Newly released transcripts of text messages between the surviving roommates of the 2022 University of Idaho murders and their 911 call reveal the frantic chaos of that night as the two women gradually understand what has happened.
The documents identify Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke by their initials, revealing Mortensen’s initial text to Kaylee Goncalves, one of the four murder victims found stabbed to death in the off-campus home, which went unanswered.
022425 REDACTED States Motion InLimine RE Text Messages Testimiony by kc wildmoon on Scribd
Minutes later, Mortensen texted Funke:
“No one is answering.”
DM to BF: “I’m really confused rn.”
BF to DM: “Ya dude wtf”
BF to DM: “Xana (Kernodle) was wearing all black”
DM to BF: “I’m freaking out rn”
The messages came at about 4:22 a.m. on November 13, some 20 minutes after Kernodle received a DoorDash order at the residence. Investigators had previously released information saying that a nearby camera picked up muffled voices and a whimper, followed by a loud thud and a barking dog at about 4:17. Mortensen apparently thought Goncalves was playing with her dog.
Mortensen also tells Funke that she had seen a man wearing all black with a ski mask — another piece of previously reported information from her grand jury testimony.
Mortensen tried again to reach her roommates several hours later, texting Goncalves and Madison Mogen, “RU up?” shortly before 10:30 a.m. About an hour later, the surviving roommates called 911, telling the dispatcher they’d found Kernodle unconscious and that they “saw some man in their house last night.
Initially, they reported that Kernodle had been drunk the night before and was “passed out” and “not waking up.”
The transcript does not differentiate between the roommates’ voices and indicates that a third person was at the house by the time they called 911 as well.
022425 REDACTED Motion InLimine RE 911 Call by kc wildmoon on Scribd
The 911 call, in which the phone was passed between several people with confusing results, ended when first responders arrived on the scene.
The transcripts were part of the state’s motions to allow them as evidence in Bryan Kohberger’s upcoming trial for the murders of Kernodle, her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, Mogen, and Goncalves. The Latah County judge who was initially overseeing the case granted the motions but sealed the transcripts. Ada County Judge Steven Hippler, who got the case when it was moved out of Latah County, released the document on February 24.
Kohberger was arrested at his parents Pennsylvania home in December 2022 after DNA found on a knife sheath found at the crime scene led investigators to his father and ultimately to him, as CrimeOnline reported. Since that time, Kohberger’s public defender has gone all out to have evidence tossed in the case — and to eliminate the death penalty as a possible punishment — but so far, the judges involved have dismissed their motions.
Kohberger’s trial is expected to begin in August. Earlier this week, Hippler filed a motion telling the attorneys in the case to stop filing all of their motions as sealed.
“This runs counter to the public’s First Amendment rights to know what is going on in its courts,” Hippler wrote
