Frantic text messages between two roommates on the night that four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed have been released, providing a chilling new window into the mystery of what happened in those final moments.
A recently unsealed defense motion in the case against Bryan Kohberger revealed new information on Thursday about what Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke were doing on November 13, 2022 – when a masked attacker slaughtered their four roommates.
Kohberger, 30, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, who were killed at their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.
The texts between the two roommates, identified as DM and BF in the court documents, begin shortly before 4:30 a.m., just after Mortensen says she saw a masked man walking in the hallway outside her bedroom door.
“No one is answering,” Mortensen texted Funke, referring to their other roommates.
“Kaylee. What’s going on,” Mortensen texted to Goncalves, who was upstairs, according to the court documents. Goncalves did not answer.
Instead, the texts continue between Mortensen and Funke.
“I’m freaking out rn,” Funke texted. She also texted “Xana was wearing all black.”
Mortensen described seeing someone wearing something like a “ski mask almost” to which Funke told her to “run” downstairs to her bedroom so they could be together.
“It’s better than being alone,” she texted.
Both roommates fell asleep in Funke’s room, according to court records previously filed by the defense.
Hours later, Mortensen sent a flurry of texts to Goncalves and Mogen asking if they were awake. “Pls answer,” she texted one of them. “R u up,” she asked another. Neither one responded.
Seven hours after the initial round of texts, the roommates called 911 after a friend came to the house and discovered Kernodle’s body.
Police arrived to find a gruesome scene. Goncalves and Mogen were found stabbed to death in an upstairs room, and Kernodle was found dead near her boyfriend Chapin.
The new information comes after little has been revealed about the surviving roommates. Previously, only a portion of Mortensen’s account had been released by investigators, in which she had described hearing noises, and seeing the masked man.
Both surviving roommates are expected to testify at Kohberger’s trial later this year.
The former criminal justice graduate student was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks after the killings. Investigators have not released any possible prior connection between Kohberger and the victims, but were able to match his DNA to genetic material recovered from the sheath of a knife found at the scene.
Kohberger’s lawyers have sought to exclude some of the DNA evidence, noting that blood from unknown people was also found inside and outside the home, and that DNA from three different people was found underneath one of the victims’ fingernails.
The trove of recent filings also included a range of evidence they plan to include at trial, including surveillance videos, phone records, banking details and records of Kohberger’s purchases from businesses including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Under Armour and Walmart.
Earlier this week, Kohberger’s lawyers continued their effort to throw out the death penalty, this time claiming that he has autism spectrum disorder and executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
