Idaho college killings: Police body camera footage reveals emotional interview with surviving roommate
Less than 10 hours after four of her friends were stabbed to death in her home near the University of Idaho, surviving roommate Bethany Funke told a police sergeant through sobs everything she could remember about that night -- and anything that might point to the killer.
Bundled in an oversized yellow hoodie, Funke sat down for a 28-minute interview with Moscow Police Sgt. Dustin Blaker just before 2 p.m. on Nov. 13, 2022 -- just hours after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle had been murdered.
The interview was recorded on police body camera and obtained first by ABC News via a records request after the now-admitted killer Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to all charges and sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years.
A new "20/20" episode, "Idaho Justice," airing Friday, Sept. 5, at 9 p.m. ET on ABC and streaming the next day on Hulu, examines the case.
Funke described what would have otherwise been a normal college party night, and a house full of friends familiar with each other's habits.
She also described one eerie moment Goncalves had with a shadowy figure outside the King Road home a month prior.
Funke, her voice quavering throughout, recounted the events of the previous night.
"We were all pretty much together and then Maddie left to go to the club with Kaylee. And then I was with Ethan and Xana most of the night," she said.
Funke said she walked home around 1 a.m. and watched "Vampire Diaries" with a friend who later left. "No one else was home yet," she said.
"Maddie and Kaylee came home from the club," around 2am after they had "went to Grub Truck after," and "we all hung out in Kaylee's room for a little and talked." Eventually, Goncalves went to walk her dog, Murphy, and Funke said she went to bed.
But at some point, she said she was woken up.
"I was half asleep, and I thought I saw like a firework or something, like it just sparkled under my door," she said. "I thought I heard somebody kind of fall, and thought I heard Murphy bark, but I thought people were just making food ... and knocked something over," Funke said. "It sounded like a little firework, and then there's like a spark. I'm on the bottom floor. It kind of looked like it came down there, but I don't know."
Funke said she tried to call all of her roommates around 4:20 a.m.
"No one was answering," she said. "I thought they just went to bed or something."
Then Funke's other surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen called her.
"She said she thinks she saw someone, and I didn't know really, what to think of it, because sometimes we think we hear things a lot, but it's usually just Ethan walking around. But I told her to come in my room ... and we could lock the door and stay there just in case, if there was anything. That's all I know."
She said she believed that conversation happened between 4:20 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. -- just after the timeframe in which investigators say the killings occurred, and just after surveillance footage showed Kohberger's car speeding away from the home.
Mortenson "said she thought she saw a man, but I didn't know what to think of it," Funke said. "I was, like, still half asleep. And it didn't sound like, I couldn't hear screams. I didn't hear anything. I didn't really know."
"Do you know of anybody in your house that has an issue with anyone, any ex-boyfriends?" the police sergeant asked.
"Nuh-uh. All their ex-boyfriends are really nice, they still are good friends," Funke said.
"Have you ever had any of your roommates complain about anyone stalking them?" the sergeant probed.
"Nu-uh," Funke replied.
But she described a time, roughly a month before the killings, when Goncalves was alone, took her dog out and saw a shadowy figure before her.
"She said she swears she saw someone staring at her," Funke said.
