Editorial Content for Broken Plea: The Explosive Search for Truth Behind the Idaho Murders
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
On July 2, 2025, Bryan Kohberger pled guilty to the murders of four University of Idaho students. The prosecution had its final word on the matter before members of the victims’ families spoke about the losses they had suffered. Kohberger offered no allocution and was sentenced to life in prison on July 23rd of that year.
The sentencing of a defendant usually provides a modicum of closure to relatives, friends and the general public. However, this case has had a number of questions that continue to pester the minds of people like bestselling author and former FBI Hostage Rescue Team sniper Christopher Whitcomb --- especially now that Kohberger is seeking to take back his guilty plea, claiming that he was “convinced to falsely confess.”
"The case had a swift resolution and no lengthy trial. However, there is more than a gut feeling after reading this thought-provoking book that justice has been denied to the victims and their families."
On November 13, 2022, a 911 call went out from the vicinity of the house located at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho. There was carnage inside the residence as Officer Mitch Nunes of the Moscow Police Department found the bloody corpses of Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, as well as the savagely murdered bodies of Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen.
Officer Nunes interviewed occupant Dylan Mortensen, who detailed a possible encounter with a masked assailant eight hours previously. Mortensen had heard some commotion and notified roommate Bethany Funke, yet they didn’t reach out to the authorities until almost noon. The University of Idaho began an early holiday shutdown as the police searched for relevant clues.
Such crimes were a rarity in this small town, so the Moscow Police Department and the Idaho State Police were under the gun to apprehend a sadistic killer. A month and a half later, and with some assistance from the FBI, a Washington State University student was arrested at his home in Pennsylvania.
The case against Bryan Kohberger hinged on means and opportunity, yet the motive was not clear. A knife sheath purportedly owned by Kohberger was found amongst the blood and human misery, and a fingerprint matching his was allegedly obtained from it. A circumstantial case for his guilt could be made, yet there were nagging issues concerning the scene --- from scant physical evidence to hair belonging to an unknown party discovered in the bed of one of the victims. Blood stains were found in areas inconsistent with the locations of the slain students. A discerning eye could begin to deconstruct a seemingly ironclad case.
In BROKEN PLEA, Whitcomb does an extensive deep dive into the tragic events that transpired four years ago and provides information that pokes holes in the prosecution’s case while offering up the possibility of multiple perpetrators. His service as an FBI agent comes through in his deductive reasoning and investigation of the facts. As deftly shown by Whitcomb, the police and prosecutors were quick to hype the circumstantial evidence while downplaying anything exculpatory.
The case had a swift resolution and no lengthy trial. However, there is more than a gut feeling after reading this thought-provoking book that justice has been denied to the victims and their families.
Teaser
Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In the aftermath of Bryan Kohberger's request to withdraw his guilty plea, there are more questions than ever before. In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served. BROKEN PLEA prophetically challenges that assumption. Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory.
Promo
Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In the aftermath of Bryan Kohberger's request to withdraw his guilty plea, there are more questions than ever before. In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served. BROKEN PLEA prophetically challenges that assumption. Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory.
About the Book
In one of the most extraordinary true crime stories ever published, BROKEN PLEA questions what really happened in the house on King Road --- and the results of that investigation, still unfolding in real time, will astound you.
Was there more than one killer? Had the crime scene been cleaned and sanitized before the police arrived? Was furniture staged to throw off detectives? In the aftermath of Bryan Kohberger's request to withdraw his guilty plea, there are more questions than ever before.
In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, four lives were lost in a brutal crime in Moscow, Idaho --- and a nation demanded answers. When a suspect accepted a plea bargain, the story seemed settled. Justice, many believed, had been served.
BROKEN PLEA prophetically challenges that assumption.
Drawing on court records, investigative timelines, witness statements and apparently overlooked inconsistencies, this meticulously researched exposé examines how a rush to judgment may have shaped one of the most closely watched murder cases in recent memory. As the official narrative hardened, critical leads went unexplored, contradictory evidence was minimized, and alternative explanations faded from view.
This book does not claim certainty where none exists. Instead, it asks the questions that were never fully pursued: What happens when pressure to close a case outweighs the search for truth? What evidence may have been sidelined, and why? And what are the consequences when a plea doesn’t end scrutiny but invites it?
Clear-eyed, unsparing and deeply unsettling, BROKEN PLEA reopens a case that never should have closed as it did --- and invites readers to look again at what justice demands when the truth remains unresolved.
Audiobook available, read by Dion Graham
