NEED TO KNOW
The young women murdered by Bryan Kohberger arrived home from a Starbucks run to find their door unlocked and ajar less than two weeks before their deaths
Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates, told Idaho State Police that the women then armed themselves with Ethan Chapin’s golf clubs to search the house
They did not find anyone inside, but two weeks later Kohberger would break in and murder three of the women: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle
Nine days before their murders, the three young women killed by Bryan Kohberger, along with their two surviving roommates, found themselves searching their home for a burglar.
One of those surviving roommates, Dylan Mortensen, recalled the incident while speaking with Det. Vicki Gooch of the Idaho State Police in a newly unsealed interview obtained by PEOPLE.
Mortensen told Det. Gooch that all of the roommates had gone to Starbucks together, and returned to their Moscow home to find the front door “wide open.”
The group — Mortensen, Bethany Funke, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen — did not believe they had left the door open and became even more concerned when they discovered that the washing machine was on, Mortensen said.
The group decided the best thing to do was search the home and “went to get Ethan [Chapin]’s golf clubs to protect themselves.”
Funke also spoke about the incident, saying it occurred on Nov. 4, 2022, and that Kernodle’s father came over to fix the broken door a few days later.
Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Bethany Funke (l to r)
Mortensen also said there was another incident around the same time involving Kaylee Goncalves and a man she said was following her at the supermarket.
“Kaylee told her about a male subject who followed her from the Winco store all the way to Kaylee’s car, even when Kaylee went to leave, the subject was standing by Kaylee’s car,” wrote Det. Gooch.
Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.
The roommates did not ultimately find a burglar at the house, but this all occurred at a time when they had been made aware of odd occurrences happening just outside their home.
Mortensen and Funke both told investigators with the Moscow Police Department about at least one incident when Goncalves felt she was being watched and followed as she took her goldendoodle out for a walk.
Funke told police that Goncalves described the incident to her by saying she saw an “unknown male up above their house to the south who was staring at her when she took Murphy out to go potty.”
Zach Wilkinson/Moscow-Pullman Daily News/ap Police at 1122 King Road on the day of the murders
Other friends of Goncalves said that around this same time, Murphy would suddenly run off into a nearby wooded area — something he had never done before. One of those friends told investigators that both she and Goncalves felt like Murphy was running in the direction of someone in the woods.
A neighbor also noticed something concerning around this time, telling police she spotted a man who “looked nervous“ walking through her backyard and then returning along that same route.
The man allegedly ignored her as she informed him he was trespassing on private property.
She told police that she was 92 percent certain that this man, who had “curly hair with a large nose,” was Kohberger.
Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson has said that Kohberger did appear to be casing his victims’ neighborhood in the weeks and months before the murders based on the location of his cell phone, and floated the possibility that he might have broken into their home on this day.
Two weeks after the women came home to find their door open, Kohberger would break into their home and murder Mogen, Goncalves, Kernodle and Chapin.
Kohberger is now serving four life sentences after prosecutors agreed to not seek the death penalty as part of a plea deal.
Read the original article on People
