(LOS ANGELES) — A woman reportedly known as the “Ketamine Queen” has pleaded guilty to providing the dose of ketamine that led to Matthew Perry’s death in October 2023, becoming the fifth and final person to be convicted in connection with the “Friends” actor’s fatal overdose.
Jasveen Sangha, 42, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Los Angeles federal court to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury, the Department of Justice said.
Sangha had been scheduled to go on trial in late September. The dual U.S-U.K. citizen has been in custody since her arrest in August 2024, nearly a year after Perry’s death.
Her attorney said Sangha has “accepted responsibility.”
“She feels horrible. She’s felt horrible from Day 1,” her attorney, Mark Geragos, told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday. “This has been a horrendous experience.”
Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 10. She faces 45 years in prison. Geragos said he feel there’s “a lot of mitigation in this case” regarding the sentencing, but didn’t go into specific detail on what those factors would be.
“I think there’s a lot of things that we will present that will give a clear picture as to what actually happened and levels of responsibility,” he said.
Perry died from a ketamine overdose on Oct. 28, 2023, at the age of 54. The actor was discovered unresponsive in a jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home, police said. An autopsy report revealed he died from the acute effects of ketamine.
In addition to Sangha, four other people were charged and pleaded guilty in connection with Perry’s death — Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s live-in personal assistant; two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez; and Erik Fleming.
Prosecutors said Sangha worked with Fleming to distribute ketamine to Perry, and that in October 2023, they sold the actor 51 vials of ketamine, which were provided to Iwamasa, the DOJ said.
“Leading up to Perry’s death, Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine that Sangha supplied to Fleming,” the DOJ said in a press release last month. “Specifically, on October 28, 2023, Iwamasa injected Perry with at least three shots of Sangha’s ketamine, which caused Perry’s death.”
Iwamasa, who admitted in court documents to administering the ketamine on the day that Perry died, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, the DOJ said. He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 19.
Fleming admitted in court documents that he distributed the ketamine that killed Perry, prosecutors said. Like Iwamasa, he pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death and will be sentenced on Nov. 12.
Plasencia pleaded guilty in July to four counts of distribution of ketamine. Plasencia distributed ketamine to Iwamasa in order to inject the actor, however, he did not supply the doses that killed Perry, prosecutors said. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3.
Chavez pleaded guilty in October 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. He admitted he sold Plasencia ketamine to then give to Perry. He is set to be sentenced on Dec. 17.
In her plea agreement, Sangha also admitted to selling ketamine in connection with another overdose death, prosecutors said. Victim Cody McLaury died hours after Sangha sold him four vials of ketamine in August 2019, according to the DOJ.
She additionally admitted to using her North Hollywood residence to “store, package, and distribute narcotics, including ketamine and methamphetamine, since at least June 2019,” the DOJ said. Authorities found 79 vials of liquid ketamine, among other drugs and drug trafficking items such as a money-counting machine, in her residence during a search in March 2023, the DOJ said.
Views from the Drift Hotel March 25, 2019 Overseas Highway, Key Largo Florida (Photo by Paul Harris/Getty Images)
(KEY LARGO, Fla.) — The family of the 8-year-old old boy who was bitten by a shark while snorkeling off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, on Labor Day released a statement Wednesday thanking those who helped with his rescue.
Richard Burrows was bitten by a blacktip shark Monday afternoon while snorkeling with his father, David, and his sister, his family said in their statement.
The incident occurred around 3:24 p.m. on Monday, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post. The child was airlifted by Trauma Star to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
“Richard’s 10-year-old sister, Rose, was instrumental in her brother’s rescue and both of her parents are immensely proud of the strength of character and composure she demonstrated under pressure,” the family statement said.
A good Samaritan, identified as Richard Hayden, heard calls for help over the radio and helped guide the boy’s boat to shore, according to an incident report. Hayden assisted the child’s father in applying tourniquets to the boy’s right leg to control bleeding before emergency responders arrived, the report stated.
The family thanked Hayden in their statement, as well as law enforcement, first responders and medical staff.
“Richard is recovering well from his surgery and is gaining strength by the day. He is in good spirits,” the family statement said. “Our hope is that he will be back enjoying his passion for the ocean and marine life with his older sister in no time.”
