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The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare’: 4 Things We Learned
When police entered 1122 King Road on Nov. 13, 2022, first responders told officers that the students who lived there had called emergency services, reporting at least one occupant had passed out. But as they entered one of the bedrooms, the scene inside told an entire different story.
"Fuck," said one unnamed officer. "We're gonna need everybody."
The community of Moscow, Idaho was rocked when police discovered the bodies of four University of Idaho students. Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were all found stabbed to death in a seemingly random act of brutal violence. It took police months to identify and eventually arrest the main suspect, Bryan Kohberger , a 28-year-old criminology graduate student at the nearby Washington State University. But not before the ongoing investigation and questions about the death of the "Idaho Four," captured the nation's — and the internet's — full attention.
Now, director Skye Borgman ( Unknown Number: The High School Catfish ) is revisiting the monumental case; using never-before-seen police body cams, investigative footage, and new interviews with the victims' families and friends to paint a picture of the four young adults whose lives were cut short — and the explore the investigative work that led police to their killer.
"Making this series became deeply personal to me because I felt a responsibility to keep Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at the center of every decision we made," Borgman told Netflix's Tudum . "At a time when so much attention has been focused on the case itself, I felt it was important to create something that brings the focus back to who they were, the lives they lived, and the love that still surrounds them."
Here are four things we learned from Netflix's new three-part docuseries The Idaho Murders : College Nightmare. Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century
When police and first responders arrived at 1122 King Road, they immediately labeled the scene a homicide investigation, calling for more officers. But because the home was located next to many off-campus college apartments, more friends quickly gathered into a group outside the house, demanding answers.
The docuseries details how Anthony Dahlinger, chief of the Moscow Police Department, contacted school officials to let them know there had been four homicides. According to the University of Idaho Dean of Students, Blaine Eckles, school protocol is to use the campus-wide text alert system. But according to police, Eckles didn't tell police the alert was going out. Friends of the Idaho Four found out via text that their friends were dead while they were still waiting for answers from the police. Traumatized, they cried while huddled together at the edge of the road.
"We would've preferred that that information would have been collaborated with us prior to it going out, because on the scene we had four victims," Dahlinger says in the doc. "We had to not only identify the victims but then start working diligently to get a hold of their next of kin and notify them."
The text blast immediately complicated the flow of information. Xana's friends called her older sister, Jazzmin Kernodle, and said something was wrong, who in turn called her father, Jeff Kernodle. Jeff had been in town for a football game and had actually tried to call Xana early that morning; but after receiving no answer, he assumed she was asleep and had begun driving home. When he got the call, he turned around and drove to King Road, where police then escorted him to the station and informed him about Xana's death. Related Content Bryan Kohberger, University of Idaho Murderer, Sentenced to Life in Prison He Applied for an Internship With Cops. Then He Killed Four People In Idaho Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty in Idaho College Killings New Docuseries Reveals the Untold Story of the Idaho Murders
Mogen and Hunt's parents were told at the police station. Steve and Kristi Goncalves, Kaylee's parents, originally heard rumours that there had been a shooting at a party. People had been sending them condolences on Facebook for at least an hour before police confirmed their daughter had been one of the victims.
Surviving roommates Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen heard a commotion around 4 am, but rather than calling police, Mortensen ran to Funke's room where she spent the rest of the night. In the morning, they called two friends, Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson, to come check the home. Johnson was one of the first to find the bodies, and then ushered the girls out of the home, telling them to call 9-1-1 and tell them that someone was unconscious.
Mortensen told police that during the night, she heard a stranger saying, "It's okay. I'm going to help you," in a weird voice. When she opened her door, she saw a man in a black ski mask. The two stared at each other for a moment before she closed her door and locked it. After texting Funke, she ran to Funke's room.
When police revealed Mortensen had seen the suspect, online sleuths, members of the true crime community, and fellow students criticized her heavily for her inaction — something Dahlinger says in the docuseries doesn't take into account how fear can make people act irrationally.
"Shock and trauma do a lot of damage to people," he said. "It can impair judgment. It can impair thought processes."
But according to Kernodle's parents, a report from the medical examiner found that the wounds on the four were so catastrophic that Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle, and Chapin couldn't have survived even if someone had called the paramedics immediately after the assailant left the house.
"It's hard because you go back and look at all these moments and you wish you could do something different," Steve said. "Could somebody have been saved? The an...
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