A Boise wedding became an emotional tribute to four University of Idaho students who were killed, as two of their close friends honored their memories on the couple’s special day.
Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson married in Boise over the weekend. The pair were among the first people to arrive at the students’ off-campus home after the November 13, 2022, murders.
Wedding decorations included a sign remembering Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, both 20, as well as another friend, Katie Marshall. It carried the message: “You are with us today and every day.”
Stacy Chapin, Ethan’s mother, shared an image of the tribute online, along with photos showing her family—including Ethan’s father, Jim, and siblings Maizie and Hunter—celebrating alongside the newlyweds.
“What an incredibly special weekend in Boise! Congrats to Hunter [and] Emily!!” Stacy wrote in her post.
The wedding took place almost four years after the devastating stabbing attack that claimed the lives of Chapin and Kernodle, along with their friends Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21.
Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates, had contacted Alandt and Johnson after noticing something unusual at the home at 1122 King Road in Moscow. The couple previously recounted how Mortensen asked them to come check on the house.
Alandt said she and Johnson did not expect to encounter anything serious when they arrived that morning. Their concern quickly deepened, however, after they saw Mortensen and Bethany Funke, the surviving roommates, outside the property.
“As soon as you get there, you know something’s wrong,” Johnson told ABC News.
A wedding sign honored University of Idaho murder victims Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle during Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson’s Boise ceremony
The newlyweds pose with Chapin’s family during their Boise wedding celebration
Kernodle and Chapin, both 20, were fatally stabbed inside Kernodle’s off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022
Johnson entered the house first and discovered the bloodied bodies of the four students.
After understanding the scale of what had happened, he hurried the women who had followed him back outside and instructed them to call 911.
In the emergency call placed shortly before noon that day, the women can be heard telling a dispatcher that an “unconscious person” was inside the residence.
They continued saying, “She’s passed out” and “She’s not waking up,” while Johnson told the dispatcher that Kernodle was not breathing.
“That was our last day living as kids,” Johnson told PEOPLE in July.
“Our innocence was gone,” Alandt said.
Johnson has remembered Kernodle as someone who brought energy and fun wherever she went, saying time with her was never boring.
“If you’re not happy, she’ll make you happy. Somehow, she’ll make you laugh. And Ethan’s the same way,” he said.
Alandt and Johnson have opened up about how they sought comfort in each other following the tragedy. They are pictured with Chapin’s siblings
Johnson had been one of the first people to enter the crime scene at 1122 King Road
Meanwhile, Alandt said of Goncalves: ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been around her when she didn’t have a smile on her face. And it would always put a smile on all of our faces.’
‘Her and Maddie were both super welcoming to me,’ added Johnson. ‘They, like, took me in.’
To get through the tragedy, Alandt and Johnson said they started to rely on each other – and last year they moved in together.
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‘We just want happiness for the [victims’] families and we want them to come to a point where they can, you know, wake up and have a good day,’ Alandt said at the time.
She added that the experience ‘sticks with you forever, but you get the option to get up and choose to live a happy life,’ which Johnson suggested included the two of them starting a family.
But as the couple now starts their life together, the families of the victims are facing the possibility that accused murderer Bryan Kohberger may once again face trial.
Bryan Kohberger, now 31, has launched a bid to withdraw his guilty plea and head to trial
Left to right: Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee’s shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke
Kohberger, now 31, had been arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania and charged with the murders – tracked down through DNA on a knife sheath left behind at the scene – weeks after the grisly murders.
After fighting the charges for more than two years, he finally pleaded guilty to the murders in July 2025 as part of a plea deal that would hand him life without parole but spare him from the death penalty.
But, in a stunning U-turn this July, the convicted killer launched a shocking bid to withdraw his guilty plea and head to trial instead.
He now claims he is innocent of the murders and was misled by his defense team into striking a plea agreement.
At the same time, his newly-appointed defense attorney Gregory Rauch is seeking to have Judge Hippler ousted from the case and for the case to be moved out of Ada County – back to Moscow where the crimes took place.
Judge Steven Hippler wiped away tears at his sentencing before calling Bryan Kohberger a ‘faceless coward’
Kohberger has claimed his defense attorney Anne Taylor, above at his change of plea hearing, was ineffective and misled him to plead guilty
In a filing last month, the defense attorney argued that the judge’s comments when he handed down Kohberger’s life sentences showed bias against him.
Judge Hippler was seen wiping away tears when some of the victims’ loved ones delivered heartbreaking impact statements.
When he then sentenced him to four life sentences plus 10 years, the judge described Kohberger as a ‘faceless coward,’ who ‘slithered’ into 1122 King Road and ‘senselessly slaughtered’ his victims.
Judge Hippler also addressed the lack of motive for his crimes, following calls to require Kohberger to give a statement at the sentencing, saying that any explanation he might give could likely not be believed.
‘Even if I could force him to speak, which legally I cannot, how can anyone truly believe that what he says is the truth?’ he said inside Ada County Courthouse on July 23, 2025.
‘Do we really believe, after all of this, he is capable of speaking the truth, or of giving up something of himself to help the very people whose lives he destroyed?
‘Rather, I suspect the so-called reason would be dished out in enticing self-serving and aggrandizing bits leaving people more desire for understanding. Even if we could get truthful insight into his way I suspect it would not quench anyone’s thirst for understanding why.’
He added: ‘His acts of evil have made him the worst of the worst. Even in pleading guilty he’s giving nothing hinting of remorse or redemption or regret for the pain that he’s caused and therefore I will not attempt to speak of him further other than to sentence him and remove him forever from society.’
The defense argued that the judge’s comments ‘are fundamentally different from believing Kohberger committed terrible crimes or deserved severe punishment.’
‘They are forward-looking judgments about his credibility. And credibility may now be at the center of this proceeding.’
Rauch also argued that Judge Hippler plowed ahead with the trial despite the defense telling him that they were not ready.
In May 2025, Kohberger’s lawyer Anne Taylor filed a motion to delay the trial, saying that Kohberger was ‘having difficulty comprehending adverse rulings and discerning their effects upon the case as a whole.’
The judge denied the request on June 26 – paving the way for the trial to go ahead the following month.
Six days later, Kohberger suddenly pleaded guilty to all charges.