Newly released text messages and phone calls show the fear of two University of Idaho students as someone broke into their home and murdered four of their housemates in 2022.
“I’m freaking out,” one roommate wrote to the other, court filings obtained by US media reportedly show.
The text messages were sent nearly eight hours before the roommates called authorities to report one of their roommates unconscious at their home.
The trial of Bryan Kohberger, who was arrested in the roommates’ murders and has pleaded not guilty to those charges, is scheduled to start later this year.
The fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students – Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen – in their off-campus home on 13 November, shocked Moscow, Idaho, a small college town and the nation.
Two other housemates, identified in court filings as D.M. and B.F., are presumed to be Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who both lived in the house and survived the attack. Newly released communications between the two offer some insight into what happened during the hours when police believe the murders occurred and in the aftermath.
“No one is answering,” D.M. texted B.F. between 4:22 a.m. and 4:24 a.m. “I’m rlly confused rn.”
“Kaylee,” D.M. texted Goncalves. “What’s going on.” And then to B.F.: “I’m freaking out rn.”
In the messages to B.F., D.M. references someone in “like a ski mask almost” in the house.
B.F. replies, “Stfu”.
“I’m not kidding,” D.M. writes, adding she is “so freaked out.”
“Come to my room,” B.F. says. “Run.”
Prosecutors want to use these messages to piece together the timeline of the early autumn morning. Both housemates are expected to testify at the capital murder trial scheduled for August.
A call to police, also detailed in the new fillings, was made just after the “unresponsive body” of Kernodle was found, and hours after the intruder was first spotted in the house.
“Um, one of our — one of the roommates who’s passed out and she was drunk last night and she’s not waking up,” the caller tells authorities, according to the transcript.
One of the surviving housemates previously told investigators that noise woke her early that morning, but when she looked outside her bedroom, she did not see anything.
Later, she told investigators, when she opened her door again, she saw a masked man in black clothing walking toward her. He walked by her towards a sliding glass door and she locked herself in her room.
Officials said they think that’s when the suspect left the home.
The suspect in the case, Mr Kohberger, was a Washington State University graduate student in criminology. He was arrested in December 2022, six weeks after the murders. He was indicted in May 2023.
Prosecutors claim they have DNA evidence tying Mr Kohberger to the crime scene and are seeking the death penalty if he is convicted.
Meanwhile, Mr Kohberger’s attorneys have questioned the accuracy of the DNA testing and have asked for the death penalty to be taken off the table.