Mass murderer Bryan Kohberger’s sister has broken her silence after her brother was found guilty of killing four University of Idaho students.
Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were found dead in their shared Moscow home on November 13, 2022. Weeks later, Kohberger was arrested in connection with their deaths at his parent’s property in Pennsylvania.
Following a lengthy investigation, Bryan, 31, confessed to the grisly murders last July and was sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now, as his motives behind the killings still remain murky, his sister Mel Kohberger is speaking out publicly on her brother’s horrific crimes for the very first time.
“I have always been a person who has spoken up for what was right,” she said in a sit-down with the New York Times published on Saturday, January 3, in which she confessed that while she knew her brother to be socially awkward and at times abrasive, she never thought he would be capable of murder.
“If I ever had a reason to believe my brother did anything, I would have turned him in,” she added.
In the days that followed the Idaho University murders, she even warned her brother to be careful when out and about alone.
“Bryan, you are running outside, and this psycho killer is on the loose,” she remembered telling him at the time.
His arrest came as such a surprise that she initially wondered if it could have been a prank, especially since Mel noted that their family had been “so proud of him” and the progress he’d made in recent years. According to the outlet, Bryan was not only a PhD student, but he had overcome a major drug addiction at some point in his life.
The overall experience was not only shocking, but it had a genuine impact on Mel’s professional life. She had been in the process of training to be a mental health counselor, but she left the position after her employer reportedly “received an influx of inquiries” about the murders and her brother’s role. An unknown author also seemingly attempted to impersonate her by using the name “Melissa J. Kohberger” to write a book about the murders. This, among other things, caused Mel to ponder the drawbacks to being a fan of true crime and the “culture” that comes with it.
“It’s human nature to be curious about darker things,” she continued. “That’s how we keep ourselves safe. But I think we should try and come together for a true crime culture that is way more protective and empathetic to the families of the victims.”
Bryan was sent to the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, Idaho, on July 29, 2025, where he was placed in long-term restrictive housing — also known as solitary confinement — on the facility’s J Block unit, per A&E. While he has yet to publicly elaborate on the reason behind the slayings, he’s allegedly been attempting to make some unique connections behind bars.
As Us Weekly previously reported, during a December interview with Fox News, retired detective Chris McDonough said the 31-year-old had “tried reaching out to other serial killers” from his cell.
“Both inside and outside — he’s trying to communicate with people outside the walls,” he noted at the time. However, it is unclear who Bryan had been trying to speak with or if “any relationships have formed.”
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