'One Night in Idaho' docuseries: Why the friends first to crime scene are speaking out
On July 2, a stony Bryan Kohberger took a plea deal, admitting he entered the off-campus home of University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022 and put an abrupt end to their lives.
His inexpressive demeanor was a far cry from the grinning thumbs up selfie Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said the former criminology student posed for just hours after fatally stabbing roommates Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison "Maddie" Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, who’d stayed the night. Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who also lived at the six-bedroom home on Moscow, Idaho's King Road, survived the attack.
The plea marked an abrupt end to the shocking and still unexplained murders of the four students, who are the subject of three new projects: “The Idaho Student Murders,” a Peacock documentary that debuted July 3; "One Night in Idaho: The College Murders," an Amazon Prime four-part docuseries that began streaming July 11; and “The Idaho Four,” a book out July 14 by Vicky Ward and James Patterson, an executive producer on “One Night in Idaho.”
In changing his not-guilty plea for the four counts of first-degree murder, Kohberger, 30, escaped capital punishment. This conclusion satisfies some of the victims’ families while enraging others. For Hunter Johnson, who appears in “One Night in Idaho” and discovered Kernodle and Chapin on that fateful day, the admission brings little relief.
“Even if Kohberger did get the death penalty, that's honestly not even justice enough,” Johnson, a friend of the victims, tells Paste BN, “because (the families) still don't get to have their daughter. They don't get to have their son.” The irreversible nature of the murders, Johnson says, means justice can never actually be served.
Kohberger’s sentencing is scheduled for July 23. As part of the plea deal, the prosecution seeks maximum penalty for the charges, including 10 years for the burglary charge and four consecutive life sentences. Kohberger has waived his right to appeal.
“We are appreciative,” Emily Alandt, Johnson’s girlfriend and close confidant of Kernodle, adds in an interview. She’s happy she and Johnson, their friends and the victims' families have been spared a trial, previously scheduled for August. “That's important to us, and that's the good part that has come out of this.”
Although they once avoided interviews out of respect for the families and their own privacy, Alandt and Johnson are speaking out for the first time in "One Night in Idaho" at the request of Chapin’s mom, Stacy, Alandt says.
They want their friends to be thought of as more than how they met their end. “Xana is extremely goofy and giddy all the time,” says Alandt, who remembers Goncalves as “selfless and always smiling.”
Johnson remembers Chapin’s sense of humor. “Ethan was very quirky in the sense that he could make you laugh and very witty all the time,” Johnson says. He describes Mogen as “super caring and outgoing."
“They all had a light about them,” Johnson says, “and we just try to carry on that light for them now.”
The docuseries provides a more complete picture of the four through their social media posts and interviews with friends and family. Mogen’s mom and stepdad participated; so did the parents of Chapin, a triplet, and his siblings.
“I never let Maddie cry, like never,” Karen Laramie recalls heartbreakingly in the docuseries. “I’m not going to let you have a moment of sadness.”
Maizie Chapin shares the final text her brother sent her after attending a sorority formal together on his last night alive. Maizie says Ethan texted “‘I love you,’ which was also weird because we don’t say that to each other.”
Law enforcement officers and the two surviving roommates could not be interviewed due to gag orders, according to filmmakers.
At around 11:45 a.m. Nov. 13, according to the docuseries, Mortensen asked Alandt to come check out their house as she’d witnessed something strange. According to an affidavit, Mortensen heard crying and saw a man dressed in black clothes and a mask walk past her.
Johnson, Alandt and Alandt's housemate Josie Lauteren arrived at the King Road house to find Mortensen and her roommate Funke outside the home. Johnson was the first to see the bodies of Kernodle and Chapin and hurried Alandt and Lauteren out of the house and told them to call 911.
Kohberger, according to Thompson, the prosecutor, entered the home through the kitchen’s sliding glass door, killed Mogen and Goncalves on the third floor and then killed Kernodle and Chapin on the second floor. Though Kohberger’s motive and connection to his victims are still unknown, Thompson said Kohberger’s cell phone pinged at a tower near the residence approximately 23 times from July 9 to Nov. 7, 2022, between 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.
People magazine reported that Kohberger followed his female victims on Instagram, but they did not reciprocate. People also reported that an investigator said Kohberger “allegedly messaged one of the three female victims repeatedly two weeks before the slayings.” Police connected Kohberger to the crime through DNA discovered on the knife sheath left near Mogen’s body.
“The why was a thought for a long time,” Alandt says, “when we didn't know who the killer was … until I saw his face on the internet and had never seen him a day in my life before or ever even heard the name.”
“He's irrelevant,” she adds, “and his story is irrelevant, is what I think.”
The couple emphasize that Mortensen and Funke have also been traumatized and should not be viewed by internet sleuths as suspects. Some believe and have shared theories on social media that the two survivors are somehow involved with the killings.
“They are just as much victims in this as the other four were,” Johnson says. “People who are harassing them should stop because they still get harassed to this day, even though he's pleaded guilty.”
“Delete your hateful comments,” Alandt urges. “Leave them alone.”