out of mind.

DannyDuberstein said:

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And (2) it's the state of Idaho vs Kohberger. Maybe a callous way to look at it, but it's not just Goncleves vs Kohberger.

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One of the talking heads on a morning news program made a terse but I think accurate observation. The victims' families are not the prosecutors' clients. They represent the state, and it is the state holding him accountable.

You want video of it being dropped? They collected it when the murder was discovered, long before this dude was in play. "Evidence of how it was dropped" = people killed in an attack with a knife that fits the sheath. What explanation are you looking for lol?

DannyDuberstein said:

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You want video of it being dropped? They collected it when the murder was discovered, long before this dude was in play. "Evidence of how it was dropped" = people killed in an attack with a knife that fits the sheath. What explanation are you looking for lol?

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And found under one of the girls' body. Sheath matched the size and type of knife wounds on each of the bodies of the victims.

Dam this dude was one sick MF er- killed 4 people with a knife and then agrees to a plea deal to live his life out in prison. Dude thought he knew how to evade the law since he was in law enforcement classes in college. I think he thought he could outsmart the system they way he killed those innocent college kids

Yep. We really need to get away from this concept of 'Life in prison' terminology. Makes them think they beat the system. Need to start calling it 'Death by Incarceration'.

Does anyone think this fella was headed towards killing again? Betcha if he had ever voted it was for a democrat.

aggiehawg said:

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DannyDuberstein said:

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You want video of it being dropped? They collected it when the murder was discovered, long before this dude was in play. "Evidence of how it was dropped" = people killed in an attack with a knife that fits the sheath. What explanation are you looking for lol?

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And found under one of the girls' body. Sheath matched the size and type of knife wounds on each of the bodies of the victims.

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Posters on this site never fail to surprise me with their willful ignorance.

How did the sheath get there? Is that really a serious question? It was found before anyone was a suspect!

Didn't like the plea deal acceptance initially while my Dad hat was on, but some really good points brought up here. I'll also add we have some some pretty crazy jury instructions from judges in a wide range of cases. I'd hate that he walks because the jury is confused about instructions. Let's face it, a lot of people out there are not that smart and just a little bit of doubt to the right person could be devastating.

Quote:

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Does anyone think this fella was headed towards killing again?

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I do. He was way too obsessed with Bundy and BTK killers. Bundy's killings at the sorority house, was very similar to his selection of that house with multiple girls living there. Also similar to Richard Speck's targeting of nursing students living together.

Had he not been caught, I strongly believe he would have tried to do it again. And without the knife sheath, he probably would not have even been charged in this case.

I don't understand, the DA isn't the attorney for the families. They don't get to dictate how things go.