“The Burrows family sincerely appreciate and thank everyone for their messages of support and well wishes and assistance in these past days. We now request some privacy for the family to focus solely on Richard’s recovery and will not be commenting further,” the family statement concluded.
The Labor Day attack marks the latest in a series of shark encounters in the Florida Keys region. Last July, Jose Abreu, 37, survived multiple bites from a bull shark while spearfishing near a reef off Key West.
The area has seen several serious shark incidents in recent years. Jameson Reeder Jr., who lost his leg in a bull shark attack in 2022, recently returned to the same waters where he was bitten.
“I was a little scared before I jumped in,” Reeder told ABC News in July. “For a split two seconds, it was like a whole flashback of the shark attack, but I knew I had the Lord and I just had a lot of fun.”
Scientists say there has been an increase in shark populations, which they attribute to warmer water temperatures and successful conservation efforts.
A sign marks the U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters Building on April 13, 2025, in Washington, DC. (J. David Ake/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A group of more than 85 climate scientists released a critical review of a recent U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) report on climate change, finding it “biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking.”
The DOE report, compiled by the agency’s “2025 Climate Working Group,” a five-person panel hand-picked in March by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, was released in late July alongside a proposed regulatory repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Endangerment Finding.”
In 2009, the EPA issued an Endangerment Finding determining that human-amplified climate change poses a threat to human health and safety, which became the basis for its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The rise of human flourishing over the past two centuries is a story worth celebrating. Yet we are told, relentlessly, that the very energy systems that enabled this progress now pose an existential threat,” Wright said at the time of the report’s release.
The Climate Working Group, which is at the center of a lawsuit against the Trump administration alleging it was improperly formed, operated without transparency and engaged in unlawful activities, began preparing its findings in early April and compiled the report in about two months.
The conclusions in the report are a stark contrast to well-known climate assessments, such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and U.S. National Climate Assessment, which include contributions from thousands of scientists around the world and undergo a rigorous years-long process of open and independent review.
The IPCC found that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming.” The U.S. National Climate Assessment determined that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming” and that “without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.”
The release of the DOE report met swift backlash from veteran climate scientists who were critical of the findings, the process and the people selected for the working group. Dozens of members of the climate science community then got together to prepare a detailed, public rebuttal of the DOE report.
“This report makes a mockery of science. It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community,” Andrew Dessler, a climate researcher at Texas A&M University, who helped organize the effort, said.
Experts involved in reviewing the report said that it includes “biased assessments” and “fundamentally flawed” arguments. They pointed out that the DOE report was produced by a small, hand-picked group, often writing outside their expertise, which led to basic factual errors. The report lacked peer review, was developed in secret, and showed no accountability to public input, these experts said in their review.
According to the rebuttal report, the DOE team “selectively cites outdated or discredited studies” and “misrepresents mainstream sources” of climate science. Reviewers also raised concerns that the report was purposely designed to support a predetermined policy agenda, particularly to undermine the EPA’s Endangerment Finding, rather than to offer an objective scientific assessment.
The DOE report claims that climate models used by scientists overestimate warming trends, that long-term trends for disasters generally don’t show much change and the economic impacts of carbon emissions are “negligible.” The DOE report also said there are advantages to a world with more carbon, like increased plant growth.
“The DOE report is not a neutral scientific assessment, it is a policy-driven document that selectively presents information to support a predetermined narrative. Rather than engaging with the full body of climate science, it highlights isolated findings that, when removed from context, give the misleading impression that rising CO₂ levels are broadly beneficial,” said Becca Neumann, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington and head of the hydro-biogeochemistry research group.
In a statement to ABC News, a DOE spokesperson said, “Unlike previous administrations, the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy.”
The report was reviewed internally by DOE scientific researchers and policy experts from the Office of Science and National Labs and is open to wider peer review from the scientific community and general public via the public comment period, the DOE spokesperson said.
“The purpose of this report is to restore an open and transparent dialogue around climate science,” the DOE spokesperson concluded. “Following the public comment period, we look forward to reviewing and engaging on substantive comments.”
