Kaylee Goncalves’ youngest sister, Aubrie Goncalves, slammed Bryan Kohberger amid his attempt to have his guilty plea withdrawn one year after he pleaded guilty to killing Kaylee and fellow Idaho college students Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
Aubrie took to her family’s Facebook page on Monday, July 27, to criticize Kohberger, 31, after he claimed he did not kill the four college students at an off campus apartment on November 13, 2022.
“1,352 days. That’s how long it’s been since Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, and Xana Kernodle were murdered,” Aubrie began.
After noting she “wasn’t planning on saying anything,” she said she “couldn’t stay silent” after Kohberger filed to withdraw his plea.
“For him, this may be another legal filing. For me, it’s another day without my sister,” she wrote. “I’m Kaylee’s little sister, and Maddie wasn’t just Kaylee’s best friend she was family. She was my big sister too.”
Aubrie said that the killings have impacted every day since they happened.
“They were silenced without a choice, without a second thought. They were murdered while they were sleeping, in the place they should have been safest. They never got the chance to tell their story,” she wrote of the victims. “They never got the chance to ask for mercy. Mercy was never going to be shown to them.
So why should the person convicted of taking their voices continue to have one?”
She then said that the killings impacted “real people” and “every time this case is dragged back into the spotlight because of another filing, another theory, or another attempt to rewrite history, families like mine are forced to relive the worst day of our lives.”
Aubrie said that people have spent years ignoring “the evidence because it doesn’t fit the narrative they’ve convinced themselves is true.”
“They ignore the DNA recovered from the knife sheath left beside my sister, the surveillance footage tracking the white Hyundai Elantra before and after the murders, the cellphone data documenting his movements that night, his phone disconnecting from the network during the window of the murders before reconnecting afterward, the repeated trips investigators documented to the King Road neighborhood before November 13, the eyewitness testimony, the forensic evidence, the digital evidence, and the countless hours law enforcement spent piecing everything together until it all pointed to one person,” she wrote.
Aubrie then addressed the theory that it would be “impossible” to have committed the murders, which she said wasn’t true.
AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool UPDATE: 8/16/25 6:35 p.m. ET — Idaho police have clarified surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen’s initial claim that Byran Kohberger identified Kaylee Goncalves by name. “The investigators do not believe the suspect uttered any names,” Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger told The Statesman on Monday, August 18. “What was confirmed was that Dylan reported […]
“Experts explained why. The victims were asleep or caught completely off guard. They were attacked inside the same home, on two floors, in rapid succession. A large fixed blade knife is capable of causing fatal injuries within seconds,” she wrote. “It’s a horrifying reality, but it is a scientifically possible one. Refusing to accept that doesn’t change the facts.”
Aubrie went on to say that the case has become a fixture within the media, but the loved ones of the victims will never be able to disengage from the situation.
“We walk past an urn every day holding what we have left of Kaylee. That’s our reality. People tell families like mine to ‘move on,’ but how do you move on when your sister’s life has been reduced to an urn sitting in your family’s home?” she continued. “How do you move on when every birthday, every holiday, every accomplishment reminds you of everything she should still be here for?”
Aubrie concluded the post by posing a question about Kohberger’s attempt to withdraw his plea.
“Why should the man convicted of taking four innocent voices continue to have a platform loud enough to reopen old wounds, while Kaylee, Maddie, Xana, and Ethan will never get another chance to tell the world who they were?” she wrote.
One month after Kaylee, 21, Mogen, 21, Kernodle, 20, and Chapin, 20, were killed, Kohberger was arrested for the crime on December 30, 2022.
The murderous actions of Bryan Kohberger continue to haunt the families of his four victims, as the state of Idaho stirs up fresh heartache with the continued release of graphic court filings. Most recently, Idaho officials made public forensic reports containing previously unreleased details. In them, medical examiners noted in vivid detail just how Kohberger […]
He pleaded guilty in July 2025 as part of a plea deal and was sentenced to serve four consecutive fixed life sentences without the possibility of parole and an additional 10-year fixed sentence for felony burglary.
Hours before Aubrie issued the statement, Kohberger told The New York Times that he filed to withdraw the plea.
“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” he said, adding that he had an “absolute claim of innocence.”
