Bryan Kohberger declined to speak at the sentencing hearing.
Families of the University of Idaho murder victims directly addressed the admitted killer, Bryan Kohberger, at his sentencing on Wednesday.
One of the surviving roommates also gave an emotional statement, speaking out for the first time.
Judge Steven Hippler acknowledged Kohberger's motive may never be known as he sentenced him to four consecutive life sentences on the four first-degree murder counts and the maximum penalty of 10 years on the burglary count.
The students -- roommates Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Kernodle's boyfriend, Ethan Chapin -- were stabbed to death at the girls' off-campus house on Nov. 13, 2022. On July 2, weeks before the trial was set to start, Kohberger pleaded guilty to all counts. As a part of the plea deal, the death penalty was taken off the table.
Surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen addressed Bryan Kohberger in court, calling him a "hollow vessel, something less than human -- a body without empathy, without remorse."
"He tried to take everything from me: my friends, my safety, my identity, my future," she said. "He took their lives, but I will continue trying to be like them, to make them proud. Living is how I honor them."
Surviving roommate Dylan Mortensen spoke in court through tears, saying, “He didn’t just take their lives, he took the light they carried into every room.”
“He took away my ability to trust the world around me” and “shattered me in places I didn’t know could break,” she said.
“I was barely 19 when he did this. We had just celebrated my birthday at the end of September. I should’ve been figuring out who I was. I should’ve been figuring out the college experience … instead I was forced to learn how to survive the unimaginable. I couldn’t be left alone. I had to sleep in my mom’s room because I was too terrified to close my eyes,” she said.
Mortensen recalled intense panic attacks and flinching at sudden sounds. “Sometimes I drop to the floor with my heart racing convinced something is very wrong. … It’s my body reliving everything over and over again,” she said.
Through a statement read in court by friend Emily Alandt, one of the surviving roommates, Bethany Funke, said she's still scared to go out in public but forces herself to do so because she knows her friends would want her to live her life to the fullest.
Funke recounted her memories of her friends at their off-campus home.
"Our house was not just a house, it was a home,” Funke said.
She said Xana Kerndole was the life of the party and “kindest and funniest person,” and that Ethan Chapin and Kerndole “were absolute soulmates."
Kaylee Goncalves “had the most beautiful, radiant smile” and could have ruled the world, she said.
Maddie Mogen, Funke’s big sister in their sorority, was the “older sister I would’ve always wanted. There was no one I looked up to or admired more than Maddie.”
“I wish more than anything I could hug them one last time,” she said.
“I still tell them every night I will keep living for them,” she said.
Friend Emily Alandt read a statement on behalf of Bethany Funke, one of the surviving roommates, describing how she woke up to her "worst nightmare."
"Never in a million years would I have thought that something like this would have happened to our closest friends,” Alandt read in court.
Funke said she didn’t know what happened that morning and carries regret and guilt over not calling 911 right away.
"I was so frantic that morning and scared to death not knowing what had happened. And when I made the 911 call I couldn’t even get out the words," she said.
"That was the worst day of my life and I know it always will be," Alandt read through tears.
Funke said she thinks every day why she got to live and her friends did not, and said she felt "sick with guilt" when she looked at her friends' families.
She said the crime has left her terrified. She said she slept in her parents' room for nearly a year and made them double lock each door. She said she has never slept through the night and constantly wakes up in panic, worried that someone is breaking in, trying to hurt her or someone she loves.
