Friends of the two roommates who were home at the time four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in 2022 explained why the surviving roommates didn’t immediately call 911 in a new documentary.
“One Night in Idaho,” a Prime Video docuseries which premiered on July 11, features interviews with family members and friends of the four victims: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.
Hunter Johnson, Emily Alandt and Josie Lauteren, three friends of the victims, shared how they were called to the house hours after the murders by Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who lived at the residence and were home at the time of the slayings.
Officials have said the murders took place between 4 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. on Nov. 13, 2022, and a 911 call came in around 11:58 a.m. that morning.
“I think it’s very important for everybody to know that ‘What if?’ doesn’t matter, because if they had known what was going on it would have been too late anyways,” Alandt said, speaking about Mortensen and Funke in the documentary.
Johnson, Alandt’s boyfriend, said that when he woke up in the morning on Nov. 13, 2022, “It started off like any normal day.”
He explained he had slept over at Alandt’s apartment, which was down the road from the home where Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin were found dead.
Alandt explained that Mortensen, one of the surviving roommates, had called her, asking them to come over.
“She was like, ‘Something weird happened last night. I don’t really know if I was dreaming or not, but I’m really scared. Can you come check out the house?'” Alandt said.
Mortensen told her that she was in the basement with her other roommate Bethany Funke, and that they had called Kernodle a few times, but she wasn’t answering.
“I was like, ‘Ha, ha, sure. Should I bring my pepper spray?’ Not thinking anything of it,” Alandt said.
Alandt’s roommate Lauteren said Mortensen had called them to come over before after she had heard weird noises.
“She’s called us before and been like, ‘Oh, I’m scared. Can you bring your boyfriends over?’ But it was never anything serious, it was just like, a pan fell — like, actually nothing,” Lauteren said. “Because it’s Moscow.”
Alandt said she didn’t think the request was urgent, so they started walking to the house.
“When we got there, Dylan and Bethany had exited the house. They looked frightened just kind of like, hands on their mouth, like, I don’t know what’s going on, type (of) thing,” Alandt said. “When I was going up the stairs, Hunter Johnson was already in the house. We were just a bit behind.”
“As soon as I stepped in the house, I was like, ‘Oh, something is so not right.’ Like, you could feel it almost,” Lauteren said.
Once Lauteren entered the home, she was quickly pushed out, and Johnson told them to call 911 after he saw what was upstairs.
“Hunter had enough courage to tell them to call the police for not a real reason,” Alandt explained. “He worded it very nicely. He said, ‘Tell him there’s an unconscious person.’ Hunter saved all of us extreme trauma by not letting us know anything.”
Mortensen was the one who called 911, Lauteren said.
“I had to take the phone from her because she was so completely hysterical,” Lauteren said. “They’re like ‘What’s the address, what’s the address, what’s the address?’ and I was like, ‘1122 King Road.’”
“I think that’s when Hunter looked at me, and he was shaking his head,” Lauteren added. “He was like, ‘They didn’t have a pulse.’ And I mean, even when he said they had no pulse, I still was like, ‘Oh, the paramedics are gonna come and revive them.”
Mortensen and Funke did not participate in the documentary, and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Mortensen told investigators she woke up around 4 a.m. when she heard noise from upstairs, according to a probable cause affidavit released in 2023. She later opened her bedroom door and saw a man with bushy eyebrows walking toward a sliding glass door in the home, and locked herself in her room after seeing the man, according to the affidavit.
Text messages and phone call records between the roommates on the night of the murders were released in court documents earlier this year, and showed Mortensen later went to Funke’s room in the basement of the home around 4:20 a.m.
The three friends in the docuseries cited shock and trauma response as reasons why it took hours for the call to be placed.
“It wasn’t until the morning that (Mortensen) realized, holy s—, that couldn’t have been a dream,” Alandt said. “And that’s when I got my phone call from her, they hadn’t even gone upstairs or anything, she just called and said, ‘Something weird happened, I thought it was a dream, I’m not quite sure anymore. I tried to call everybody to wake them up and no one’s answering.’ And I was like, ‘OK, I’ll come over.’”
The 911 call came in around 11:58 a.m., police have said.
“Something happened in our house. We don’t know what,” the 911 caller said, according to a transcript of the call.
Bryan Kohberger was arrested about six weeks after the killings and was later charged with the murder of Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin.
Kohberger pleaded guilty to four counts of murder and one count of felony burglary on July 2, and he is scheduled to be sentenced on July 23, where he faces up to life in prison.
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