The sister of one of the victims of Bryan Kohberger, who killed four University of Idaho students, read her impact statement in court before he was
in prison on Wednesday.
“Don’t ever try to convince yourself you mattered just because someone finally said your name out loud,” said Alivea Goncalves, as she tore into Kohberger.
Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin were all stabbed to death while they slept in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022. Six weeks later, police arrested Kohberger at his family home in Pennsylvania. He was a 28-year-old Washington State University graduate student at the time.
A
, the same kind that Kohberger drove, was captured on video near the students’ Moscow home. But DNA played the most crucial role in linking him to the scene.
Police were able to
take a sample from a knife sheath
left behind. They sent it to a lab to be analyzed and used a public ancestry database to search for matches. They discovered cousin matches and then narrowed it down,
. They relied on public records and online tools like Ancestry.com. Authorities eventually honed in on the Kohberger family.
Police tested items that were thrown out in the family’s trash, which matched the DNA profile found on the knife sheath. This link
gave authorities what they needed in order to arrest Kohberger.
Further testing revealed that Kohberger was a “statistical match” to DNA left on the sheath, prosecutors said,
. His DNA was also found under one of the victim’s fingernails,
.
In July, Kohberger, now 30, took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
The deal led to
disappointment among some of the family members of the victims
, and even got the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump. Ahead of the sentencing hearing, Trump urged the judge to make Kohberger explain his motive.
“These were vicious murders, with so many questions left unanswered. While Life Imprisonment is tough, it’s certainly better than receiving the Death Penalty but, before Sentencing, I hope the Judge makes Kohberger, at a minimum, explain why he did these horrible murders,”
wrote Trump on July 21 in a post
on his social media platform Truth Social.
“There are no explanations, there is no NOTHING. People were shocked that he was able to plea bargain, but the Judge should make him explain what happened.”
At the sentencing hearing on Wednesday, when asked by the judge if he would like to make a statement, Kohberger said: “I respectfully decline.” Instead, the families and friends of the victims addressed Kohberger.
While many were moved to tears while they spoke, only feet away from Kohberger, one woman — the sister of Goncalves — stood out and made headlines for her fearless and scathing remarks.
Alivea Goncalves addressed the 30-year-old killer directly and without hesitation.
“You didn’t win. You just exposed yourself as the coward you are. You’re a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser who thought you were so much smarter than everybody else. Constantly scolding, turning your nose up to grammar mistakes, nitpicking and criticizing others,” she said.
“You act like none can ever understand your mind. But the truth is you’re basic.”
She also said that Kaylee and her best friend, Mogen, would have been kind to him if he had approached him in public. She described the girls as all of the things Kohberger could never be: “loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave and powerful.”
Read her full statement to Kohberger:
I’m not here today to speak in grief. I’m here to speak in truth, because the truth is my sister Kaylee and her best friend Maddie were not yours to take.
They were not yours to study, to stalk or to silence. They were two pieces of a whole, the perfect yin and yang. They are everything that you could never be: loved, accepted, vibrant, accomplished, brave and powerful.
Because the truth about Kaylee and Maddie is they would have been kind to you. If you had approached them in their everyday lives, they would have given you directions, thanked you for the compliment, or awkwardly giggled to make your own words less uncomfortable for you.
In a world that rejected you, they would have shown mercy.
Because the truth is I’m angry. Every day I’m angry. I’m left shouting at the inside of my own head everything I wish I could say to you. The truth about me is when I heard the news, I didn’t cry. I listened for them. I promised them I would, that I would fight for them, that I would show up no matter what it cost me. I swore I’d never let them feel alone.
Because you see, I’ve always been their heavy weight. I’ve always been the one to fight the battles they didn’t feel ready to fight themselves. All it ever took was a call and they know I would handle it for them, no matter the time, no matter the cost.
They could wave their white flag because they knew I would never back down. Not for them, and not even death could change that. Somewhere along the line, I started to think about what I would say to them if I was given just one more last chance. If I could gather enough heartbreak or love or sacrifice or whatever it took to get just one message across.
What would I say?
Throughout this entire process, I’ve written my feelings down at every moment, my wishes, my love, my denial, my anger. And as one final act of love, I’d planned to read these thoughts, even jarring and discombobulating and not even making sense. Because for me, that was true love as bare and as naked as it could be, not laced in pretty words or dressed for the occasion, but written through bleary eyes at 2 a.m. with clenched fists angry at this reality.
