BOISE, Idaho — For the first time, the two surviving roommates from the King Road murders shared the tremendous impact, heartache and trauma the crime has caused them. Their dear friends Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in November of 2022.
Surviving roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke both prepared victim impact statements during Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing Wednesday. He will spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to the quadruple murder. To date, no motive for the attack has ever been revealed. Investigators say they are yet to find any connection between Kohberger and the victims.
Dylan, who saw the killer inside the home, tried to convey to the court just how much she has lost.
“He didn’t just take them from the world…he took them from me,” she said. “My friends. My people who felt like my home.”
And the fact that he went into that home, just feet from Dylan herself to carry out this vicious crime, has forever changed the way she sees others.
“He took away my ability to trust the world around me,” she said. “He shattered me in places I didn’t know I could break. I was barely 19 when he did this.”
Dylan said the past few years, what should have been some of the best of her life, have instead been consumed with torment.
“I was forced to live with the unimaginable,” she said. “I couldn’t be alone. I slept in my mom’s bed because I was too terrified to close my eyes, terrified if I blinked someone might be there.”
Dylan told the court she couldn’t go anywhere without making escape plans and looking for ways to protect herself.
“Then there are the panic attacks,” she said. “The kind that slam into me like a tsunami out of nowhere. I can’t stop shaking. All I can do is scream because the emotional pain and the grief is too much to handle.”
And the lack of emotion from the man responsible only makes it more disturbing.
“He is a hollow vessel, something less than human,” she said. “A body without empathy, without remorse.”
Dylan’s focus then turned back to her dear friends and trying to find a way to carry on in a way that would make them proud.
“He may have shattered me but I’m still putting myself back together piece by piece…It’s not easy but I’m trying. And not just for me. I’m trying for them. My friends,” Dylan said.
Bethany’s victim impact statement was read by a friend to the court. It talked about cherished memories of making dinner with her friends, binging reality TV and on Halloween with Maddie, ‘dancing like no one was watching.’ Maddie was her ‘big sis’ in their sorority and Bethany wrote she ‘took her under her wing.’
Bethany says Kaylee was a sweetheart with a beautiful, bright smile. She then talked about the incredible love between Xana and Ethan.
Bethany’s statement also reflected on the harassment from strangers online with her family members also targeted. She said she received death threats and was scared to even walk around in her home without shades down.
“For the longest time, I couldn’t even look at their families without feeling sick with guilt,” Bethany’s statement said. “I didn’t know what to say or do. I was terrified my presence made their pain worse when I was still here when their kid, their siblings and their friends should have been here instead.”
Like Dylan, she too is trying to focus on living a life of love to honor Kaylee, Maddie, Xana and Ethan.
