The families and friends of four University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death at an off-campus house in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, spoke at Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing on Wednesday, describing in searing emotional detail how that night caused lasting harm.
Kohberger, wearing an orange jumpsuit, sat passively as a procession of victims read their statements.
Emily Alandt, a friend of Bethany Funke, one of the surviving roommates, began the day by reading a statement on her behalf. Funke recalled frantically calling 911 and not being able to speak, yet feeling “sick with guilt” she didn’t call earlier.
“I was so frantic that morning and scared to death, not knowing what had happened. And when I made the 911 call, I couldn’t even get out the words,” she said.
Funke said she no longer sleeps through the night and constantly wakes up in a panic.
“I wish more than anything I could hug them one last time,” she said of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Madison Mogen, 21. “I still tell them every night I will keep living for them.”
Another surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, cried as she told the court that Kohberger “took away my ability to trust the world around me.”
“I was barely 19 when he did this,” she said. “I should’ve been figuring out who I was... instead, I was forced to learn how to survive the unimaginable. I couldn’t be left alone. I had to sleep in my mom’s room because I was too terrified to close my eyes.”
She described searing panic attacks she now suffers, saying she drops to the floor, heart racing, convinced something is wrong: “It’s my body reliving everything over and over again.”
Mortensen closed by addressing Kohberger directly, telling him he’s “something less than human, a body without empathy, without remorse.”
Kohberger was a graduate student in criminology at Washington State University at the time of the murders. He accepted a plea deal earlier this month that’s expected to result in four life sentences without parole ― one for each of the four counts of first-degree murder. Kohberger declined to address the court.
Madison Mogen’s stepdad, Scott Laramie, appeared relieved to close this chapter of their lives and voiced support for the plea agreement that some of the other families have criticized.
“Evil does not deserve our time and attention,” Laramie said. “We are done being victims. We will take back our lives.”
Mogen’s dad, Ben Mogen, followed Laramie at the stand by reading the last thing Madison ever wrote him: Her last Father’s Day card.
“Maddie ... was the only great thing I ever really did and the only thing I was really ever proud of,” Mogen told the court, crying as he recalled how she helped him battle addiction. “When I didn’t want to live anymore, she is what kept me here.”