Featured Image Credit: Instagram/kayleegoncalves
Topics: Crime, True crime, US News
Joe Yates
A tragic new detail has emerged in the case of the cold-blooded killing of the four University of Idaho students.
Criminology graduate Bryan Kohberger will stand in court for the murder of Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both aged 21, as well as 20-year-olds Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. The students were all found dead in an off-campus home they shared in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022.
Now, ahead of the 30-year-old's trial, set to take place on July 30, a heartbreaking new detail has revealed how Madison and Kaylee had debated leaving their home in search for a bite to eat, having just returned from a night out with their two other roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke.
Both Mortensen and Funke survived the massacre as, unbeknownst to the killer, they were in their bedrooms at the time.
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The revelation has come due to a court order by judge Steven Hippler who has given the green light for prosecutors request to allow the text exchanges and 911 call from the two surviving housemates to be called on as evidence during the trial.
The evidence in question details how Funke, Mogen, Mortensen, and Goncalves all gathered in the latter's room to discuss the night, with the court order stating that they 'talked for a while before going to bed'. This was at around 2am.
The court order stated: "The roommates debated going out to a food truck for a late snack, prompting D.M. to send text at 2:10 a.m. to an Uber driver she knew to see if he was driving.
"Ultimately, however, the girls decided to just go to bed."
At the time, both Kernodle and her boyfriend Chapin still out partying.
With the killing spree understood to have taken place between 4am and 4.25am, the masked murderer fled shortly after - with Mortensen being the only person to have seen the intruder, whom he described as a masked man with 'bushy eyebrows'.
Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt confirmed that the cause of death in each case was murder by stabbing, saying the four students had been ‘butchered’.
It took almost two months before the force arrested and charged someone, which was Kohberger, who had driven to his parents' house in Pennsylvania and was cuffed in the Scranton area of the state.
The accused will stand trial from July 30, the date when jury selection begins, and is expected to last for three months. Court documents explain that jurors will need time to deliberate over the death penalty if Kohberger is found guilty.