The benefits from rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are among the key points made in the DOE’s report, emphasizing that higher carbon dioxide levels can enhance photosynthesis and boost crop yields and aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Neumann acknowledges that this effect is real and well-documented, but said it’s already factored into the climate and agricultural models the report seeks to discredit.
“What the report fails to acknowledge is that these benefits are offset by the broader impacts of climate change: rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and more extreme weather—all of which pose serious challenges to agriculture. For most regions in the U.S. and globally, the net effect of climate change on food production is projected to be negative. Yet the report repeatedly suggests the opposite,” said Neumann.
The DOE report not only criticizes numerous climate science findings but also attempts to cast doubt on the reliability of the weather and climate data being collected for analysis, claiming that urbanization effects, like the Urban Heat Island, significantly bias global temperature observations.
However, the scientific consensus, reflected in IPCC assessments, finds that these effects have a minimal to negligible impact on global warming trends. Climate scientists explain that standard data homogenization techniques effectively identify and correct non-climatic biases, and these adjusted datasets are independently validated by rural-only networks and satellite observations.
The critical review, which totals more than 400 pages, was submitted to the Department of Energy during the report’s public comment period.
The DOE report is already facing legal challenges. In August, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Environmental Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, contesting the Trump administration’s use of a secretly convened group to undermine established climate science and regulations. The suit names Secretary Wright, the DOE, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA, and the Climate Working Group as defendants.
The lawsuit cites the Federal Advisory Committee Act, enacted in the aftermath of Nixon-era scandals, which requires that federal government advisory committees operate transparently, make their materials publicly available, and maintain balanced membership.
“Decades of rigorous scientific analysis shows burning fossil fuels is unequivocally contributing to deadly heat waves, accelerating sea level rise, worsening wildfires and floods, increased heavy rainfall, and more intense and damaging storms across the country. We should all relentlessly question who stands to gain from efforts to upend this unassailable and peer-reviewed scientific truth,” Dr. Gretchen Goldman, the president and CEO of UCS, said at the time the lawsuit was filed.
The EPA told ABC News regarding the lawsuit, “As a matter of longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on current or pending litigation.”
Plush dolls Labubu are displayed inside a craw machine on September 2, 2025, in Hong Kong, China. (Sawayasu Tsuji/Getty Images)
(SEATTLE) — Over 11,000 counterfeit Labubus — the dolls that have recently exploded in global popularity — were seized at Seattle’s airport, with officials estimating their worth to be over half a million dollars, according to a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson.
“Fake Labubus are not welcome in America. Thanks for the good catch Seattle!” CBP said on X on Friday.
The bust occurred on Aug. 26 when CBP officers assigned to Seattle Air Cargo at Sea Tac began searching a shipment from South Korea that was “falsely manifested as ‘LED Bulb,'” a CBP spokesperson told ABC News in a statement. Inside the boxes, officials found 11,134 counterfeit Labubu dolls — also known as “Lafufus” — with a manufacturer suggested retail price of $513,937.76, CBP said.
The shipment of dolls, which breached federal laws of importation and merchandise involved in copyright or trademark violations, was destroyed by officers, the spokesperson said.
There have not been any charges or arrests made for the counterfeit shipment, but the “smugglers engaged in this contraband attempt have incurred in a significant economic loss by having their products seized by the U.S. government,” the spokesperson said.
Brian Humphrey, the director of field operations for the CBP Seattle field office, said officers are “still on the lookout for the one and only 24K GOLD Labubu.”
Labubus, which debuted in China in 2015, have exploded in popularity this year, with revenue for Pop Mart — the company behind the dolls — reaching $1.8 billion in 2024, according to the company’s annual financial report.
While the dolls retail for about $30, they can go for hundreds and sometimes even thousands of dollars on the resale market.
The dolls counterfeit alternative, “Lafufus,” are typically made with lower-quality materials and may have different features than authentic Labubus.
This bust in Seattle comes after dozens of boxes of Labubus, totaling around $7,000, were stolen from a California store last month, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
ABC News’ Alondra Valle contributed to this report.
Luigi Mangione appears at a hearing for the murder of UHC CEO Brian Thompson at Manhattan Criminal Court on February 21, 2025 in New York City. (Curtis Means – Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Fast fashion giant Shein is conducting an investigation of its internal processes after using the likeness of Luigi Mangione to model clothing.
