The two surviving roommates who were in an Idaho home when their four college friends were murdered texted one another to say how frightened they were on the morning of the killings, court documents show.
Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were brutally stabbed to death in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022 at an off-campus residence in Moscow, near the University of Idaho.
Bryan Kohberger is accused of killing the victims and is scheduled to go on trial on Aug. 11. A judge has entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, per the Associated Press.
The suspect is facing the death penalty, despite his defense team’s plea to keep capital punishment off the table because Kohberger is on the autism spectrum.
Per newly-released court documents, surviving roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke — only referred to in the documents by their initials D.M. and B.F. — became worried after their friends didn’t answer their texts at around 4:22 a.m. local time on the day their bodies were discovered.
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“I’m freaking out,” D.M. messaged B.F., claiming she’d seen a man with “like [a] ski mask almost” over his head and mouth.
“I’m not kidding [I] am so freaked out,” D.M. followed up, as B.F. replied, “So am I.”
“Come to my room,” B.F. messaged D.M., adding, “Run,” per the docs.
Per Fox News, D.M. spent the night in B.F’s room, before an unnamed person called 911 from the latter’s phone at around noon the following day. The operator spoke to multiple people during the call, per a transcript seen by PEOPLE. The call was made after Kernodle was found unresponsive, the documents stated.
The four victims had arrived back at the King Road home at approximately 1:45 a.m., per ABC News. D.M. messaged an Uber driver to inquire if he was driving at 2:10 a.m., the court documents stated, suggesting she was heading home at that time.
Per a previously released probable cause affidavit, which was reviewed by PEOPLE in January 2023, a sheath for the knife used in the stabbings was left at the scene in the bed where Mogen and Goncalves were found deceased. This is where detectives found DNA linking Kohberger, according to the affidavit. Agents took trash from Kohberger’s parents’ home in Pennsylvania to test for a DNA match, the documents alleged.
According to the affidavit, one of the surviving roommates said they saw the killer, described as “a figure clad in black clothing and a mask,” walk past her as he left the crime scene, and she heard crying on the night of the killings. Kohberger was linked to the crime scene from DNA and cell phone pings, the affidavit alleged.
Monroe County Correctional Facility via Getty
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Kernodle received a DoorDash order around 4 a.m. and was on TikTok on her phone at 4:12 a.m., the previously-released affidavit alleged. Goncalves, Mogen, and Kernodle were roommates and Chapin was staying the night with Kernodle, his girlfriend.
At the time of the slayings, Kohberger was a Ph.D student at Washington State University studying criminal justice and criminology. The university, which is in Pullman, Wash., is approximately eight miles away from the residence in Moscow, Idaho where the four students were killed.
Ada County Judicial Court didn’t immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for additional information.
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