Kaylee Goncalves' sister says she wants Bryan Kohberger removed from the face of the Earth after murderer sought to retract his guilty pleas for killings of four Idaho students

The oldest sister of Kaylee Goncalves has declared she wants Bryan Kohberger 'no longer breathing on this earth,' just weeks after the quadruple killer filed a petition to take his case to trial.   

Alivea Goncalves, 29, sat down for a video interview with NBC's Today on Tuesday, where she responded to Kohberger's latest bid to withdraw his guilty plea and take the case to 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 told the outlet.

'This will never be over for us until the defendant is no longer breathing on this earth.'

The Goncalves family has remained one of the most vocal since Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were brutally murdered in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2022. 

Last year, Alivea unleashed a fiery courtroom rebuke during Kohberger's sentencing, ordering her sister's killer: 'Sit up straight when I talk to you.' 

'I won't stand here and give you what you want. I won't give you tears. Instead, I will call you what you are: sociopath, psychopath, murderer,' she said in the face-to-face courtroom confrontation.

'The truth is you're basic. You're a textbook case as insecurity disguised as control. You spent months preparing and still all it took was my sister and a sheath,' she added. 'You're as dumb as they come. Stupid, dumb, weak, dirty.'

Her most recent comments come days after Kohberger filed for post-conviction relief in Ada County District Court, prompting a Goncalves family spokesperson to brand him 'the mosquito you just can't seem to swat' and accuse him of seeking renewed attention. 

The spokesperson said: '(Kohberger) appeared in court for a hearing before a judge, accompanied by his four lawyers. He chose not to leave his fate - or the facts of the case - to a jury.'

'He never cried foul, never claimed he was uninformed or pressured... He admitted his guilt,' they added.

Kohberger, now 31, struck a plea deal in 2025 shortly before his trial was set to begin, escaping a potential death sentence but receiving four consecutive life terms behind bars. As part of the agreement, he waived his right to appeal. 

But he filed a handwritten petition on his own behalf last week claiming he was 'advised to lie' and told he would secure 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.

If successful, the petition could allow him to withdraw his guilty plea and send the case back to trial, potentially putting the death penalty back on the table. 

Kohberger's petition was filed just days before the release of Netflix's three-part documentary, The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, which the Goncalves family participated in.

During Tuesday's interview, Kaylee's father Steve Goncalves - who previously said he was frustrated the case never reached trial - opened up about Kohberger's latest legal move and whether he still wants to see the accused killer face a jury. 

He said he has been 'consistent through and through' in wanting to see a trial take place, arguing that four life sentences are 'not a real death penalty.'

'It's my child and I'm going to demand the highest standard of law and that's not dying in prison, getting vegan meals and being treated like some kind of celebrity - that's not even close,' he said.

Kaylee’s youngest sister, 20-year-old Aubrie Goncalves, broke her silence for the first time nearly four years after the horrific stabbings, revealing why she finally chose to speak out. 

'When everything happened, I was a sophomore in high school. 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,' she told Today.

'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.'

Sitting alongside her parents, Aubrie said she wanted to focus on the lives lost and, for the first time, shared what she wanted the world to know about her older sister. 

'I think you could see how Kaylee was as a person just by looking at pictures of her. She was like the bubbliest human ever. She was always down to have a fun time, she was always looking at the positives,' she said.

'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.'

Just one day after Kohberger’s filing, Aubrie released a lengthy statement on her family’s Facebook page. 

'I wasn't planning on saying anything today. 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,' she wrote.

'For him, this may be another legal filing. For me, it's another day without my sister.'

She pushed back further against Kohberger’s latest legal bid, writing: 'Why should the person convicted of taking their voices continue to have one?'

'This isn't a Netflix documentary. This isn't a conspiracy theory. This isn't entertainment. This is my life. These were real people,' she added.

'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 reiterated that with every holiday, family gathering and milestone that passes, the victims’ absence is felt - despite the fact they deserved to be there, living their lives. 

'They were murdered while they were sleeping, in the place they should have been safest,' Aubrie wrote. 'They never got the chance to tell their story. They never got the chance to ask for mercy. Mercy was never going to be shown to them.'

'They were silenced without a choice, without a second thought,' she added.

In his filing, Kohberger claimed his defense team - attorneys Anne Taylor, Elisa Massoth and Bicka Barlow - failed to tell him about an 'exculpatory discovery': a hair found at the crime scene that physical analysis determined did not belong to him. 

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador called Kohberger's U-turn 'deeply painful' for the victims' families and said he was standing by them.