Close the chapter on the University of Idaho students’ killer | Opinion

No parent could listen to the gut-wrenching testimony about Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin and not shed a tear.

No one could be untouched by the tearful and moving victim impact statements by friends and family members Wednesday morning at the sentencing of the man who killed those four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022.

“Maddie was my only child that I ever had,” Ben Mogen, Maddie Mogen’s father, said. “She’s the only great thing I ever really did, and the only thing I was really ever proud of, and I thought we would have the rest of our lives together to be together and know each other.”

Perhaps even more painful were the pained and tearful words of the two surviving roommates who shared how that night on Nov. 13, 2022, affected them and changed their lives forever.

“What happened that night changed everything,” surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen said between sobs of anguish. “Because of him, four beautiful, genuine, compassionate people were taken from this world for no reason. He didn’t just take their lives. He took the light they carried into every room. He took away how they made everyone feel safe, loved and full of joy. He took away the ability for me to tell them that I love them and I’m so proud of them. He took away who they were becoming and the futures they were going to have.”

Deputies, lawyers, even the judge were seen wiping away tears during the testimony.

No one could escape without being moved by the words spoken Wednesday.

No one, that is, except the killer himself, who sat stone-faced throughout Wednesday’s sentencing.

Not the words of the roommates and family members, not the audible sobs from the gallery, not the photos of the victims displayed on a screen, not the pointed and strong words spoken directly to the killer seemed to move him or affect him in the least.

His apparent lack of emotion, contrition or remorse illustrates the fact that a senseless act of violence is just that — senseless.

No degree of explanation or rationale could help to make sense of this evil act.

“There is no reason for these crimes that could approach anything resembling rationality,” Judge Steven Hippler said before issuing the sentence. “No conceivable reason could make any sense. And in the end, the more we struggle to seek explanation for the unexplainable, the more we try to extract a reason, the more power and control we give to him.”

We appreciate and understand some family members’ desire for the death penalty, even, as one family member said, the firing squad.

Perhaps no one deserves the death penalty more than the killer in this case.

And though we recognize that it’s not the same, but Wednesday’s sentence was a death penalty. Without the possibility of parole and four consecutive life sentences, the killer was sentenced to die in prison.

We hope that brings at least some amount of closure.

It certainly brings a form of closure that’s more immediate than a likely lengthy death penalty trial and series of appeals that would consume friends and family members for years, if not decades.

With Wednesday’s sentence, though, friends and family can now close this chapter and attempt to never think about the killer ever again. Yes, they can mourn the loss of Xana, Maddie, Kaylee and Ethan, but now they may be able to do so, if they so choose, without having to think about the man who killed their loved ones.

Maddie Mogen’s grandmother, Kim Cheeley, summed it up well: “The plea deal the prosecution team reached this month is one that punishes the perpetrator of this horrendous crime, protects the public from further harm and allows all of us who knew and loved these kids the time to grieve without the anxiety of the long and gruesome trial, the years of appeals and potential for for mistrials along the way.”

As Hippler said, “The time has now come to end (the defendant’s) 15 minutes of fame. It’s time that he be consigned to the ignominy and isolation of perpetual incarceration.”

Let us remember the University of Idaho students, not their killer.

“I hope that they are remembered for who they are,” according to a statement from roommate Bethany Funke, “not what happened to them.”

Let’s begin now.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.

This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM.