It wasn't Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates of the four murdered University of Idaho students, but one of the friends of the best friend of Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle who found them dead in their bed and called 911 and informed about the horrific killings, according to a report.
According to information reported by NewsNation on Wednesday, Ethan Chapin was found dead in bed with his girlfriend Xana Kernodle by a longtime friend who even went so far as to check his pulse before dialing 911. It was earlier reported that Mortensen had called 911 eight hours after the murders took place.
Unnamed Friend Called Police
The unnamed friend had gone over to the Moscow, Idaho, home on the morning of November 13, after Chapin and Kernodle, both 20, Maddie Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 20, had been murdered while sleeping by alleged killer Bryan Kohberger.
Sources told News Nation around 11.58 am, Chapin's best friend found him and Kernodle dead and took their pulses before shouting for roommate Dylan Mortensen, 21, and other people to dial 911.
NewsNation withheld the name of Chapin's best friend but said he was the one who used Mortensen's phone to make the call.
Soon after the killings, Mortensen came face to face with alleged quadruple murderer Kohberger, 28, raising questions on why she didn't dial 911 sooner.
"Mortensen described the figure as 5′ 10″ or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past [her] as she stood in a 'frozen shock phase," a police affidavit read.
"The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. Mortensen locked herself in her room after seeing the male."
It was earlier reported that Mortensen, who along with Bethany Funke survived the attack, called the police to alert them but more than eight hours after the murders took place.
"She was scared. She was scared to death, and rightly so," Shanon Gray, a lawyer for victim Kaylee Goncalves' family, told Fox News. "This guy had just murdered four people in the home."
Case Far from Over
Kohberger, a Ph.D. student at the nearby Washington State University Pullman, was arrested in December after a multi-state manhunt and charged with the quadruple murder. He has said he will plead not guilty when he is arraigned later this year.
According to reports, Mortensen mistakenly thought the sounds of four of her housemates being brutally killed came from partying college students in her home.
She reportedly shouted at her friends and roommates to be quiet during the early morning hours on November 13. "Calm down, you're being loud!' she reportedly yelled around 4am, in addition to: 'I'm trying to sleep!"
According to a New York Post report, the college student then shut and locked her door. The next time Mortensen opened her door that night after hearing some loud noises, she spotted the alleged murderer Kohberger but mistook him for a partygoer.
The alleged claims address concerns raised by Chapin's sister-in-law about Mortensen, who was on the property with Bethany Funke when the suspect left the house, not calling the police.
Mortensen contacted the housemates after she overheard "screaming and crying" coming from their rooms, his sister-in-law later stated.
Posting in a thread on Reddit, the sister-in-law said: "D supposedly called all the girls in the house after the crying and screaming stopped and no one answered – and she still didn't call the police.
"She needs to explain herself and her actions that night."
When questioned about who called police, she added: "911 caller was the friend who went in because D called him to come over because she was scared from what she heard in the night. He went to Xana and Ethan's room first, then called 911. Why D or B didn't call the police once is the question."
Authorities have also been told by the surviving roommate that just after 4 am on the night of the murders, Mortensen saw a "figure clad in black clothing and a mask" walking past her toward the home's back exit.
An Idaho law enforcement source told The New York Post that detectives were uncertain as to whether Mortensen and his remaining roommate Bethany Funke's failure to inform authorities was "an issue of intoxication, or of fear." Both were never regarded as potential suspects in the investigation.