The company has since taken down the image of Mangione – who is accused of carrying out the assassination-style killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year – and vowed to review their monitoring processes.
“The image in question was provided by a third-party vendor and was removed immediately upon discovery. We have stringent standards for all listings on our platform. We are conducting a thorough investigation, strengthening our monitoring processes, and will take appropriate action against the vendor in line with our policies,” a Shein spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News.
In an archived page from Shein’s website, an image of Mangione’s likeness was used to advertise a patterned short-sleeve shirt that retailed for about $10.
The exact origin of the image and how long it was used by Chinese e-commerce giant is unclear. A Shein spokesperson said the image was provided by a “third party vendor,” who they plan to take “appropriate action against.”
An analysis of the image conducted by ABC News could not conclusively determine if artificial intelligence was used to generate the image.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered Thompson on a Midtown Manhattan Street in December. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty if Mangione is convicted. His trial date has not been set.
Prosecutors at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment about the image.
Mourners hold candles during a candlelight vigil to commemorate the first anniversary of a mass shooting that claimed 18 lives at Just-In-Time Recreation and Schemengees Bar & Grille on October 25, 2024 in Lewiston, Maine. (Zhu Ziyu/VCG via Getty Images)
(LEWISTON, Maine) — Dozens of survivors and families of victims of the 2023 mass shooting in Maine are suing the federal government over its “negligence” in failing to address “known dangers” posed by the Army reservist who would go on to kill 18 people.
Lawyers for about 100 survivors and families of victims announced their intent to sue the government last October. Now, with no response or acknowledgement, the group said, they are officially filing suit.
At least 18 people were killed and more than a dozen others injured after a gunman opened fire at two locations in Lewiston, Maine: a bowling alley where a children’s league was taking place and a local bar. The massacre was one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history.
The gunman, Robert Card, displayed multiple warning signs in the weeks and months leading up to the shooting, including a clear pattern that was known to the Army, but to which they did not respond, the 119-page suit alleged.
“Well before the mass shooting, the Army was aware that Robert Card had classic warnings signs of high risk to himself and the public. The Army’s knowledge; its mandatory processes; its promises to Card’s family, medical providers and local law enforcement; and its actions in undertaking to intervene individually and in combination created a legal duty on the part of the Army to address the risks posed by Card in a reasonable manner,” the suit said.
The actions that should have been taken were buttressed by a wealth of knowledge of the “unique risks” service members with “mental health crises” pose to “themselves and the public,” but instead those policies were “violated” in failing to take “mandatory action” with Card, according to the suit.
“The Army knew that the combination of mental health deterioration, blast-induced brain injury, access to weapons, and paranoid delusions required immediate and decisive intervention to prevent tragedy,” the suit said. “The Army had mandatory reporting systems, crisis intervention protocols, and state law utilization procedures designed for such situations.”
The Army’s own investigation into what led up to the shooting found, among other things, “multiple communication failures between military and civilian hospitals, as well as with SFC Card’s chain of command,” as ABC News has previously reported. Those failures “impacted” Card’s “continuity of care,” and possibly, could have prevented him from wielding weapons as he did, the investigation found.
The group’s suit now seeks “accountability from the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, and Keller Army Community Hospital after those institutions ignored warning signs of the dangers posed by Army Reserve Sergeant, Robert Card, including Card’s threat six weeks before the tragedy that he planned to commit a mass shooting.”
(NEW YORK) — Dozens of fires are burning throughout the West as parts of the country remain under advisories for high temperatures.
Red flag warnings are in place for Northern California and parts of Oregon due to dry thunderstorms possible on Wednesday. The storms bring little to no rain but still produce lightning and strong wind gusts, which can start new fires and exacerbate existing fires. Dry, warm conditions also continue.
In Washington’s Cascade Mountains, a red flag warning is in place for Thursday due to relative humidity dropping to 12% in places and high temperatures in the valleys between 97 and 102 degrees and 85 to 90 degrees in the mountains. These hot, dry conditions will lead to potential rapid fire growth.
