[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Certain details of the University of Idaho murders have been confounding due to the lack of transparency by the Moscow Police Department and other cooperating law enforcement bodies. (Though considering their efficacy in bringing in suspect Bryan Kohberger without incident, it’s hard to blame them for the way they handled it.) However, the more we learn, the more everything seems to come into focus and tell a coherent story — even if that story is at times a horrifying tragedy of errors…
One confusing detail? The roommates…
Housemates Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Xana’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, who was staying over, were stabbed to death in their beds in the early morning hours of November 13. But there were two other girls who lived in the house who were untouched. That raised a number of questions immediately — did the killer target one or more of these specific four? Did he miss the others? Did he run out of time? How did the two roommates who survived not hear the brutal murders taking place in the house??
Related: Pennsylvania Cold Cases Being Reviewed For Links To Bryan Kohberger!
This last question has now seemingly been answered by an unnamed source speaking to NewsNation over the weekend. They claim one of the roommates did hear it all happen. She just didn’t know what she was hearing.
The insider said they spoke directly to surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen, and she told them she thought the noises she heard were late-night partying. In fact, she was so annoyed by the ruckus, she opened her bedroom door and shouted, “Calm down, you’re being loud!” and, “I’m trying to sleep!” She thought it was just typical college rowdiness, and since it was a known party house, we imagine most people would come to the same conclusion. So while it’s true that if she had realized what was going on she could have called the police right then and there, maybe even in time to save some of the victims, she obviously wasn’t expecting something like murder happening in her home. Instead, she closed her door in a tired daze, locked it, and tried to go back to sleep.
What happened next was truly terrifying. We learned from the probable cause affidavit that one of the roommates saw the killer leaving. (She didn’t recognize him at the time — it remains to be seen if she is able to positively identify the masked man she saw as Bryan Kohberger.) That roommate, who was identified as D.M. by the police, is clearly Dylan. Because the next part of her story explains that moment.
Related: Goncalves Family Defends Roommate For Not Calling 911
She had already yelled at her roommates to quiet down. So when she heard more noise a bit later, she opened her door to shout again. And that’s when she saw the killer walking right toward her. The source says Dylan explained she wasn’t afraid because she thought it was just some friend of her roommates who was leaving, walking down the hall to get to the sliding glass door. It makes perfect sense if she thought the noise was partying. Just a late night guest making their exit. Wearing a mask due to pandemic fears maybe.
As for why the killer left without trying to get her, too? Or the other surviving roommate?
That may have been explained last week with the information from another source who told NewsNation that Xana Kernodle was the final victim. The insider explained that Maddie and Kaylee, who were sleeping in bed together as they often did, were killed first. Then the murderer went upstairs from their room and slashed Ethan’s throat. However, Xana — as we’d previously learned — fought back. Hard. The source says she grabbed the knife from the killer over and over, suffering deep cuts in her fingers in the process.
Since she was the last killed, it makes sense why the killer didn’t go after the last two roommates. She made it so difficult for him, he probably thought he had run out of time. Heck, there’s no reason for him not to think the rest of the house was awake and calling the police. Of course he got right out of there.
That means Xana’s courage may well have saved two of her friends’ lives, even if she wasn’t able to save her own. And Dylan had no idea — and was lucky enough to not learn what had happened until hours later.
[Image via Latah County Sheriff’s Office/Kaylee Goncalves/Instagram.]
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