Bryan Kohberger: Friend who was in house at time Idaho students were murdered tells court it was the 'worst day of her life'
Bryan Kohberger is being sentenced after he admitted to murdering four university students in Idaho as they slept in their beds.
A roomate of four University of Idaho students who were fatally stabbed whilst they were sleeping, who was in the house at the time of the brutal crime but survived, has spoken at the sentencing of her friends’ killer.
Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, all aged 20 or 21, were stabbed to death in December 2022, just days before Christmas and Thanksgiving. Six weeks later, in December 2022, criminology graduate student Bryan Kohberger, now aged 30, was arrested and charged with their murders.
Kohberger, who had no connection to his victims, pleaded guilty to the murders earlier this month as part of a plea deal that spared him from the death penalty. His sentencing is taking place now, on Wednesday July 23, at Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho.
The first victim impact statement to be read at the hearing came from Bethany Funke, who was one of two roomates who were also in the house on the fateful day but survived, according to a liveblog by CNN. Kohberger has never explained why he fatally attacked four students but did not harm two.
In her statement, read by her friend Emily Alandt, she described waking up with a toothache and calling her dad, who is a dentist for advice. After taking an Advil at his suggestion, she went back to sleep.
“I was still out of it and still didn’t know what happened. If I had known, I of course would have called 911 right away,” she said. “I still carry so much regret and guilt for not knowing what had happened and not calling right away, even though I understand it wouldn’t have changed anything, even if the paramedics had been right outside the door.”
Later that morning, when she discovered what had happened and called 911, she wrote that “I couldn’t even get out the words.” “That was the worst day of my life, and I know it always will be,” she said.
She also said she questions why Kohberger had not attacked her. “I hated and still hate that they’re gone, but for some reason, I am still here and I got to live. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why did I get to live, and not them?,” she said.
In her statement, Bethany also spoke of the lasting impact the events of Sunday November 13 2022 have had on her. She said that following the death of her friends she slept in her parents’ room for nearly a year and has not slept through “a single night since it happened.”
She went on: “I constantly wake up in panics, terrified someone is breaking in or someone is here to hurt me. Or I’m about to lose someone else that I love. The fear never really leave,”
The second surving student who was in the house, Dylan Mortensen, said in her victim impact statement that because of Kohberger “four beautiful, genuine, compassionate people were taken from this world for no reason”.
Speaking for the first time publicly since the murders, she added: “He took away who they were becoming, and the futures they were going to have. He took away birthdays, graduation, celebrations and all the memories they were supposed to make.”
Like Bethany, Dylan also spoke about the trauma and anxiety she has suffered as a result of what happened. “He took away my ability to trust the world around me,” she said in her statement. “What he did shattered me in places I didn’t know could break.”
She too was unable to be alone and slept in her mum’s bed, she said. She added that she suffers panic attacks. “I can’t breathe, I can’t think, I can’t stop shaking. All I can do is scream, because the emotional pain and the grief is too much to handle on my chest,” she said. It’s far beyond anxiety. It’s my body reliving everything over and over again.”