My true final act of love was to continue on without them for them. That dream to read aloud my love to them, to bring meaning through pain, was the latest blow in realizing you don’t deserve it and Kaylee and Maddie don’t need it.
Kaylee and Maddie have always known my love, and they would never ask me to prove it by further victimizing myself to a defendant who has shown no guilt, no remorse, no apprehension. They would say to me, “Why would you give the satisfaction of showing vulnerability now? You promised that you would never back down.”
And for that clarity, I’m thankful.
I won’t stand here and give you want you want. I won’t offer you tears. I won’t offer you trembling. Disappointments like you thrive on pain, on fear and on the illusion of power. And I won’t feed your beast.
Instead, I will call you what you are: sociopath, psychopath, murderer. I will ask the questions that reverberate violently in my own head so loudly that I can’t think straight, most any day. Some of these might be familiar. So, sit up straight when I talk to you.
How was your life right before you murdered my sisters?
Did you prepare for the crime before leaving your apartment?
Please detail what you were thinking and feeling at this time.
Why did you choose my sisters?
Before making your move, did you approach my sisters?
Detail what you were thinking and feeling.
Before leaving their home, is there anything else you did?
How does it feel to know the only thing you failed more miserably at than being a murderer is trying to be a rapper?
Did you recently start shaving or manually pulling out your eyebrows?
Why November 13th?
Did you truly think your Amazon purchase was untraceable because you used a gift card?
How do you find it enjoyable to stargaze with such a severe case of visual snow?
Where is the murder weapon, the clothes you wore that night?
What did you bring into the house with you?
What was the second weapon you used on Kaylee?
What were Kaylee’s last words?
Please describe, in detail, the level of anxiety you must have felt when you heard the bearcat pull up to your family home on December 30, 2022.
Which do you regret more: returning to the crime scene five hours later or never, ever going back to Moscow, not even once after stalking them there for months?
If you were really smart, do you think you’d be here right now?
What’s it like needing this much attention just to feel real?
You’re terrified of being ordinary, aren’t you?
Do you feel anything at all, or are you exactly what you always feared? Nothing.
If you’re so powerful, then why are you still hiding? Defendant, you see, I’m here today as me, but who are you?
Let’s try to take off your mask and see. You didn’t create devastation. You revealed it, and it’s in yourself. And that darkness you carry, that emptiness, you’ll sit with it long after this is over. That is your sentence, and it was written on the wall long before you ever pled guilty.
You didn’t win. You just exposed yourself as the coward you are. You’re a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser who thought you were so much smarter than everybody else. Constantly scolding, turning your nose up to grammar mistakes, nitpicking and criticizing others.
You wanted so badly to be different, to be special, to be better, to be deep, to be mysterious. You found yourself thinking you were better than everyone else, and you thought you could figure out the human psyche and see through it, all while tweaked out on heroin. Lurking in the shadows made you feel powerful because no one ever paid you any attention in the light.
You thought you were exceptional all because of a grade on a paper.
You thought you were elite because your online IQ test from 2010 told you so. All of that effort seem important, it’s desperate.
There is a name for your condition, though your inflated ego just didn’t allow you to see it: wannabe.
You act like none can ever understand your mind. But the truth is you’re basic. You’re textbook case of insecurity disguised as control. Your patterns are predictable. Your motives are shallow. You are not profound. You’re pathetic.
You aren’t special or deep, not mysterious or exceptional. Don’t ever get it twisted again.
No one is scared of you today. No one is intimidated by you. No one is impressed by you. No one thinks that you are important. You orchestrated this like you thought you were God. Now look at you, begging a courtroom for scraps.
You spent months preparing and still all it took was my sister and a sheath.
You worked so hard to seem dangerous, but real control doesn’t have to prove itself.
The truth is, the scariest part about you is how painfully average you turned out to be. The truth is, you’re as dumb as they come, stupid, clumsy, slow, sloppy, weak, dirty.
Let me be very clear. Don’t ever try to convince yourself you mattered just because someone finally said your name out loud.
I see through you.
You want the truth. Here’s the one you’ll hate the most, if you hadn’t attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night, like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your f–king ass.
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