Idaho Student Murders: How to Make Sense of the “Unconscious Person” Call

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If it happened in a novel, people reading it would say it didn't make sense. But what happened in real life during the early morning hours of November 13, 2022 wasn’t  meant to make sense.

 Everyone with a heartbeat knows the score by now:  Four University of Idaho students were murdered in a rented house during the wee hours of November 13.  

The murder victims are: Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and freshman Ethan Chapin, aged 20. Also living in the house where the four were murdered were  Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke,   two female students who were not attacked. 

There are as yet no suspects, as the investigations moves into a third week. The Moscow community of about 26,000 people lives in terror of a prowling psycho-maniac. Authorities speaking to media have walked back statements describing the horror as a “targeted attack, and then reiterated the characterization.” 

 An additional irony is that authorities have said  that the building, not the occupants, may been the target of the attacks, a speculation that makes little sense. Targeted buildings are typically attacked by arsonists.

The murder scene was horrific, described as a “mess,” all four victims being stabbed to death with a K-Bar style military knife. Such a bloody mess was the murder scene that the police forensics teams assigned to the case will take weeks to process blood and other evidence found at the scene. Some of it is just now coming in.

Astonishing to many people is the fact that two other female students were at home at the time of the vicious attacks.    Police say Dylan and Bethany came back to their apartment roughly an hour earlier than the four murder victims. 

Police won’t say specifically where each of the four victims were found but did say the murders took place on the second and third floors of the three-story building.  It is believed, yet unconfirmed, that Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were found dead on the second or middle floor where the kitchen and common living room were located. A sliding door to the second floor kitchen was open when police arrived.

Also unconfirmed is that Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, close friends since elementary school, were found slain on the top floor. During a memorial service, the father of one of the girls let slip that the two victims lay dead in the same bed.

 People were puzzled by the language used by authorities when the crimes were first reported.  A police spokesman said it was approximately 11:58 a.m. November 13^th when they received a call regarding an “unconscious person” at the house where the four victims were stabbed to death.  

Public reaction to this statement was and still is one of  incredulity. A person phoning in to police describing   an abattoir as an “unconscious person” seems outrageous without details. In the statement, there is a level of cognitive-dissonance  on the order of describing Attila the Hun as a mean guy.  

But there is an alternative explanation circulating on social media, not  confirmed by authorities, that makes perfect sense.  It requires some imagination. The two survivor girls on the bottom floor wake up in the morning, go upstairs to the second floor, where they discover an unimaginable horror.

They are panicked,  so distraught they   can only think to run screaming out of the house to the street.  One of the girls, Bethany or Dylan, tries to call police   but is so unnerved she can   cannot put words together.   She faints, drops her cell phone. 

Another person  comes to her aid, picks up the cell phone, and tells the police dispatcher   there is an “unconscious person” lying on the ground in front of the apartment. The “unconscious person” referred to by police is not one of the slaughtered victims. It is one of the young surviving women on the bottom floor. This version of the “unconscious person” phone call makes sense where nothing else would.    

Police respond to the report of the "unconsciouis person." They find the four murder victims. 

Also puzzling is how four students could be stabbed to death in their bed on two floors above without the bottom floor occupants hearing it. CourtTV interviewed a detective and investigator of many crime scenes who said that it was not an uncommon occurrence.    

Aside from academics, college culture involves socialization, relationships, parties, passion, music, and angst.  Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke believed the sounds coming from the upper floors were the sounds of partying. Or perhaps it was just as authorities suggested; the two surviving women were asleep.

 In any case, police have taken pains to make clear that Dylan and Bethany had nothing to do with the evil on the floors above them.  Same for the person who drove Maddie and Kaylee home.  Also for the boy who spoke to them by the food truck.    Police have also been careful to say that the six phone calls made to Kaylee’s on and off boyfriend, Jack (DuCoeur, according to a New York Times article)   were a separate private matter unrelated to the investigation.

With those avenues ruled out, the case is wide open to speculation. There is good reason for wild theories. Police are holding facts close and being extra careful of information released.  Touching off the investigation was indeed a phone call about an “unconscious person” at the address.

Note: Police are rightly holding information close to the vest so as not to despoil a criminal prosecution. I don’t want to make their jobs more difficult, nor do I want to create more suffering, more anguish for the victims’ parents, relatives, friends.  I’m trying to be constructive, rather than destructive, I’m motivated by anger that such horror could be inflicted on young lives just as I would feel if the victim was my own daughter.. I’m not in Idaho. Most of what I’ve written has been put into public discourse from sources I deem reliable.   I want the case to be solved. I believe it will be solved.