The youngest sister of Kaylee Goncalves is speaking out for the first time about the loss of her sibling after the man who admitted to killing Goncalves and three other University of Idaho students petitioned a court to abandon his guilty plea and undergo a trial.
Aubrie Goncalves, 20, spoke on TODAY Aug. 4 about why she has decided to publicly speak out nearly four years after her 21-year-old sister was killed in an off-campus house along with Xana Kernodle, 20; Ethan Chapin, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21, whom Aubrie Goncalves has called “family.”
“When everything happened, I was a sophomore in high school,” she said. “I was only 16 years old, and at the time I kind of just decided no words are going to bring back either one of my sisters, so I didn’t feel like saying anything.
“And now that I’ve gotten older, almost four years has passed, I realized still that no words are going to bring back my sisters, but words are going to keep their memories alive,” she added. “I’m not really one to put myself in a situation like this, I don’t really like to, but I know that I have to keep Maddie and Kaylee’s name alive, and that’s why I’m here today.”
Aubrie Goncalves released a statement on Facebook on July 27, the day that Bryan Kohberger filed a petition for post-conviction relief in the Ada County District Court in Idaho. He looks to withdraw his guilty plea and seeks a trial on the charges.
Kohberger pleaded guilty in 2025, admitting to a judge in court that he killed the four students in November 2022. As part of the plea deal, he waived his right to appeal while avoiding a possible death penalty conviction. He received four life sentences in prison.
Aubrie Goncalves reacted to the petition in her statement.
“I wasn’t planning on saying anything today,” she wrote. “But after seeing that the man who admitted in court to murdering four innocent people now wants to withdraw his guilty plea, I couldn’t stay silent.
“For him, this may be another legal filing. For me, it’s another day without my sister,” she continued.
Kohberger’s petition was filed days before the release of the three-part Netflix documentary, “The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare,” which the Goncalves family participated in.
“Why should the person convicted of taking their voices continue to have one?” Aubrie Goncalves said in her statement. “This isn’t a Netflix documentary. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This isn’t entertainment. This is my life. These were 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,” she added.
The oldest of the five siblings, Alivea Goncalves, also spoke in a video interview on TODAY Aug. 4 about Kohberger’s petition for a trial.
“The fact that someone locked behind bars still has the ability to revictimize their victims, that’s something that isn’t just very easy to get over,” she said. “This will never be over for us until the defendant is no longer breathing on this earth.”
Kohberger, who filed the handwritten petition by himself, is now being represented by a public defender. He wrote in the petition that he was “advised to lie” and told he would gain a “legal victory” by entering a “false plea.”
“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Kohberger said in a statement to The New York Times on July 26.
NBC News has reached out to Kohberger’s current and former public defenders and the families of the other victims but did not hear back.
Aubrie Goncalves, who was joined by her parents, Steve and Kristi, wants the focus to be on the lives that were lost. She shared on TODAY what she remembers about her big sister.
“I think you could see how Kaylee was as a person just by looking at pictures of her,” she said. “She was like the bubbliest human ever. She was always down to have a fun time, she was always looking at the positives, she was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met.
“And to this day that is a huge thing that provides me with a constant need to keep going because I know that Kaylee would be doing the same thing had she still been here, and I really am just trying to do half as much as I know that she would have,” she added.
In the Netflix docuseries, Steve Goncalves shared his disappointment that Kohberger was able to take a plea deal that allowed him to avoid a trial and a possible death penalty conviction. Kohberger also did not have to admit a motive in the killings.
Some of the victims’ family members said in the docuseries the plea deal spared them the pain of reliving the murders in court hearings. Steve Goncalves reiterated on TODAY that he would like Kohberger to stand trial.
“That’s never changed. I’ve been consistent through and through,” he said. “The evidence was there. I want to honor all the work that the agents did. I think it should’ve stood. We need to make case law. Idaho had a chance, we spent $8 million, we really were in a perfect position to put our foot down and say we’re not going to allow this to happen in our state. And I would’ve liked to see that happen.”
In the docuseries, Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger says that Kohberger being given four life sentences is essentially a death penalty because he will die in prison.
“If it was his kid, he wouldn’t feel the same,” Steve Goncalves said in response on TODAY. “That’s not a real death penalty. It’s my child, and I’m going to demand the highest standard of law.”
“I did actually appreciate (Dahlinger) saying that,” Kristi Goncalves said on TODAY. “I never actually had thought about that, but death row is different. So the life that he would live up to the time that he would die is different, so that is a big factor.”
