TikTok tarot card reader to pay $10 MILLION over false claim that University of Idaho prof orchestrated Kohberger killings

A Texas woman who used TikTok videos and tarot card readings to accuse a University of Idaho professor of orchestrating the killings of four students has been ordered to pay $10 million in damages after a jury found her statements defamatory.

The case stems from the November 13, 2022, killings of University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Madison Mogen. Authorities later charged Bryan Kohberger, then a Washington State University graduate student in criminology, with four counts of first-degree murder and related crimes in the stabbings. He was arrested on December 30, 2022, and in July 2025 pleaded guilty, avoiding the death penalty and receiving four life sentences without the possibility of parole.