Idaho 4 Text Messages: Exchange, 911 Gap, and Admissibility

In the roughly twelve minutes between 4:20 a.m. and 4:32 a.m. on November 13, 2022, the two surviving University of Idaho roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, exchanged a rapid burst of panicked texts as four housemates were being killed one floor above. The Idaho 4 text messages became the closest thing prosecutors had to a real-time record of the attack at 1122 King Road, and after a pretrial fight over hearsay, a judge ruled they could be used against Bryan Kohberger at trial. He pleaded guilty before that trial began.

What Mortensen Saw Before She Started Texting

Mortensen told investigators she woke around 4:00 a.m. to strange noises and initially thought Kaylee Goncalves was playing with her dog. She then heard what sounded like Goncalves saying “there’s someone here,” crying from Xana Kernodle’s room, and a male voice that was not Ethan Chapin’s saying, “It’s ok, I’m going to help you.”¹

When she opened her bedroom door, she saw a figure dressed in black with a mask covering his nose and mouth walking toward the back of the house. In later grand jury testimony she described “bushy eyebrows” and estimated the person was around her height or slightly taller with a lean build, while acknowledging her memory was “a bit blurry” and that she had only seconds to look.²³ She froze and locked herself in her room.

At about 4:17 a.m., she started trying to call the four upstairs roommates. Nobody answered. A security camera at the neighboring house, less than 50 feet from Kernodle’s bedroom wall, picked up a dog barking and what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud around the same time.⁴

The Actual Text Exchange

When the calls went unanswered, Mortensen turned to Funke, who was alone on the first floor. According to court filings, the core exchange ran between roughly 4:22 a.m. and 4:26 a.m.:¹⁵

Mortensen to Funke: “No one is answering. I’m rlly confused rn.”
Mortensen to Goncalves: “Kaylee. What’s going on.”
Funke to Mortensen: “Ya dude wtf. Xana was wearing all black.”
Mortensen to Funke: “I’m freaking out rn.”
Mortensen to Funke: “No it’s like a ski mask almost.”
Funke to Mortensen: “Stfu.”
Mortensen to Funke: “Like he had soemtbinf over is forhead and little nd mouth.”
Mortensen to Funke: “Bethant I’m not kidding o am so freaked out.”
Funke to Mortensen: “So am I.”
Funke to Mortensen: “Cometomyroom.” Then: “Run.”
Mortensen to Funke: “I’m scRwd tho.”
Funke to Mortensen: “Ya IK but it’s better than being alone.”

The typos and mashed words track how fast the messages were flying. Funke’s line that “Xana was wearing all black” suggested she may have first thought the masked figure Mortensen was describing was actually Kernodle rather than a stranger.⁶

Mortensen then left her second-floor room and went downstairs to Funke’s bedroom, passing the front door on the way. According to court filings, she also observed Kernodle lying on the floor of her bedroom as she went by.⁵

At 4:32 a.m., Mortensen sent Goncalves one last message: “Pls answer.” Between 4:34 and 4:37 a.m., Funke opened Snapchat and Instagram. Then phone activity from both roommates went quiet for about three hours.¹

The Gap Before 911

Roughly seven and a half hours passed between the last of the panicked texts and the 911 call. Funke resumed phone activity around 7:30 a.m., calling her father. Between 8:05 and 10:00 a.m., Mortensen was active on Instagram, and both roommates spent time on social media and made calls to family and friends.⁷

At 10:23 a.m., Mortensen texted Goncalves again (“Pls answer”), then texted Madison Mogen (“R u up”), then Goncalves once more (“R u up??”). When no one answered, she called a friend, Emily Alandt, and said something along the lines of “something weird happened last night” and that she was scared and couldn’t reach Kernodle.¹⁸

Alandt, her boyfriend Hunter Johnson, and their roommate Josie Lauteren walked over to King Road. Johnson went upstairs, found the bodies, came back out, and told the others to call 911 and report an “unconscious person.” Mortensen placed the call at about 11:58 a.m. She was so distraught that Lauteren took the phone to give the dispatcher the address.⁸⁹

The Fight Over Whether the Texts Could Be Used

Prosecutors wanted the messages in evidence to lock down the timeline of the attack. Kohberger’s defense, led by Anne Taylor, argued they should be excluded as hearsay. The defense said the roommates were not sufficiently startled to fall within the excited-utterance exception, pointing out that Mortensen described herself as merely “confused,” that she went to Funke’s room instead of leaving the house or calling for outside help, and that neither roommate contacted police for nearly eight hours. The defense also flagged what it called inconsistencies across the roommates’ multiple interviews with investigators.⁵¹⁰

On April 24, 2025, Judge Steven Hippler ruled the texts were “likely admissible” under both the present sense impression and excited utterance exceptions. He noted that several of the messages, including “What’s going on,” “Run,” “Come to my room,” and “Pls answer,” are commands or questions rather than assertions of fact, so they were not hearsay at all. He rejected the argument that the roommates were not scared enough, writing that the four-minute exchange left no time for fabrication and that faulting the young women for not fleeing “unempathetically ignores these circumstances and the trauma and confusion they were evidently experiencing.”⁵

The 911 call was treated differently. The judge admitted most of it but ordered three statements redacted: a description of a roommate as drunk and passed out (no firsthand knowledge), a reference to “some man in their house last night” (not contemporaneous), and Mortensen’s attempt to narrate events from eight hours earlier to the dispatcher. Those pieces reflected too much time for reflection to count as spontaneous.

Why the Texts Never Reached a Jury

The case did not go to trial. On July 2, 2025, Kohberger pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary under an agreement that took the death penalty off the table and required him to waive all appeals, including any challenge to the pretrial rulings on the text messages. The plea did not require him to cooperate with investigators or explain a motive.¹¹¹²

On July 23, 2025, Judge Hippler sentenced Kohberger to four consecutive life sentences without parole plus ten years for burglary, with a $50,000 fine per charge and a $5,000 civil penalty to each victim’s family.¹³¹⁴

1
CNN. Idaho Student Murders Roommates Texts
2
ABC News. Judge Sides With Prosecution on Key Rulings as Kohberger Trial Nears
3
Fox News. Defense Motion in Limine Re Witness Identification
4
Idaho Statesman. Security Camera Evidence in Idaho Murders
5
Idaho Court of Idaho. Order on State’s Motions in Limine Re Text Messages and 911 Call
6
The Independent. Idaho Murders Texts Bryan Kohberger
7
ABC News. New Defense Filings Shed Light on Communications of Roommates
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NBC/Today. One Night in Idaho Surviving Roommates 911 Call
9
Yahoo News. Friends of Idaho Murder Victims Explain Discovery
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WSAW. Newly Released Texts, 911 Call Transcript From Surviving Roommates
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ABC News. Bryan Kohberger Sentencing Live Updates
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Idaho Court of Idaho. Plea Agreement
13
Oxygen. Families of Bryan Kohberger Victims Speak at Sentencing
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CNN. Family Impact Statements Idaho Murders