High temperatures and heat alerts are forecast for the Northwest. Temperatures are expected to be between 93 and 103 on Wednesday and Thursday.
Yakima and Spokane, Washington, may hit their all-time September highest temperature record on Wednesday, with highs around 102 degrees possible in both locations.
Los Angeles and Burbank, California, remain under a heat advisory on Wednesday for temperatures reaching between 92 and 102 degrees.
Wildfire smoke continues to blanket the Northwest, and now additional smoke from Canadian wildfires will join the American fire smoke as northerly flow begins. A plume of heavy smoke is expected to reach Omaha, Nebraska, by sunset on Wednesday.
On Thursday afternoon, very heavy smoke is expected throughout much of the Rocky Mountains, reaching from Washington to Kansas.
Heavy smoke will also spread across southern Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri on Thursday.
From Wichita, Kansas, to Kansas City, Missouri, there is a slight risk — level 2 of 5 — for severe storms Wednesday after 6 p.m.
Large to very large hail is possible, potentially as large as tennis balls, with damaging wind gusts in excess of 60 mph also possible.
Powerball lottery ticket forms are displayed at the Downtown Miami Souvenirs store on August 26, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — After there was no billion-dollar Labor Day Powerball winner on Monday, jackpot dreams are still alive as the prize money swells to a staggering $1.40 billion, per the latest update Wednesday morning.
The next drawing will be on Wednesday night, with the jackpot having an estimated cash value of $634.3 million before taxes.
The winning numbers in Monday’s drawing were 8, 23, 25, 40 and 53 with a red Powerball of 5. Nationwide, ten tickets matched all five white balls to win $1 million prizes. The $1 million-winning tickets were sold in California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey (2), New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to Powerball.
Wednesday’s jackpot now ranks as the fourth largest in the Powerball game and the sixth largest among U.S. lottery jackpot games.
“Tonight could be the night this billion-dollar Powerball jackpot is won!” Powerball Product Group Chair and Iowa Lottery CEO Matt Strawn said in a press release Wednesday.
While the jackpot remained elusive, nine tickets in Monday’s drawing matched all five white balls to win $1 million each, with four winners in California and one each in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Three additional tickets in Colorado, Indiana and New Hampshire doubled their prizes to $2 million by including the Power Play option.
Monday’s drawing marked the 40th attempt to find a jackpot winner since May 31, 2025. The current streak approaches the record of 42 consecutive drawings, which ended with a $1.326 billion winner in Oregon on April 6, 2024.
Winners can choose between annual payments over 30 years, with a 5% increase each year, or the immediate cash option.
Powerball’s history includes record-breaking prizes, with the largest being a $2.04 billion jackpot won in California in November 2022, followed by a $1.765 billion prize claimed in California in October 2023, and a $1.586 billion jackpot split among winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016.
Other notable wins include the $1.326 billion Oregon prize, the $1.08 billion California win in July 2023, and prizes ranging from $842.4 million to $754.6 million won across Michigan, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Washington.
Tickets cost $2 and are available in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, while the overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.9.
Drawings are broadcast live from Tallahassee, Florida, every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET and streamed on Powerball.com.
Alleged serial killer Rex A. Heuermann is escorted into Judge Tim Mazzei’s courtroom at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead for a frye hearing on July 17, 2025 in Riverhead, New York. (Photo by James Carbone-Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A New York judge on Wednesday admitted DNA evidence that Suffolk County prosecutors say links alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann to the murders of at least seven victims.
The defense had challenged the evidence since it was obtained using new DNA technology that had never been used in a New York court.
Prosecutors successfully argued the technology was derived from accepted scientific methods.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse for his sentencing hearing, July 23, 2025, in Boise, Idaho. (Kyle Green/Pool/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — As part of his studies in the fall of 2022, then-criminology Washington State University Ph.D. student Bryan Kohberger proposed researching criminals’ emotions and how they made decisions. In November, the scholar of crime would go on to stab four college students to death.
Buried in nearly 700 pages of evidence photos, the Idaho State Police released a trove of Kohberger’s homework assignments from his Pullman, Washington, apartment. The pictures were released in response to public records requests, including from ABC News.
