Over the weekend, the mother of one of the four University of Idaho students killed by Bryan Kohberger gave a powerful and emotional speech about forgiveness.
Cara Northington, Xana Kernodle’s mother, stated that she forgave her daughter’s killer and had no ill will toward him, according to the Coeur d’Alene Press.
“I don’t hate Bryan Kohberger,” Northington told The Spokesman-Review.
She went on to say that after spending ten months in jail for her daughter’s murder, she reached a point of forgiveness.
Northington shared all of this while taking part in the “Journey of Forgiveness” at the Altar Church in Coeur d’Alene on September 6.
She was part of a three-person panel that shared their experiences learning to forgive people who had committed unconscionable crimes against them or their family members.
Northington said she was in the middle of a 30-year battle with drug addiction when her daughter died.
Northington stated that she became sober after being sentenced to jail for a probation violation shortly after her daughter died.
She claimed that she became sober after rediscovering her faith.
“The Lord just made me surrender everything. Northington said, “And I did, and I haven’t gone back.”
Her newfound sobriety brought her a “overwhelming joy that I couldn’t explain,” and set her on the path to forgiving the man who killed her daughter.
She claimed that Kohberger was just like her in that he was “still made in God’s image,” but she refused to let him control her emotions.
“I don’t fear you or give you space in my head anymore,” Northington said.
An emotional Northington also shared fond memories of her daughter, whom she described as a “beautiful soul.”
Northington commented, “She was funny. She just had this way of making you feel special.”
And, while she will always cherish the time and memories she shared with her daughter, Northington stated that she is “washing her hands” of Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences in a maximum security prison.
On November 13, 2022, Kernodle, 20, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, and her roommates Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21, were stabbed to death at their off-campus rental home in Moscow.
Kohberger’s motivation and any connection he had to the four roommates remain unknown, but prosecutors have suggested that Kernodle was not one of the convicted murderer’s intended victims that night.
Unfortunately, Kernodle was awake when Kohberger began his rampage, and it is believed that she discovered the killer upstairs before he followed her to her room and stabbed her to death.
Despite being much smaller and unarmed, Kernodle fought back, with the medical examiner noting that she received over 50 stab wounds, the majority of which were defensive.
She also got a likely panicked Kohberger to leave behind a knife sheath containing trace amounts of his DNA when he followed her downstairs after being discovered in Mogen’s bedroom.
After being run through genetic genealogy databases, the DNA linked Kohberger to the crime scene, yielding a DNA profile for the killer’s father.
Using a discarded ear swab found in the family’s trash, police matched the DNA profile to Kohberger’s father.
