Bryan Kohberger might have identified one of his victims by name, according to an unsealed interview a surviving roommate gave police.
Kohberger, 30, has admitted to killing Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, at an off-campus home near the University of Idaho in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. Kohberger was sentenced to life in prison.
At the time of the killings, Kohberger was a Ph.D criminology student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, located about eight miles from the crime scene. Police have not identified any link between Kohberger and the victims, but cell phone data indicated he repeatedly was in the area of the home in the months leading up to the murders, PEOPLE reported, and was possibly stalking them.
Now, in an unsealed interview given by one of two surviving roommates who were in the house the night of the murders, Kohberger might have known one of the victims' names.
"Sometime in the early morning hours, [Dylan Mortensen] was awoken and opened her room door [redacted] and heard a male say, 'It's okay Kaylee (Goncalves), I'm here for you,' and crying," the report states according to PEOPLE.
In the initial interview, Mortensen said she believed she heard Goncalves run down the stairs, trying to flee the killer. However, in subsequent interviews, she told police that it was actually probably Kernodle trying to flee.
PEOPLE reported that Mortensen told police, "She then heard a male voice, which she stated she had never heard before, say 'It's okay, I'm going to help you.' [Mortensen] believed the unidentified male was in the bathroom and with the person who was crying."
The outlet reported that Mortensen told police she was in shock and still trying to process what had happened at the time of the interviews.
