The criminology student convicted last year of murdering four University of Idaho students in their home is seeking to abandon his guilty plea and obtain a trial, claiming he is innocent and was misled into confessing to the high-profile killings.

In an interview with The New York Times, Bryan Kohberger, who is currently serving four life sentences, said he had filed a petition challenging his conviction, citing concerns about how the plea deal came together.

“My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Mr. Kohberger said in a statement provided to The Times on Sunday night. He reiterated in a phone call from prison in Idaho that he had an “absolute claim of innocence.”

Mr. Kohberger had not granted an interview or made public comments before speaking with The Times. He declined to discuss any evidence or other specific details related to his innocence claim, as well as what specific concerns he had about the plea process.

It is rare for defendants to win post-conviction challenges, which often revolve around claims of newly discovered evidence or an ineffective assistance of counsel.

Steve Goncalves, the father of one of the victims, declined to comment Monday morning, saying he wanted to discuss the issue with his family. The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

In November 2022, the four murders in Moscow, Idaho, a college town that had not seen a homicide in seven years, captivated the country for weeks as investigators struggled to identify a suspect. Mr. Kohberger’s arrest brought relief to the community but also stoked further mystery and speculation, as investigators never identified a motive or any previous relationship with the victims.

In court, law enforcement officials outlined the evidence against Mr. Kohberger. His DNA was found on a Ka-Bar knife sheath that had been left next to two of the victims. Amazon records showed he had purchased a Ka-Bar knife and sheath months prior. He drove a white Elantra, the type of car that investigators determined had been on surveillance video circling the crime scene and then speeding away from it. Mr. Kohberger’s phone showed he was out that night, with his phone turned off at the time of the murders.

Mr. Kohberger declined to discuss the evidence against him in his call with The Times. He said “the intention is for all of those questions to be investigated and answered appropriately in a trial setting.”

Mr. Kohberger, who had court-appointed representation throughout the case, ending with his guilty plea, said he prepared the documentation to challenge the case on his own. He will seek to have a lawyer appointed to help him going forward. Records show the filing reached the court Monday morning.

After he was arrested in December 2022, Mr. Kohberger’s initial lawyer said his client was eager to be exonerated. Court-appointed lawyers spent more than two years challenging the evidence collected against Mr. Kohberger, only for a surprise plea deal to come together a few weeks before a trial was to begin.

Mr. Kohberger accepted responsibility for the murders at a July 2025 hearing. He was not required to offer a motive for the killings — and never has. The lack of a detailed confession outraged some of the victims’ family members and even President Trump, who had called on the judge to demand an explanation from Mr. Kohberger.

In court, the judge asked Mr. Kohberger: “Are you pleading guilty because you are guilty?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kohberger responded. He later sat in silence at a sentencing hearing at which family members of the victims expressed their grief and anger.

In the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, after a typical Saturday night out, the four victims were stabbed to death in an off-campus home. The bodies of Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were found together in a bed on the home’s third floor. The bodies of Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were found in a bedroom on the second floor.

Two surviving roommates were in a bedroom on the home’s first floor. One of them reported seeing a shadowy figure in the middle of the night and hearing a commotion. But the roommates did not seek help until later in the morning, saying they had not realized what had transpired.

One of the experts who worked on Mr. Kohberger’s defense team has taken particular issue with the plea arrangement and the evidence. Brent Turvey, a forensic scientist who analyzed the crime scene for the defense, argued that the crime was committed by multiple perpetrators, criticized how investigators documented evidence and questioned why more testing was not done of a hair found with one of the victims.

The lawyers who served as Mr. Kohberger’s defense team have rebuked Mr. Turvey, telling The Idaho Statesman that he “is now speaking about topics that are still confidential, many of which are outside of his areas of expertise.” The lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Mr. Turvey’s concerns were included in a book about the case, “Broken Plea.”

Mr. Kohberger alluded to those issues in his statement, saying that “unanswered questions seem to multiply with each piece of discovery unsealed.” He said he was not concerned that, if offered a new trial, he could face the death penalty.

“Why am I breaking my silence?” Mr. Kohberger said Sunday in the interview from the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, just south of Boise. “A lot went wrong in those plea discussions. I really do want that to be heard.”

Mr. Kohberger grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to Pullman, Wash., in 2022 to pursue a Ph.D. in the criminal justice and criminology program at Washington State University, just across the state border from the University of Idaho. He had long been interested in serial killers and the minds of criminals.

Mr. Kohberger had signed a plea agreement agreeing that he “knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently waives all rights to appeal any and all issues in this case.” Still, defendants can make other claims about the legal process through post-conviction relief.

Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting.