() The family of slain University of Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves wants to refund more than $85,000 they received on a GoFundMe that was created to support their expenses during Bryan Kohberger’s capital murder trial.
Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s father, told TMZ that he does not want to mislead the public who donated, stating he won’t “bait and switch these beautiful people like (Latah County Prosecutor) Bill Thompson did to our family.”
Kohberger’s murder trial in the slayings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin had been slated to begin in August. However, he accepted a surprise plea deal that took the death penalty off the table. He will now serve life in prison without parole. He is now scheduled to be formally sentenced on July 23.
The Goncalves family noted that “many people have been talking” about the family’s GoFundMe page, which was created to support their expenses to travel for Kohberger’s trial.
“Please give me time to figure out the best way to do this. I can’t just ask gofundme to reimburse everyone, as the money has already been deposited into my bank account, and is no longer held by gofundme,” the family wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Many families of the victims had planned on living in Boise, Idaho, for the duration of the trial.
The victims’ families have been divided on the plea. The Goncalves family has criticized the deal, calling it hurried and secretive.
A family member of one victim told that upon hearing of the plea deal, she felt like “all the power had been given back to Kohberger.”
“This is the opposite of our will,” Steve Goncalves told ’s “Banfield” in his first national interview since the plea deal report. “There was no majority (of victims’ survivors) believing that this was acceptable.”
’s Ashleigh Banfield, Patrick Djordjevic, Damita Menezes and Safia Samee Ali contributed to this story.
