Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke are the two surviving roommates of the University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death in an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.
Police have said in news releases that the two roommates were not injured.
An affidavit in the case released on January 5, 2023, said that Mortensen saw the killer but did not immediately call police. Instead, she went back in her room and locked the door, the affidavit says.
In a press release on Nov. 18, 2022, police wrote that they do not believe the surviving roommates were involved in the crime. The surviving roommates have been widely named on social media.
Four college students in the house were stabbed to death with a knife, police say. The deaths were ruled homicides. The victims are Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, who was Kernodle’s boyfriend. Police called the attack targeted and initially said they did not believe the community was at risk.
Bryan Kohberger, a graduate student in criminology at the University of Washington, is now accused of committing the murders.
Police later revealed in a press release that the 911 call was placed with one of the roommates’ phones. “Detectives confirm the victims were located on the second and third floors of the residence,” they wrote.
“Detectives believe that on November 12th, the two surviving roommates had been out in the Moscow community, separately, but returned home by 1 a.m. The two did not wake up until later on November 13th,” police continued in the release.
Here’s what you need to know:
Mortensen Says She Encountered the Killer, Who Was a Figure ‘Clad in Black,’ the Affidavit Says
Instagram/Facebook
The affidavit refers to Mortensen and Funke only by their initials and says Mortensen saw the killer.
At 4:17 a.m., a security camera nearby picked up distorted audio of what “sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud, the affidavit says, and a dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4:17 a.m.,” the affidavit says.
One of the surviving roommates, Mortensen, told police she opened her door for the third time after she heard crying and “saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her. D.M. described the figure as 5’10” or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with busy eyebrows,” the affidavit says.
The man walked past her as she stood in “frozen shock phase” and walked back towards the back sliding glass door, it says.
She locked herself in her room. She did not say that she recognized him, according to the affidavit.
Authorities believe the homicides occurred between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m., the affidavit says.
At the crime scene, authorities found a latent shoe print, it adds. It showed a diamond-shaped pattern similar to a Vans type shoe sole just outside Mortensen’s bedroom, according to the affidavit. They also found a knife sheath that contained DNA they later compared to Kohberger’s dad, according to the affidavit.
Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell told ABC News before Kohberger’s arrest that the two surviving roommates were the “key” to solving the crime because they were home when the murders occurred.
“Potentially they are witnesses, potentially they are victims,” Snell told ABC News, calling the roommates “the key to this whole thing.”
However, Snell told Daily Mail the two are not suspects but police will exhaust every possibility.
ABC News reported that the roommates were home when 911 was called around noon for an “unconscious” person on Sunday November 13, 2022.
Chief James Fry had revealed in a news conference that the roommates were home at the time. They weren’t held hostage, according to Fry.
To Fox News Digital, before Kohberger’s arrest, Snell said he could not rule them out as suspects even though he described them as cooperative. “These are people who may have seen the crime but on the flip side may have committed the crime,” Snell told Fox News. “We don’t know if they are witnesses, victims or suspects, so until we do a thorough investigation, naming them would be inappropriate.”
Both Funke & Mortensen Have Privatized Instagram Accounts
FacebookDylan Mortensen
Unlike the victims, the Instagram accounts of both Mortensen and Funke are private.
“U of Idaho-PiPhi QK🤎,” is all that Mortensen’s reads.
Funke’s Instagram page reads, “U of I x @idahopiphi.”
Mortenson’s Facebook page was still active shortly after the murders but is not deleted; it said she is from Boise, Idaho. Funke also has an active Facebook page.
There wasn’t much visible on their pages except a few old pictures. Mortensen’s TikTok page is set to private.
Both Roommates Posed for Recent Photos With the Victims
InstagramThe Idaho victims, including Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen
Chilling pictures have emerged showing the roommates together, looking carefree.
“one lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl everyday 🤍” Goncalves wrote with an Instagram photo showing her, Kernodle, and Mogen with Mortensen and Funke.
It was posted the day of the murders.
Jeffrey Kernodle, the father of Xana Kernodle, told AZFamily that he was baffled by the crime.
“I have no idea. It doesn’t make sense,” he said, adding that nothing stood out about that night, and Kernodle was always in contact with her family.
“The door locks with a number code. Every time you go, you have to go around the house because of the number code so they either knew that or went around and maybe found the slider door open,” he explained to AZFamily.
“They were just hanging out at home. Xana was just hanging out at home with her boyfriend,” he said.
He told the site that she fought her killer: “Bruises, torn by the knife. She’s a tough kid. Whatever she wanted to do, she could do.”
The Roommates Were Described as Quiet, Although the House Hosted Small Parties
FacebookDylan Mortensen
Neighbors told The New York Post that the roommates were “quieter than their rowdy collegiate neighbors.” Six people lived in the house, they said.
The neighbors told The Post that “small parties” were hosted in the home but that the roommates were usually “quiet by 10 p.m.,” The Post reported.
They were seen sitting around a patio fire, drinking beer, The Post reported.
Police Chief James Fry said in a November 20, 2022, press conference that the murders have shaken the community. He called it a “complex and terrible” crime that would take time to resolve.
Moscow police Capt. Roger Lanier said in the news conference that on the evening of November 12, Goncalves and Mogen were at a local bar and then a food truck in downtown Moscow, arriving home at 1:45 a.m. Kernodle and Chapin arrived home from a frat party at the same time. At 1 a.m., the two surviving roommates returned from other places in the community and did not wake up for some time.
The 911 call was made just before noon and was placed by the phone of one of the surviving roommates, police said. They didn’t say which roommate made the call.
Snell told Daily Mail that Mortensen and Funke were helping the investigation.
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