“People are concerned about [the delay in calling for help], but it isn’t a concern from a forensic point of view. Nothing was interfered with by that delay,” Baden stated.
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According to a source in Idaho’s law enforcement, authorities are still “puzzled” about why a surviving roommate in the University of Idaho triple murder waited eight hours after the killing to dial 911.
Just after 4 a.m. on November 13, Dylan Mortensen, 21, opened her bedroom door to witness an unidentified “person clad in black attire and a mask” strolling by her, towards the house’s back exit.
But until noon, neither she nor her 21-year-old roommate Bethany Funke, who was spared, called the police.
We have been perplexed by the 8-hour gap and are unsure if it was caused by fear or alcohol, the lawman stated.
Dylan Mortensen, left, and Bethany Funke, right, with their slain friends just hours before the crime.
According to a recently released police affidavit, Mortensen believed she heard Kaylee Goncalves say, “There’s someone here,” followed by the sound of crying coming from Xana Kernodle’s room and a male voice saying, “It’s ok, I’m going to help you,” just before the four victims were fatally stabbed on the two upper floors of the Moscow home.
According to early police accounts, the residents of the bottom floor of the house, Funke and Mortensen, rallied friends to the site before one of them ultimately dialled 911 at 11:58 a.m. The two were swiftly eliminated as suspects and, according to police, have assisted with the inquiry.
Police on the case are “very, really certain about it not being an issue of [Mortensen] being involved,” the source claimed, despite the puzzling delay.
“We look at these things through the lens of rational adults — and when we do that, sometimes things don’t make sense to us — but she’s a 20-year-old girl and we don’t know what she was doing, or if she was scared,” he continued.
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Law enforcement is also currently having little luck in their efforts to connect the six students with the alleged killer, 28-year-old Bryan Kohberger, who was a PhD student studying criminology and resided a 15-minute drive away in Pullman, Washington.
On December 30, Kohberger was detained at his parents’ Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, residence. In Kohberger’s Hyundai Elantra, which had been seen the night of the killings close to the crime scene, he and his father had travelled cross-country.
According to one analyst, the 8-hour delay probably had little impact on the number of lives lost.
“The four were dead when the guy left, and they weren’t crying for help, they weren’t moving or trying to get out,” said Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York City, adding, “They weren’t in a condition where an ambulance could save their life, on the basis of what we know now.”
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