Shivangi Sinha
In November 2022, Dylan Mortensen was a University of Idaho student living a regular college life. She shared an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, with four other friends. One night, she heard some commotion inside the house and reportedly saw an unknown masked man walking through it. Frightened, Dylan locked herself in her room and managed to stay there until morning. The next day, she was confronted with the horrific reality that three of her roommates had been killed inside the home. Netflix’s ‘The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare’ explores the case in its entirety and sheds light on the lasting impact the crime had on Dylan’s life.
Dylan Mortensen Said She Saw the Perpetrator Walk Outside Her Bedroom Door
Dylan Mortensen joined the University of Idaho with all the expectations and dreams of a young woman starting a new chapter in her life. She was a sophomore living in an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, alongside her roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Bethany Funke. The five women shared a close friendship and were living out their college years in what seemed like complete peace and normalcy. They had a wide circle of friends, and people often visited their home. Because it was considered a safe neighborhood with many fellow students living nearby, none of them had any reason to fear for their safety.
On November 13, 2022, at around 4 am, Dylan Mortensen said she was about to go to sleep when she heard what she believed was her roommate, Kaylee Goncalves, upstairs. However, investigators later concluded that she most likely heard Xana Kernodle instead. Dylan recalled hearing her roommates say, “Someone’s here.” Frightened, she locked her bedroom door and called out her friend’s name, but received no response. A short while later, she heard what sounded like someone entering the bathroom, followed by the sound of crying. Dylan knew something was wrong, and she then heard a male voice say, “You’re gonna be okay. I’m going to help you.”
Dylan later told investigators that the words did not sound reassuring or as though they had been said “in a nice way.” She tried calling her other roommates, but did not get any response. When she opened her bedroom door once, she saw a masked man dressed in black clothing walking past her room, and investigators later believed that he had likely seen her as well. Dylan then texted Bethany Funke, telling her that she was scared and did not understand what was happening. She quickly left her room and went into Bethany’s bedroom, where the two remained locked inside for nearly eight hours. Later that morning, they called two friends to come and check on the house, and one of them ultimately contacted the police.
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Dylan Mortensen was fully cooperative with the responding officers and told investigators everything that she had witnessed and heard that night. She also shared that about a month earlier, the roommates had suspected that someone had broken into their house. Dylan added that while the back door was usually kept locked, she was not sure whether it had been locked on the night of the crime. At no point was she considered a suspect, and investigators understood why she and Bethany had waited several hours before contacting the authorities, believing that they had been terrified by what they had experienced.
In the days that followed, however, the case exploded across social media, and Dylan found herself at the center of numerous false accusations. She became the target of several unfounded theories, with many people wrongly blaming her for not informing the authorities sooner. Dylan maintained her silence throughout the investigation and spoke publicly for the first time in July 2025 during Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing. She described the immense trauma she had endured in the aftermath of the killings, sharing that she was so frightened she had to sleep beside her mother because she feared someone would harm her if she closed her eyes.
Dylan said that Kohberger had taken away her sense of safety, but he would never be able to take away the memories she shared with her friends. Her courage in confronting the killer directly was widely commended. Shortly after the crime, Dylan transferred out of the University of Idaho and has since kept a low public profile. Her extended family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover her relocation, long-term trauma therapy, and other recovery-related expenses.
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