Tragic last minute decision that may have cost Idaho murder victims their lives

Daily Mail​

28-04-2025

Tragic new details have emerged about a last-minute decision made by some of the University of Idaho murder victims that may have shaped the events of that fateful night.
In a new court order in the capital murder case against suspected quadruple killer Bryan Kohberger, the judge revealed that victims Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen almost left their student home in Moscow, Idaho, in the early hours of November 13, 2022.
The two best friends and their two surviving roommates - Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke - discussed going to get a late-night snack from a food truck at around 2am.
Ultimately, the four women decided to just go to bed - a fateful decision that placed them inside the home when the killer broke in a short time later.
At around 4am that morning, Goncalves, Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin were all brutally stabbed to death in an attack that shocked America and plunged the small college town into fear.
Funke and Mortensen lived to tell the tale - and are now expected to be key witnesses in the case against Kohberger.
With his trial looming this August, the defense and prosecution have been sparring over critical evidence in the case including DNA evidence and the harrowing 911 call made by the surviving roommates when the bloodbath was discovered.
In a blow to Kohberger's case, Judge Steven Hippler ruled Thursday that jurors will be able to hear the 911 call and see the panicked texts exchanged between the surviving roommates after Mortensen came face-to-face with a masked intruder inside the home.
In the order, the judge unveiled the most detailed timeline to date about the final hours of the four victims and their surviving roommates.
The four victims and their roommates had all spent the night of Saturday November 12 out at bars or parties.
At around 2am, Mortensen, Funke, Goncalves and Mogen were back at the home on 1122 King Road.
They all 'met up in Kaylee's bedroom and talked for while before going to bed,' the document states.
At that moment, the four young women almost decided to leave the home that was targeted soon after, the document states.
'The roommates debated going out to a food truck for a late snack, prompting [Mortensen] to send a text at 2:10am to an Uber driver she knew to see if he was driving,' it reads.
Kernodle and Chapin - who had been at a frat party - were not home yet.
Goncalves and Mogen had already visited the Grub Truck food truck on their way home from the Corner Club bar that night, and had been captured on its Twitch streaming platform.
Ultimately, the four women decided against going to get food and went to bed instead.
The two best friends are seen ordering food from the Grub Truck on its Twitch streaming platform
Funke went to her room on the first floor, Mortensen to hers on the second floor, and best friends Goncalves and Mogen on the third floor.
Kernodle's bedroom was on the second floor.
According to investigators, at around 4am, Mortensen heard strange noises in the home - followed by a man's voice, that was not Chapin, saying something to the effect of 'It's okay, I'm going to help you.'
When she peered round her bedroom door, she saw a man walk past her room on the second floor and head in the direction of the back sliding door.
The intruder, she described, was tall, dressed in all black and was wearing a mask.
Due to the mask, Mortensen could only see the eyes and eyebrows of the figure, and recalled seeing his 'bushy eyebrows.'
Following that terrifying encounter, Mortensen placed a series of panicked calls and texts to her roommates.
Only Funke answered.
The others were already dead.
Between 4.22am and 4.26am, Mortensen and Funke exchanged a string of texts where they frantically tried to determine what was going on in their home.
Mortensen then ran to Funke's room on the first floor.
In a bombshell revelation, the judge's order described how Mortensen saw Kernodle's body on the floor on her way - mere minutes after coming face-to-face with the masked killer.
But Mortensen thought her roommate was drunk and carried on towards Funke's room, where they stayed until daylight.
'On her way, she noticed Xana lying on the floor of her bedroom, with her head towards the wall and her feet toward to the door. D.M. thought Xana was drunk,' the records state.
Over the next eight hours, Mortensen's cellphone data shows she made several more texts and calls to her roommates, while also creating, editing and deleting images and videos, and accessing various social media sites including Instagram and Snapchat, court documents show.
On Snapchat, she used the Snapmap function to try to check Chapin and Kernodle's location.
With still no response from any of the four victims, at around 11.50am Mortensen called a friend and asked her to 'come over and check the house because she was scared,' the document states.
The friend E.A. and her boyfriend H.J. came to the home and met Mortensen and Funke at the bottom floor of the three-story house.
The two roommates and H.J. made their way to the second floor, where H.J. 'went to the kitchen to grab kitchen knife,' the document states.
According to the documents, Mortensen and Funke then saw Kernodle lying on the floor.
Mortensen testified to the grand jury that she saw Kernodle that time for a 'split second' and 'just started bawling because thought she had just like don't even know. thought maybe she was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor.'
At that moment, H.J. told the young women to 'get out' and they all went outside.
When H.J. emerged from the house soon after, he 'was pale white and mentioned something about someone being unconscious,' the document states.
He told them to call 911 and the distressing phone call was placed just before midday - around eight hours on from the murders.
What survivors Mortensen and Funke saw and heard that horror night will play a central role in the looming trial of their friends' accused killer.
Kohberger's defense wanted the judge to ban jurors from seeing the texts or the 911 call, claiming they were hearsay and that 'there is no evidence they were sufficiently startled by the events.'
The judge disagreed, writing that 'the events are sufficiently startling to both D.M. and B.F for purposes of the excited utterance exception.'
'D.M. and B.F. are young female college students and the self described "scaredy cats of the house,"' he wrote.
'They were awoken from sleep after night of drinking with D.M. reporting that she heard noises and saw masked intruder in their home. None of the other roommates were responding to their calls and texts, further indicating something was amiss. It would be potentially terrifying for anyone, including these young women.
'To argue that they would have run out of the house or called someone else for help had they really been startled unempathetically ignores these circumstances and the trauma and confusion they were evidently experiencing, which likely offset logical thought... They were clearly under stress and attempting to make sense of frightening situation.'
The defense also tried - unsuccessfully - to block the phrase 'bushy eyebrows' from the trial, the term Mortensen used to describe the masked man she saw inside their home.
In a series of other court orders, the judge also refused to rule out the death penalty despite Kohberger's recent autism diagnosis and also ruled that jurors can see Kohberger's Amazon shopping history.
Prosecutors say his shopping history reveals he bought a Ka-Bar knife, sheath and sharpener from Amazon back in March 2022.
A Ka-Bar leather knife sheath was left behind by the killer next to Mogen's lifeless body.
DNA found on the sheath came back a match to Kohberger. The murder weapon itself has never been found.
Kohberger was arrested around six weeks on from the slayings at his family home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania and charged with the four murders.
As well as the DNA evidence, prosecutors say Kohberger's white Hyundai Elantra also matches the car seen leaving the crime scene at the time of the murders and that his cellphone records indicate he may have stalked the King Road home at least a dozen times in the lead-up to the murders.
Kohberger is next due in court in mid-may for a pre-trial hearing.
He is slated to go on trial in August.
Due to changes in state law, he could be executed by firing squa d if convicted and handed the death penalty.