We are learning new details about what one of the surviving roommates in the Idaho murders case heard and saw the night four of her friends – Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin – were brutally stabbed to death by Bryan Kohberger.
Newly released police body cam footage shows officers standing just outside the crime scene with a visibly distraught Dylan Mortenson as she told them what she knew. Her disclosures paint a different picture than what was previously known about her recollection of the night.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by MK True Crime contributors Mark Eiglarsh, Mark Geragos, and Phil Holloway to discuss the chilling footage and the questions it raises.
The Body Cam
In the redacted footage released late last week, an emotional Mortenson is wrapped in a large white blanket as she tells police what she witnessed hours earlier. She said she was getting ready for bed when she heard Goncalves “scream.”
“I heard a scream, and she ran downstairs cause she saw someone. That’s when I’m pretty sure she said, ‘Someone’s here,’ and she just screams and she just ran downstairs,” Mortenson said. “And I called for her name, but I jumped up and locked my door because I was so scared.”
The University of Idaho student also said she heard a man’s “weird” voice. “I heard someone in the bathroom, and I heard her crying and I heard some guy saying, ‘You’re gonna be okay, I’m gonna help you,” she shared. “It wasn’t in a nice way, it was weird.”
As was previously known, Mortenson told authorities she laid eyes on the killer. She said she “opened the door for a second” and saw someone “not insanely tall” but dressed “in all black” with “this mask that just covered his forehead and his mouth.”
“He looked at me, but he didn’t come towards me or say anything, which is like confusing to me,” Mortenson told cops. “I don’t understand that.”
She said she immediately closed her door again because “I didn’t know what to do,” but she eventually made her way to the room of the other surviving housemate, Bethany Funke. Rather than call the police – which they did not do until eight hours after the murders – she said the two locked the door and talked before falling asleep.
“We didn’t think anything of it, nothing happens in Moscow, so we just tried to go to bed,” she said. When they woke up, however, they quickly realized what had transpired. “It was weird because none of our roommates were up,” Mortenson added. “And we called all of them. They were not waking up… So, I called [redacted] to come over, and then… all this happened.”
More Questions Than Answers
Megyn said what “jumped out” at her when listening to Mortenson was “how much more aware she was of the danger than we were led to believe by the police affidavit.” As she explained, previous reports painted the picture that she was frozen in some kind of shock phase after seeing someone in the house, went somewhat catatonic for eight hours, and then called police.
“I don’t blame Dylan Mortensen even one bit for this crime… If she had called 911 five minutes after, it doesn’t seem like they would have been saved. They were so extremely attacked and brutalized,” Megyn noted. “But… I can’t get past the disparity… Why did they try to keep that out of the public eye?”
Holloway said it is not uncommon for police reports to lack certain details. “I’ve never seen one in my entire career that had everything that should have been in there, in there,” he admitted. “And on the other hand, when I put my former police officer hat on, sometimes I don’t want to put things in a written narrative that I know is going to be part of the larger case file because I don’t want to give that to the public.”
In Megyn’s view, details were likely kept out to protect Mortenson’s credibility. “I think they didn’t put it in there because it doesn’t make Dylan look very good,” she said. “They knew that people would say, ‘She heard screaming… She laid eyes on an intruder. She was scared enough to run to the other roommate’s room, and they still didn’t call 911 for eight hours.’ It’s odd. We are allowed to ask questions about how that could happen.”
Geragos agreed with both Megyn and Holloway. “From the police officer perspective, they are not going to put something that is going to undercut somebody who is in her position. And I think from [Megyn’s] standpoint, absolutely it’s odd and that probably supports what Phil said,” he explained. “A savvy police officer knows, ‘Why am I going to highlight this for a defense lawyer to point out the fact that she should have done it?’ And in her defense, who knows what went through her mind and whether she had some other issue the night before.”
Eiglarsh said he believes Mortenson was “well-intentioned” and “did the best she could at her level of awareness at that moment,” and it is impossible to know what she was going through. “There is an explanation there that we don’t have that would help allay everyone’s concerns,” he concluded. “I’m not blaming you for asking the question. I’m just frustrated because the internet and everybody then just criticizes this poor young girl in the worst state.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with the MK Media crew by tuning in to episode 1,137 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.