They are among the thousands of pages of records now being released in the wake of Kohberger’s decision to plead guilty to killing Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in July.
“Not all criminal actions reflect a rational, instrumental process,” Kohberger wrote for one of his classes. “Crimes of passion involve reactive violence, which manifests due to intense emotional arousal, confounding notions of an exclusively cold, criminal calculus.”
He said he wanted to understand “how emotions, both positively and negatively valanced, influence the decision-making involved in burglary before, during and after crime-commission.” He suggested conducting “in-person, semi-structured” jailhouse interviews.
Investigators pored over everything they found among Kohberger’s possessions in order to help piece together a portrait of their suspect. Kohberger’s writings indicated that he had not only steeped himself in studying crime — he had shown desire to get inside criminals’ heads, according to investigators.
“That, in and of itself, would not make him a criminal. There’s others out there that are deeply fascinated in studying people that would never probably even consider committing the crime,” said Ed Jacobson, who was the FBI’s Acting Supervisor for the Couer d’Alene and Lewiston offices during the Moscow investigation.
“Once we arrested him, the [Behavioral Analysis Unit] is out there. They are going through the phones. They’re going through every bit of information we’ve gathered on this guy,” Jacobson said. “We’re looking for evidence we can show in court. They’re looking at it as the broader spectrum. They’re trying to get into this guy’s thinking patterns. It goes to knowledge, and potentially motive. Doesn’t make him guilty — but a lot of other stuff did.”
Prosecutors had planned to use Kohberger’s homework against him at trial. They would have used some of his assignments to show he had intently “studied crime” — and knew exactly how to cover his tracks after committing murder. “He had that knowledge and skill,” lead prosecutor Bill Thompson said at the July 2 plea hearing.
The now-admitted killer also wrote at length about how “procedural injustice” in the American system “has produced many false confessions.”
“False guilty pleas manifest due to a lack of judicial oversight and plea deals that seem to compel defendants to enter them,” Kohberger wrote. “If defendants fail to accept a plea bargain, prosecutors will pursue the strictest charges.”
“Some people simply plead guilty to crimes they did not commit as to choose the lesser of two evils,” he said. Kohberger also pointed to “eyewitness misidentification” as an issue and noted a potential remedy: “increasing video surveillance in public places.”
In another paper, Kohberger described how “imprudent application of prosecutorial power” fostered mass incarceration. He wrote about a 2005 murder case involving a woman who was convicted of her mother’s murder, and who later won her release. Kohberger wrote how the prosecutor “behaved highly unethically” and the woman was “forced” to “accept the evidence against her.”
“If she failed to comply, this would leave [the accused woman] with no future, and in an attempt to salvage what was left of her life, she acquiesced,” Kohberger wrote. “Though one cannot ascertain [her] actual guilt, her case is reminiscent of the rushed process that precipitates false imprisonment.”
Another seven-page paper explored what Kohberger called a “gruesome” stabbing murder case. “Blood pooled around him and was spattered on the walls and television near his body,” Kohberger said, describing how the victim was found. He noted grisly details from the scene “would be a reminder of the seriousness” of the crime to jurors. Kohberger added that the alleged killer’s DNA evidence was found at the scene which belied his “initial account.”
In an essay quiz dated Oct. 19, 2022, Kohberger discussed whether the death penalty is a “valid public policy, especially in the context of history and morality.” He argued that in fact, capital punishment is not effective.
“There is no evidence of deterrent effects, and there remains an even better argument that, rather than preventing anarchy and disorder, the divisive policy may increase it in due time,” Kohberger wrote. In his papers on the death penalty, he cited some of the same court decisions his lawyers would later use in an unsuccessful attempt to take the death penalty off the table in his own case.
By the end of the fall 2022 semester, Kohberger’s status at the university was in jeopardy, according to police records.
Just 11 days before he would carry out the quadruple killing, Kohberger was sent a letter from his graduate program how to adjust his behavior — or face further discipline.
The “improvement plan,” dated Nov. 2, 2022 and issued by WSU Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, directed Kohberger to establish goals and meet with a supervisor weekly. Among the steps he was directed to take was to “make sure weekly goals are progressively harder to ensure progress throughout the rest of the semester.”
