July 23, 2025: Bryan Kohberger sentenced to life without parole for Idaho student murders

Our live coverage of Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing has ended. Read more about how families of the victims addressed Kohberger.

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Police tape surrounds the victims' house in Moscow, Idaho, on January 3, 2023.

A witness and friend of the victims murdered at the King Road house in 2022 described the horrific moment when he realized that people were dead in the house.

One of the surviving roommates called a friend around noon that day and asked them and another person to come over as “she thought something ‘was not right in her house,’” a document released today said. The names of the roommate, friend and other person were redacted in the document.

The friend who arrived at the house first said he spoke to the roommates on the first floor, and then went up to the second floor and entered Xana Kernodle’s room.

Once the witness realized it was blood, he started “uncontrollably crying,” told everyone to get out of the house and called the police, the document said.

Bethany Funke, one of the surviving Idaho roomates, told police that she tried calling her roommates just after 4 a.m. on the night of the murders in 2022, according to newly released documents.

Funke said she tried to call Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen first. When they did not answer, she called Ethan Chapin, the documents said.

After that, she tried calling her roommates, including Kaylee Goncalves, “several more times.” Funke told police these calls happened within a few minutes of each other, documents show.

She said she went back to bed and recalled that most of the lights were still on inside the house, the document said.

Before that, Funke told police she heard what sounded like a firecracker and called another roommate, Dylan Mortensen, who told her she saw someone wearing black walking around the house, according to the documents.

From previous filings: Records show Funke’s phone activity started again with a phone call to her dad at 7:30 a.m. Both she and Mortensen used their phones that morning, with Funke calling her parents and Mortensen accessing several social media apps.

The two roommates continued using their phones for the next hour, including messages and calls to people only named through initials, until Funke called 911 at 11:56 a.m. to report Kernodle unconscious at the residence, records show. Two other friends could be heard with them on the call.

CNN’s Taylor Romine contributed reporting to this post.

Moscow Police Cpl. Brett Payne, left, and Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson speak to the media following the sentencing of Bryan Kohberger on Wednesday. Payne and Gilbertson conducted Kohberger's first police interview following his arrest.

Newly released Moscow Police Department documents shed light on Bryan Kohberger’s first interview with officers after his arrest.

Moscow Police Department Corp. Brett Payne and Idaho State Police Lt. Darren Gilbertson talked to Kohberger at the Pennsylvania State Police Barracks in Stroudsburg on December 30, 2022, documents show.

When they introduced themselves, Kohberger told Payne that he looked familiar, the report said. He also said he was worried about this parents and his dog when asked about the police operation to arrest him at his family’s house.

For most of the time, Payne and Gilbertson engaged in small talk with Kohberger, the documents said. They his attendance at Washington State University, what it was like to be a teaching assistant and the process to get a PhD.

Kohberger also shared that he became interested in criminal justice, the document said, and talked about driving across the country with his dad.

But, the interview quickly shut down when Payne and Gilbertson started asking Kohberger about the Idaho murders, the report said. When asked if he knew what happened, Kohberger told the investigators that “he was aware of a homicide” — but only because he received an alert on his phone from WSU.

Asked if Kohberger wanted to talk about the murders, the defendant replied, “‘Well, I think I would need a lawyer,” according to the document. When pressed further, Kohberger again reiterated that he wanted to talk to an attorney, the officer wrote.

In new documents released this evening following the sentencing of Bryan Kohberger – who pled guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022 – surviving roommate Bethany Funke had detailed to investigators the timeline of her friends’ final day.

In the interview with Moscow police three days after the killings, Funke described the sequence of events involving herself, fellow surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen, and victims Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin in the day leading up to their murders.

The four were killed in the early hours of November 13, 2022. The day before, according to Funke, the housemates enjoyed a normal day of eating at Taco Bell, taking naps and going to parties.

A student at Washington State University said that while watching a “Dateline” special on the Bryan Kohberger murder case, she saw several photos of her and her friends on his phone.

Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology.

According to investigation documents released by the Moscow Police Department, the woman said she was in a class during the fall of 2022 where Kohberger was a teacher’s assistant. She said that she had never spoken to Kohberger, but that he did sit near her when he did attend class, which she noted was rarely.

The student said she thinks the photos she saw in the TV special were taken from her Instagram account, which was public in 2022.

Documents detailing the Moscow Police Department’s investigation into the four murders committed in 2022 by Bryan Kohberger describe an interview conducted with a former friend who described the convicted killer as “intelligent but also selfish.”

Moscow Police Cpl. Brett Payne met a student of the Washington State University. His name was redacted and he was referred to as “L,” which is his first initial, according to the document information dated October 10, 2023.

This student was a former teaching assistant for the criminology program with Kohberger, and they shared an office during the Fall 2022 semester. “L” considered Kohberger a friend, according to the report.

The document shows Payne was accompanied by an FBI agent as well as an FBI interpreter who was present via phone because “L” is not from the US, and his country of origin was redacted.

Here are details from the document:

“L” described Kohberger as very intelligent but also selfish, saying Kohberger would often mislead him when it came to their shared work and would have “L” complete work meant for Kohberger.

Kohberger attempted to use his authority as a teaching assistant to inappropriately interact with female students, “L” said, and added that he thought Kohberger wanted a girlfriend, since they spoke about that on many occasions. “L” said Kohberger asked him to help fight allegations that threatened his teaching assistant position with a Dr. “S.”

After the homicides, “L” said Kohberger began to talk much more than usual and characterized those conversations as coming from someone who wanted to vent.

“L” also told the police he thought he noticed injuries on Kohberger’s face and hands on two occasions in October and November 2022: One was a large scratch on Kohberger’s face which “L” described as looking like scratches from fingernails. Another injury he thought he saw was Kohberger’s wounded knuckles on two separate occasions. He said he asked Kohberger about it who told him he had been in a car accident.

When asked what the two liked to talk about, “L” said they liked to discuss his area of study, which was criminal decision-making and crimes like burglary.

Bryan Kohberger appears for his sentencing hearing at the Ada County Courthouse, in Boise, Idaho, on Wednesday.

While in the Latah County Jail in Moscow, Idaho, after his 2022 arrest, Bryan Kohberger took long showers and barely slept, according to an inmate housed next to him.

Investigation documents released by the Moscow Police Department this evening revealed Kohberger would wash his hands “dozens of times a day” and would spend up to an hour in the showers while in jail.

The admitted killer also would spend almost all of his nights awake, only taking a nap during the day, the unnamed inmate housed beside him said, according to the documents. Kohberger also would move around throughout the night, which would annoy his neighboring inmate.

Kohberger also spoke with his mother for hours every day via video call while in jail, the documents released.

Moscow Police monitor the residence where four University of Idaho students were killed in Moscow, Idaho, on November 30, 2022.

In 2022, Moscow police officers who responded to the King Road house on the morning of the murders described a disturbing scene, with one officer saying “it was obvious an intense struggle had occurred,” documents released today show.

One officer said “Kaylee (Goncalves) was unrecognizable as her facial structure was extremely damaged.” Another officer said they were “unable to comprehend exactly what I was looking at while trying to discern the nature of the injuries.”

At least two officers who were on scene reported the back patio door being open upon their arrival and seeing footprints in the snow outside the door. One officer reported a black backpack found in the backyard.