In a harrowing chapter of U.S. collegiate history, two students emerged as the only survivors of a terrifying attack.
On the night of November 13, 2022, University of Idaho students Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke were winding down in their off-campus residence. Little did they know that an intruder would break in and fatally stab their housemates—Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, and Xana Kernodle—and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin.
Mortensen and Funke miraculously escaped from that night of horror, which was subsequently tied to Bryan Kohberger, a criminology doctoral candidate. According to an arrest affidavit previously reported by Oxygen, Kohberger initially confessed to the murders. However, he has since declared his innocence and has outlined his intention to retract his guilty plea over a year later.
With Netflix’s new documentary, The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, further details are emerging about the terrifying ordeal Mortensen and Funke experienced and the poignant moments leading up to their roommates’ tragic demise.
911 Call Reports Someone Being “Passed Out” at King Road Home Morning of Idaho Murders
Responding to the tragedy, Moscow Police arrived at the property located at 1122 King Road on the morning of November 13, 2022, at exactly 11:56 a.m.
“Something’s happened in our house,” the unidentified caller said in the recording obtained by the docuseries, “and we don’t know what.”
The phone was then passed to another person who provided more details, saying that “one of the roommates has passed out and she was drunk last night and she’s not waking up.”
The first officers arrived at the scene expecting a medical distress call, but quickly learned that wasn’t the case. After walking into a second-floor bedroom, they found Kernodle and Chapin dead, according to body cam footage, with one officer uttering “f–k” upon making the grisly discovery.
“I think we have a homicide,” an officer said over the radio, according to the docuseries. “Two college aged appearing both to be deceased. Lots of blood.”
Fellow student Hunter Johnson—who had been friends with the victims—was still standing inside the living room as police began to make their way through the three-story house, per body cam footage.
“The roommates called me this morning to come check because they thought they saw someone in here last night and they went into their rooms,” he explained to an officer, according to the body cam footage. “I came over when they called and opened the door and I saw that.”
The officers then made their way upstairs to a third floor bedroom where they found Goncalves and Mogen stabbed to death in the same bed.
Both had “visible stab wounds,” according to the affidavit.
“I definitely did not expect to hear that we had a…not only a homicide, but a quadruple homicide,” Moscow Police Chief Anthony Dahlinger told the docuseries. “Without going into too much detail, it was absolutely horrific.”
Dylan Mortensen Describes Hearing Scream, Encountering Masked Killer
Outside, a shaken Mortensen and Funke provided police with their first account of what happened that night around 4 a.m.
“I was in my room. And I was trying to go to bed, and I heard Kaylee go upstairs,” Mortensen said, according to the body cam footage. “Like, ‘I’m gonna go to sleep now cause she’s going upstairs.’ And then, all of a sudden…I heard a scream.”
Though Mortensen initially told officers she heard Goncalves run down the stairs and say “someone’s here” investigators believed that was actually Kernodle. The 20-year-old had gotten a food order delivered just minutes before her death and was “likely awake,” per the affidavit, and encountered the killer before the attack.
“I called for her name, but I jumped up and locked my door because I was so scared,” Mortensen continued. “And then, I heard her go in…I think it was the bathroom. And I remember her sobbing.”
Mortensen told police she also heard a male voice, according to court records.
“I just remember hearing this guy’s voice that I didn’t recognize saying, ‘You’re gonna be ok. I’m gonna help you’,” she told police in the body cam footage. “But i don’t know how to explain it. Like it wasn’t in a nice way. It was like a weird way, like a weird tone.”
Concerned, Mortensen said she called out her roommate’s name then tried calling Kernodle, Mogen and Goncalves on the phone.
When none of them answered, she told police she opened her door and saw a man pass by. She later described him, according to the affidavit, as a masked man “clad in black clothing” with “bushy eyebrows” and a slender build.
“He looked at me, but he didn’t come towards me or say anything. Which was really confusing to me. I don’t understand that,” she told the police officer while standing outside her home, per the body cam footage. “I’m pretty sure he went out the side door. I didn’t know what to do.”
Terrified, Mortensen texted Funke, who lived in a bedroom on the bottom floor.
“i’m rlly confused rn,” Mortensen wrote in her text messages obtained by the docuseries.
Funke replied, “Ya dude wtf,” before Mortensen added, “Bethant (sic) I’m not kidding o am so freaked out.”
Funke agreed, “So am I,” adding, “Come to my room. Run.”
The two college students stayed in Funke’s room for hours until they called a friend and her boyfriend to help investigate shortly before noon.
“We asked the question, why did the roommates wait eight hours to call the police?” Dahlinger told Netflix. “There are so many reasons why you may not. People are in shock. It’s traumatic. I mean, I can’t imagine being of that age and being able to comprehend that this horrific thing just occurred.”
Surviving Idaho Roommates Report Man in the Shadows, Open House Door
Later, at the police station, Mortensen and Funke both recounted several disturbing events that occurred just weeks before the quadruple homicide.
When asked by a detective whether any of the roommates had complained about anyone stalking them, Funke told investigators that about a month earlier Goncalves had gotten an eerie feeling that someone was watching her while she took her dog outside.
“She swears she saw someone staring at her while she was taking the dog out to pee,” Funke said, according to the interview footage obtained by Netflix. “She could see like, a man’s silhouette staring at her.”
Then, about a week before the murders, Mortensen told detectives they’d come home to find the door to their house open.
“Our door is broken,” she explained in the interview, “but me, Maddie and Bethany got home and the door was wide open.”
Mortensen went on to say that although they usually locked the slider door into the home, she didn’t “think we locked it last night.”
What Happened to Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle?
After Kohberger pled guilty to the murders in July 2025, investigators released grisly details about the violent killings that claimed the lives of the four college students.
According to the documents, previously obtained by Oxygen, Mogen had a large gash from her eye to her nose and Goncalves was “unrecognizable as her facial structure was completely damaged.” A Ka-Bar knife shealth—which contained DNA ultimately used to identify Kohberger as a suspect—was found next to the bodies, per the affidavit.
Chapin was killed as he slept and had a laceration on his neck, according to the documents. Kernodle suffered more than 50 stab wounds suggesting she had put up “an intense struggle” before her death, an investigator wrote in the documents.
Kohberger—who has been sentenced to life in prison—has never provided a motive for the slayings. In a recent interview with The New York Times from behind bars, he proclaimed his innocence and detailed his plans to withdraw his previous guilty plea.
