Kaylee Goncalves' sister speaks out about courtroom confrontation with Bryan Kohberger
The world came to know the feisty older sister of University of Idaho murder victim Kaylee Goncalves after she gave a ferocious victim impact statement at Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing last week. She said she memorized her speech so she wouldn't break eye contact with him in the courtroom.
"I was prepared to be arrested that day," Alivea Goncalves told ABC News of the fiery moment she confronted her younger sister's killer in court.
Alivea Goncalves said to Kohberger, "You're a delusional, pathetic, hypochondriac loser who thought you were so much smarter than everybody else. ... You aren't special or deep, not mysterious or exceptional. ... No one thinks you are important."
"I was fueled by seeing the rage on his face," she told ABC News. "Man ... was he mad. That was obviously a big point of why I did what I did -- to make him feel small."
Alivea Goncalves also asked pointed questions like, "What was second weapon you used on Kaylee?" A hypothetical question in the moment, but one that investigators have yet to figure out. Kaylee Goncalves had unique injuries described as a horizontal pattern, and it’s not clear what caused them, police confirmed to ABC News.
"I had one shot at it and I was gonna make the most of it," Alivea Goncalves said.
Alivea Goncalves said she did eliminate a few thoughts from her statement after realizing Kohberger's mom and sister were in the courtroom.
"I didn't anticipate his mother and sister being there," she said. "And I had specific lines that were directed towards his relationship with his mother and directed towards the shame that he has caused his family, and how the ultimate move of a coward is for him to sit behind bars while the rest of his family has to bear the real weight, the shame of what he's done."
She concluded her statement with memorable words to Kohberger, saying that if he hadn't attacked the students in their sleep, "Kaylee would've kicked your f------ ass."
"I got up there knowing that my speech wasn't to Kaylee and Maddie -- it was for them. ... I just wanted to reclaim their power," she said.
Kaylee, Kaylee's lifelong best friend Maddie Mogen, their roommate Xana Kernodle and Xana's boyfriend Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death at the girls' off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022. On Wednesday, their killer was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences on the four first-degree murder counts and the maximum penalty of 10 years on the burglary count after pleading guilty to all charges.
Kaylee Goncalves was stabbed more than 30 times and had defensive wounds, according to a police report released for the first time last week. The 21-year-old was described as "unrecognizable as her facial structure was extremely damaged," the report said.
"It's gruesome and it's graphic," Alivea Goncalves acknowledged, but she said it's information she wanted because she knows "Kaylee absolutely fought for her life."
In November 2022, when news of the deaths at 1122 King Road reached Alivea Goncalves, she said she started going through her sister's phone records to see if she had made any calls, convincing herself Kaylee wasn’t picking up her phone because she was at the police station answering questions. But Alivea Goncalves would never speak to her sister again.
Their last conversation was a six-hour FaceTime during which Alivea Goncalves guided her sister through buying her Range Rover, which the 21-year-old proudly drove to Moscow to show her friends on her last trip to their college house. Their dad drives the car now. Alivea Goncalves said many of Kaylee’s other belongings were picked up by their parents, covered in blood and in hazmat bags.
Alivea Goncalves made Kaylee Goncalves an aunt twice over before she died, and twice more after. She was pregnant with a girl when Kaylee Goncalves was murdered, and she named that baby Theo MaddieKay. Alivea Goncalves calls Kaylee and Maddie soulmates, and she describes their namesake as the perfect mixture of Kaylee and Maddie.
