By Jim Sciutto, Zoe Sottile, Jean Casarez, Lauren del Valle, Josh Campbell, Jason Kravarik

(CNN) — Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old accused of fatally stabbing four University of Idaho students in their apartment in 2022, has agreed to a plea deal in his quadruple murder case, skirting the death penalty and bringing a possible end to the years-long legal proceedings against him.

The deal involves Kohberger pleading guilty to four counts of murder in exchange for the government not pursuing the death penalty, a person familiar with the details confirmed to CNN. Shanon Gray, attorney for the family of victim Kaylee Goncalves, also confirmed the deal to CNN.

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. Kohberger was slated to go on trial in August, and prosecutors indicated they would pursue the death penalty.

The deal was announced with a letter sent to the victims’ families, according to the Idaho Statesman and the Goncalves family, who described the announcement as “very unexpected” and said they were “furious at the State of Idaho” in a post on Facebook.

“They have failed us. Please give us some time,” reads the post.

In a statement shared with CNN, the Goncalves family said that they “weren’t even called about the plea; we received an email with a letter attached.”

“After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims’ families on the plea’s details,” reads the statement. They said victims’ families had been “treated as opponents from the outset.”

Gray, their attorney, said, “The issue is they are trying to cram the plea for July 2, only giving the families a day to get to Boise.”

Lengthy legal battle

The past week has seen the options for Kohberger’s legal defense dwindle. Last week, the judge rejected a bid from Kohberger’s defense to delay the trial and dismissed the defense’s request to propose an “alternate perpetrator” theory. Defense lawyers had hoped to suggest that one of four alternate perpetrators killed the students, but the judge ruled nothing but “rank speculation” linked the proposed alternate perpetrators to the crimes. The judge had also previously barred Kohberger’s defense from entering an official alibi – since no one could vouch for where he was during the time of the killings.

Kohberger’s trial date was pushed back multiple times due to disputes about evidence and witnesses, and saw a change of venue from Latah County to the state capital of Boise. A not guilty plea was previously entered on Kohberger’s behalf. Last year, the Goncalves family expressed their frustration at the incessant delays, saying the case had turned into a “hamster wheel of motions, hearings, and delayed decisions.”

The letter specifies Kohberger will likely be sentenced to life in prison if he pleads guilty as expected, according to the Idaho Statesman. It also requires him to waive his right to appeal, the Statesman reported.

“We cannot fathom the toll that this case has taken on your family,” read the letter, signed by Moscow Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson, according to the Idaho Statesman. “This resolution is our sincere attempt to seek justice for your family. This agreement ensures that the defendant will be convicted, will spend the rest of his life in prison, and will not be able to put you and the other families through the uncertainty of decades of post-conviction appeals.”

Kohberger, previously a PhD student of criminology at Washington State University, was charged with killing the four students in January 2023. Authorities say Ethan Chapin, 20; Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Madison Mogen, 21, were fatally stabbed in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022 in Moscow, Idaho. CNN has reached out to the families of Chapin, Kernodle, and Mogen.

An assistant at the Kootenai County Public Defender’s office told CNN “no comment” about the news of the plea deal. The office of Thompson, the Moscow Prosecuting Attorney, told CNN they could not comment due to the wide-ranging gag order in the case, which prohibits prosecutors, defense lawyers, attorneys for victims’ families and witnesses from saying anything publicly, aside from what is already in the public record.

The killings shook the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, inspiring fear as law enforcement spent weeks searching for a suspect. The harrowing details of the crimes and years-long legal proceedings against Kohberger have also been the subject of public scrutiny. Kohberger appeared to have little connection to the victims.

Kohberger was arrested over a month after the killings in Pennsylvania, after forensic DNA testing from trash outside the Kohberger family home gave Idaho law enforcement the probable cause to arrest him.

Prosecutors had submitted a variety of evidence they say ties Kohberger to the crimes, including DNA found on a knife sheath on a bed close to Mogen. The single source profile was determined to be male and matched to Kohberger through investigative genetic genealogy, the process of taking unknown DNA to public databases and finding relatives that share the profile.

His defense attorneys have said he has autism in part of their push to get the death penalty off the table. They have said he was out driving alone during the night of the killings.

Four students killed overnight

The four university students were found dead on November 13, 2022 after a Saturday night out. Investigators believe the four roommates were killed sometime between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m.

Accounts of what unfolded that night in Moscow have emerged from two of the surviving roommates, who were both expected to testify at trial. One survivor, Dylan Mortensen, said she was woken overnight by strange noises in their off-campus house.

She told investigators she saw a masked man with “bushy eyebrows” in the home, according to an affidavit.

When their roommates didn’t respond to their text messages in the morning, Mortensen and the other survivor, Bethany Funke, called 911 at around noon, records show.

Heavy breathing and crying can be heard in audio of the 911 call as the surviving roommates pass the phone between them and what sounds like two other people, answering the dispatcher in fragmented responses.

“Something has happened in our house, we don’t know what,” one of the roommates says.

On the call they reported 20-year-old Kernodle unconscious, telling the dispatcher she had come home drunk the night before. “She’s not waking up,” one of them says.

Police arrived to find Kernodle and Chapin dead on the floor of the second floor. Upstairs, Goncalves and Mogen were dead in one of the beds with visible stab wounds.

“They were sons, daughters, siblings, and friends—real people with real dreams,” reads another statement posted to Facebook by the Goncalves family, attributed to Kaylee’s sister Aubrie, after the deal was announced.

“They deserve to be remembered for who they were in life, not only for the tragedy of their deaths. But before that can truly happen, they deserve justice,” it added.

This story has been updated with more information.

Correction: An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated Kohberger’s university. He had attended Washington State University.

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