(NewsNation) — Court documents in the murder trial against Bryan Kohberger reveal that one of the two surviving roommates of the University of Idaho murders in 2022 waited hours to call 911 because she thought her slain roommate was asleep.
The roommate, referenced as “D.M.” in the court documents, did not alert police to the gruesome scene because she believed her roommate was intoxicated when she saw her lying on the floor of her bedroom, according to court documents filed this week.
The documents state that at “approximately 4:00 a.m., D.M. heard strange noises and crying coming from the bathroom. She opened her door at one point and saw a man dressed in black with ski mask on walking by her bedroom door. She then placed calls and texts to her other roommates to see if they were awake.”
She reached out to the other surviving roommate, listed in the documents as “B.F.”, who was the only one to answer. They exchanged multiple texts about being “freaked out” and questioning who the man in the ski mask was.
D.M. attempted to reach her two roommates without a response and decided to go to B.F. As she made her way, “she noticed Xana lying on the floor of her bedroom, with her head towards the wall and her feet toward to the door. D.M. thought (Xana Kernodle) was drunk,” the documents state.
Texts, 911 calls reveal what happened after the University of Idaho killings
The two surviving roommates stayed in the room and attempted to reach their other roommates again unsuccessfully. D.M. texted Kaylee Gonclaves, “Pls answer.”
In the early morning hours, D.M. attempted to contact Gonclaves and Madison Mogen without response, which the decision read she thought was “strange because they were ‘early wakers’.” She then asked her friend and her friend’s boyfriend to come over because she was afraid.
The boyfriend told the women to get out of the house and call 911, the documents say.
B.F. called 911, and spoke with a dispatcher for nearly five minutes. She said one roommate was passed out drunk and not waking up, and that they saw a man in their house the night before.
Unbeknownst to the surviving roommates at the time, Ethan Chapin, Goncalves, Kernodle, and Mogen were murdered.
Kohberger faces 4 murder charges connected to their deaths.
Autism won’t spare Kohberger the death penalty, judge rules
Additional court documents released this week detail a judge’s decision denying Kohberger’s defense team’s motion to take the death penalty off the table due to his autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.
The defense argued that due to the media attention surrounding this case, his diagnosis may make it harder for him to prove his innocence with the death penalty on the table. The judge argued that the concern could be addressed in jury selection.
“Intellectual impairment — a hallmark of an intellectual disability — is not present in the diagnostic criteria of ASD and no court has ever found the two to be equivalent,” the judge wrote. “Defendant (Kohberger) has not presented any evidence of a national consensus as to whether the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for individuals with ASD.”
“No court has ever found ASD to be categorically death-disqualifying diagnosis,” the judge additionally wrote.
Earlier this month, the judge ruled that one of the surviving roommates can testify about the intruder having “bushy eyebrows.”