The chilling 911 recording from the night four University of Idaho students were butchered in their off-campus home was made public this week — revealing the chaotic and terrifying aftermath of the quadruple homicide.
“Hi…Something happened here, something happened in our house and we don’t know what,” a frantic young woman tells the 911 dispatcher in the audio obtained by KXLY Spokane.
The caller then explains, between sobs, that one of her housemates was “passed out” and “she’s not waking up”.
“Oh, and I saw some man in their house last night,” she continues.
The phone is passed between three people — likely the two surviving housemates and another man — and callers are heard weeping, stammering, and forcing the dispatcher to repeatedly ask for their address and other key details.
“I need to know right now if someone is passed out! Can you find that out?” the dispatcher insists at one point.
“What’s wrong? She’s not waking up!” a young woman answers after going to check.
A police officer arrives shortly after and the call concludes. The horrifying four-minute recording has helped prosecutors build a case against Bryan Kohberger, a PhD criminology student from the nearby Washington State University who’s accused of carrying out the massacre.
Kohberger is accused of slaughtering Xana Kernodle, 20 Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Ethan Chapin, 20, in the pre-dawn hours, leaving only their two housemates alive. The mention of a “man in the house” backs up later testimony by one of the survivors that she saw a man in a black mask and “bushy eyebrows” leaving through the back door after hearing the sounds of a struggle.
The court had previously kept the 911 recording from the public, and the defense actually moved to keep it out of the courtroom entirely, dismissing it as “hearsay.”
The recording isn’t the only piece of evidence Kohberger’s attorneys want kept away from the jury.
In a blitz of suppression motions filed last month, defenders asked the court to disqualify — for various technical reasons — security camera recordings that show a car similar to Kohberger’s near the crime scene, DNA samples on a knife sheath left at the scene, and more DNA found under a victim’s fingernails.
The defense also asked the judge to ban the use of words including “murder,” “murder weapon,” “psychopath,” and “bushy eyebrows,” claiming they would prejudice the jury.
