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‘There’s Someone Here’: Roommate Heard Idaho Victim Crying, Then Had Chilling Encounter With Masked Man
One of the surviving roommates, referred to in court documents as “D.M.,” reported seeing a masked man “clad in black” walk by her as she stood in a “frozen shock phase” before he left through the home’s sliding glass door.
One of the University of Idaho murder victims’ roommates heard crying around the time of the quadruple homicide and, upon entering a hallway to investigate, had a chilling face-to-face encounter with the masked killer before he walked by her and fled the home, she told authorities.
The details were revealed Thursday in a probable cause affidavit obtained by Oxygen.com, which provided a haunting account of events in the Moscow, Idaho residence in the early morning hours of Nov. 13.
The roommate, referred to in the court documents as D.M., told police she had been asleep in her bedroom on the second-floor of the home when she was awoken around 4 a.m. by sounds of what she believed to be victim Kaylee Goncalves “playing with her dog in an upstairs bedroom.”
The woman told police she thought she heard Goncalves say a short time later “there’s someone here,” although investigators noted it was also possible that she may have overhead Xana Kernodle making the comment.
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The roommate looked out of her bedroom, but did not see anything. She told police she opened the door a second time after hearing what she thought was “crying” coming from Kernodle’s room. Kernodle also lived on the second floor of the house and was staying in the room with her boyfriend Ethan Chapin.
“D.M. then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of ‘it’s ok, I’m going to help you,” the affidavit states.
The unnerved roommate told police she opened her door for a third time and saw a male figure “clad in black clothing.” The man, who was described as being at least 5’10” tall with “bushy eyebrows” was wearing a mask that covered his mouth and nose. The intruder was “walking towards her.” As he passed, she told investigators she stood in “a frozen shock state.”
The suspect then walked out a back sliding glass door as she locked herself inside her bedroom.
Moscow Police didn’t discover the bodies of Goncalves, Chapin, Kernodle and fellow roommate Madison Mogen until sometime after noon that day.
Moscow Police have said previously that two surviving roommates woke up and discovered what they believed to be one of the victims “passed out and not waking up” on the second-floor of the home. They summoned friends to the residence at 1122 King Rd. for help and someone placed a call to 911 at 11:58 a.m. to request assistance “for an unconscious victim.”
When officers arrived a short time later, they found the four victims dead from multiple stab wounds.
Kernodle and Chapin were found dead in the same room on the home’s second floor, according to the affidavit. Kernodle’s wounds appeared to be caused by an “edged weapon.”
Goncalves and Mogen were found dead in a “single bed” inside Mogen’s bedroom. They had “visible stab wounds” and investigators also discovered what appeared to be a tan leather knife sheath laying on the bed near the right side of Mogen’s body, authorities said. The sheath had the words “USMC” and “Ka-Bar” on it and also had the United States Marine Corps eagle globe and anchor insignia on it.
The Idaho state crime lab would later recover male DNA on the “button snap of the knife sheath,” according to the affidavit.
Goncalves’ dog had been unharmed in her bedroom when investigators arrived on the scene.
Before the brutal murders, Goncalves and Mogen had been at a local bar known as the Corner Club, before stopping at a food truck around 1:30 a.m. and getting a ride home from a private party. Kernodle and Chapin were seen by one of their surviving roommates, referred to in court documents as “B.F.” at the Sigma Chi house from approximately 9 p.m. on Nov. 12 to 1:45 a.m. on Nov. 13.
All of the home’s residents, as well as Chapin who didn’t live at the house but was staying the night, were home by 2 a.m.
Investigators noted Kernodle had gotten a Door Dash food delivery order around 4 a.m.
Based on interviews and evidence gathered during the investigation, authorities believe the college students were killed sometime between 4 a.m. and 4:25 a.m.
For nearly seven weeks, no arrests were made until Moscow Police announced on Friday that 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger, a PhD student in criminal justice at the nearby Washington State University, had been taken into custody in Pennsylvania, where his parents live.
They made the arrest after linking Kohberger to a white Hyundai Elantra seen around the home at the time of the murders and matching him to DNA found on the knife sheath, authorities stated in the affidavit.
As part of the investigation, authorities uncovered surveillance footage of a white Hyundai Elantra circling the King Road home several times, beginning at 3:29 a.m. on Nov. 13. After the fourth time around the neighborhood, investigators said the suspect attempted to park in front of the home at 4:04 a.m. before driving eastbound down Queen Road. The same vehicle is spotted leaving the area “at a high rate of speed” at approximately 4:20 a.m. and heading toward Pullman, Washington, according to the court document.
A white sedan matching the vehicle’s description was later seen on the Washington State University campus in Pullman around 5:25 a.m. that morning.
Kohberger, a student at WSU, drives a 2015 white Hyundai Elantra, which he drove home to Pennsylvania after the conclusion of the semester last month.
As he stayed at his parents’ home in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, investigators covertly recovered the family’s trash and matched DNA taken from the trash to someone who couldn’t be excluded as the “biological father” of the person who left the DNA sample on the knife sheath, according to the affidavit.
The court documents also reveal that Kohberger may have been stalking at least some of the home’s occupants for some time. Analysis of a cell phone number linked to the PhD student indicated he had been near the area of the King Road home “on at least twelve occasions prior to November 13, 2022,” authorities said.
“All of these occasions, except for one, occurred in the late evening and early morning hours of their respective days,” authorities wrote.
A law enforcement source also told People that Kohberger allegedly had been following at least two of the victims on Instagram before their deaths.
Kohberger also has a documented interest in criminology. He earned undergraduate degrees in psychology and cloud-based forensics before moving to Washington to begin a PhD program in criminology earlier this year, authorities said.
The 28-year-old also applied to be an intern at the Pullman Police Department in the Fall of 2022, writing that he hoped to “assist rural law enforcement agencies with how to better collect and analyze technological data in public safety operations.”
He is now facing four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary. He returned to Idaho Wednesday after waiving extradition earlier this week. He hasn't yet been formally arraigned.
