Cara Northington, the mother of 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, told a faith-based audience that a period in jail after her daughter’s death helped her find sobriety and forgiveness for the man convicted in the killings.
Speaking Saturday night at a “Journey of Forgiveness” event at Altar Church in Coeur d’Alene, Northington said she no longer hated Bryan Kohberger and had stopped giving him space in her thoughts. “I don’t hate Bryan Kohberger,” she told the panel, according to local media reports. She said the time she spent behind bars led her to refind her faith and to surrender her anger.
Northington said she was arrested for a probation violation shortly after Kernodle was killed and spent 10 months in jail. She described a long struggle with drug addiction that lasted about 30 years and said she got clean while incarcerated, spending much of her time reading the Bible. “The Lord just had me surrender it all. And I did, and I haven’t gone back,” she said at the event, according to the Idaho Spokesman.
She spoke about her daughter’s personality, saying Xana Kernodle “lit up a room” and had “a way of making you feel special.” Northington also addressed Kohberger directly at the event: “I do not fear you or let you have space in my head anymore,” she said, adding that the man who killed her daughter was nevertheless “still made in God’s image.”
Kernodle was one of four University of Idaho students slain in a November 2022 attack at a home in Moscow, Idaho. The other victims were Ethan Chapin, 20, and roommates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21. Prosecutors and court filings showed Kernodle suffered defensive wounds to her hands.
Bryan Kohberger was sentenced in July to four consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. The sentence followed a plea agreement reached in July that resolved the case without a capital trial; the agreement avoided a potential death sentence and meant Kohberger did not publicly explain his actions or motive. He is incarcerated at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna.
Northington’s comments came as part of a panel in which participants described learning to forgive people who committed violent crimes against family members. She credited renewed sobriety and faith with directing her toward forgiveness and described experiencing an “overwhelming joy” after giving up drugs.
The University of Idaho killings drew national attention and spurred a lengthy criminal investigation that ended with Kohberger’s arrest, conviction and the plea agreement that produced the life sentences. Survivors, family members and community members have continued to process the aftermath of the slayings, and some families have publicly commented on the terms of the plea agreement and the absence of a public explanation of motive.
Northington’s remark that she does not hate Kohberger and her account of gaining sobriety in jail add a personal dimension to the ongoing community reckoning with the murders and their consequences for the victims’ families and the university community.