Moscow, Idaho - A man charged with the murder of four students in Idaho is set to plead guilty this week to avoid the death penalty, a victim's family told AFP.

Bryan Kohberger, a 30-year-old former criminology student, was facing trial in August for the November 2022 stabbing deaths that rocked the small town of Moscow and made national headlines.

He is accused of slipping into the victims' home undetected at around 4:00 AM and stabbing four University of Idaho students to death while they slept.

The bodies of 21-year-olds Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, and 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, were found hours later.

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Kohberger's guilty plea is expected to be formalized during a hearing Wednesday, and is intended to spare him from facing the death penalty, the Goncalves family said in a statement shared by their lawyer Shanon Gray.

"After more than two years, this is how it concludes with a secretive deal and a hurried effort to close the case without any input from the victims' families on the plea's details," the family wrote.

The Goncalves family had demanded the death penalty, and successfully advocated for the passage of a new law in Idaho which allows death row inmates to be executed by firing squad.

On a Facebook page, the Goncalves family expressed bitter heartbreak, calling the prosecution's pending plea deal "shocking and cruel" after years of waiting for the trial to begin.

"Bryan Kohberger facing life in prison means he would still get to speak, form relationships, and engage with the world. Meanwhile, our loved ones have been silenced forever. That reality stings more deeply when it feels like the system is protecting his future more than honoring the victims' pasts," the family said on social media.

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Two and a half years since the murders, prosecutors have still yet to present any motive for the killings, while Kohberger has consistently remained silent throughout proceedings.

Kohberger was arrested and charged after investigators found his DNA on a knife sheath recovered at the crime scene.

A video shows a car similar to Kohberger's driving in the victims' neighborhood around the time of the murders.

Kohberger was studying for his PhD in criminology at Washington State University, about nine miles away from Moscow, across the state border.