Idaho
Idaho student murders: Victims to receive posthumous degrees
The University of Idaho will award posthumous degrees to the four murder victims killed in their off-campus home in November 2022.
Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, will receive their degrees and certificates during the university’s graduation ceremony on May 13.
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Mogen and Goncalves, who were seniors preparing to graduate, will receive a marketing degree and general studies degree, respectively. Chapin, who was a freshman, will be awarded a certificate in recreation, sport, and tourism management, and Kernodle, a junior, will be awarded a certificate in marketing, per the university.
Jazzmin Kernodle/AP
The victims’ families have also found ways to honor their students. Chapin’s parents, Jim and Stacy, started the Ethan Smile Foundation and created a yellow-and-white tulip mix called “Ethan’s Smile” that is now for sale at the same farm where Chapin worked planting bulbs.
Bryan Kohberger, 28, a criminology graduate student from Washington State University, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary in the deaths of the four students on Nov. 13.
He is expected to appear in court for a preliminary hearing in late June, marking almost seven months since the murders. Kohberger was arrested in late December following a monthslong investigation by state and federal law enforcement agencies that used his white Hyundai Elantra vehicle and evidence found in his car and home to connect him to the murders.
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During the preliminary hearing, the defense and prosecution will offer up evidence and could even present witnesses in what will be one of Idaho’s most high-profile murder trials.
Legal counsel for Bethany Funke, one of the two surviving roommates of the victims, fought a subpoena that is compelling her to testify at the hearing in June. Eventually, Funke agreed to an interview with Kohberger’s legal counsel in Reno, Nevada, where she is from.