CNN
—
Panicked conversations between two surviving roommates in the off-campus home where four University of Idaho students were murdered in 2022 were revealed in newly released text messages Thursday, shedding more light on the timeline that prosecutors aim to lean on in their case against the suspect.
The brutal killings of the four University of Idaho students – Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – took place in November 2022 at an off-campus residence in Moscow, a town of about 25,000 people.
“I’m freaking out,” one roommate, Dylan Mortensen, wrote to the other, Bethany Funke, according to the newly unsealed court filings. Mortensen and Funke, identified by their initials in the court documents, were texting about a masked man dressed in black in their house around the time police believe the victims were being murdered.
The exchange took place nearly eight hours before the roommates called 911 to report Kernodle unconscious at the residence.
The group of friends had gone out in the college town and returned to their shared home late. The next day, police found the four students slaughtered inside, and there were no signs of forced entry or damage.
The slayings led to weeks of investigation from police, frustrations from the victims’ families about the pace of the policework and fear in the local community of a mass killer on the loose.
Nearly two months later, Moscow Police arrested Bryan Kohberger, a then 28-year-old man in Pennsylvania, on a murder warrant in the killings of the students. Kohberger, a graduate student in criminal justice who lived in Pullman, Washington, is set to face trial in August. A not guilty plea has been entered on his behalf and he faces the death penalty if convicted.
Mortensen told law enforcement she went to sleep in her first-floor bedroom and was awakened around 4 a.m. by what she thought sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms on the third floor, previously released documents have shown.
Law enforcement also determined Kernodle received a DoorDash order at approximately 4 a.m. and was still up using TikTok at approximately 4:12 a.m.
In the new court filing, phone records show Mortensen tried calling the other four roommates – but got no response – around the time when security camera from a residence close to the home picked up at 4:17 a.m. distorted audio of voices, a whimper, followed by a loud thud, and a barking dog.
Mortensen texted Goncalves: “Kaylee” and “What’s going on.”
Funke, the other surviving roommate, however, answered her messages, while they were both in their bedrooms, according to the filing.
Mortensen and Funke sent the following text messages to one another around 4:22 a.m.:
DM to BF: “No one is answering.”
DM to BF: “I’m really confused rn.”
BF to DM: “Ya dude wtf”
BF to DM: “Xana was wearing all black”
DM to BF: “I’m freaking out rn”
Mortenson then tells Funke about seeing what looked like a man with a ski mask in the house. Previously released court filings described Mortensen’s grand jury testimony recalling noises she heard and a masked man wearing black in the residence.
Mortensen then said to Funke: “No it’s like a ski mask almost”
BF to DM: “Stfu”
DM to BF: “Like he had [something] over is for head and little nd mouth”
DM to BF: “I’m not kidding [I] am so freaked out”
BF to DM: “So am I”
Then, Funke tried to convince Mortensen to go to Funke’s room so they’d be together: “Run”
Prosecutors have indicated they expect both surviving roommates to testify at trial and want to use their text messages to illustrate the timeline of the night. Defense attorney Anne Taylor has pointed to what she described as inconsistencies during their multiple interviews with law enforcement.
Before calling 911, another newly unsealed court filing shows, Mortensen tried again to reach Goncalves and Mogen starting at 10:23 a.m., asking them if they are awake: “Ru up??”
A transcript of the surviving roommates’ 911 call made more than an hour after that was also released with the filing Thursday. The transcript shows the chaos as Mortensen and Funke pass the phone between them answering the dispatcher in fragmented responses. The filing describes heaving-like breathing and crying throughout the call. The transcript does not identify the speakers by name but shows another unnamed friend with them also spoke to the dispatcher.
On the call they reported 20-year-old Kernodle unconscious, telling the dispatcher she had come home drunk the night before.
The roommates struggled to tell the dispatcher their address and phone number, then saying Kernodle is unresponsive and they “saw some man in their house last night.”
The transcript reveals the students’ unfinished thoughts and panic over finding Kernodle’s unconscious body. It appears the dispatcher ends the call when first responders arrive on scene without getting a full account of the night or the current situation, the filing shows.
The judge in Latah County who previously presided over the case had ruled the messages and 911 transcript were permissible evidence before the case was moved to Ada County, but the order and associated filings were sealed at the time.
A recently unsealed defense motion in Kohberger’s capital murder case offers the most detailed picture of the suspect’s personality to emerge since his arrest, citing an evaluation by a neuropsychologist who found Kohberger “continues to exhibit all the core diagnostic features of ASD currently, with significant impact on his daily life.” It’s unclear if – or when – Kohberger was previously diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
The newly unsealed filing is the latest in a flurry of defense motions aimed at taking the death penalty off the table for the only suspect in the fatal stabbings that horrified the small college community. The lurid case has riveted the public, but police have not released a potential motive, and a sweeping gag order has kept the parties from speaking publicly or revealing further details.
The prosecution’s most important piece of evidence is a DNA sample taken from a knife sheath left at the crime scene. Investigators then used investigative genetic genealogy, a forensic field combining DNA analysis with genealogical research, to connect that sample to Kohberger’s family, according to prosecutors. Subsequent DNA testing found Kohberger was a “statistical match” to the sample, leading to his arrest, according to prosecutors.
Kohberger’s attorneys have argued in a defense motion released Thursday that the death penalty should be taken off the table because they cannot possibly review the enormous amount of discovery in time for the August trial. They say removing the death penalty would cut down the needed discovery considerably.
Trash recovered from the Kohberger family residence by Pennsylvania law enforcement and sent to the Idaho State Lab for DNA testing was used to help investigators narrow down Kohberger as the suspect in the killings, according to court documents released in January 2023.
To combat that evidence, his defense team has repeatedly questioned the use, legality and accuracy of the DNA testing done in each step of the process. In a closed hearing last month, testimony from several witnesses raised questions about how investigators had used the DNA sample from the knife sheath to identify Kohberger as a suspect.
