Bryan Kohberger faces victims’ families in sentencing hearing

In her emotional victim impact statement, Mortensen states that she is living her life for her friends after the night of the murders changed her life.

“What happened that night changed everything,” she said.

She says she had a dream a year ago in which she had to say goodbye to them.

“They all kept asking, ‘Why?’ I told them, ‘I can’t tell you, but I have to.'”

“When I woke up, I felt shattered and heartbroken,” she says.

On Kohberger, she says: “He tried to take everything from me. My friends. My safety. My identity. My future.”

“Living is how I honor them,” she adds. “He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice.”

Dylan Mortensen, the second surviving roommate, sat beside prosecutors while she tearfully recounted her difficulties navigating the aftermath of the murders. This is the first time Mortensen has spoken since the murders.

“Sometimes, I drop to the floor with my heart racing,” she said.

“He is a hollow vessel, something less than human,” she said of Kohberger. “He chose evil.”

“He may have taken so much from me, but he will never get to take my voice,” she said.

A friend of surviving housemate Bethany Funke shared a victim impact statement on her behalf.

In the statement, Funke said that she still speaks to the four victims in her prayers every night, and she will continue to live in their memory.

“I hated and still hate that they are gone, but for some reason, I am still here, and I got to live. I still think about this every day. Why me? Why did I get to live and not them? For the longest time, I could not even look at their families without feeling sick with guilt,” Funke wrote in the statement read in court.

Funke wrote of each of her friends.

“Who they were was so beautiful, and they deserve to be remembered in the highest way,” Funke writes.

Victims’ relatives and University of Idaho students cried as a friend of Bethany Funke tearfully read a victim impact statement on behalf of Funke.

Kohberger sat expressionless and listened intently.

Bryan Kohberger appeared in court flanked by defense attorneys and wearing an orange jail uniform.

Prior to pleading guilty earlier this month, Kohberger wore civilian clothes to court proceedings.

Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson said he won’t be presenting new evidence today, as the state had previously presented its evidence at his plea hearing.

The sentencing hearing started at 9:06 a.m. local time.

His mother is quietly crying in the courtroom.

In attendance are some of the victims’ families, including those of Mogen and Goncalves.

Kohberger, who has been held without bond in the Ada County Jail in Boise, is expected to spend his prison sentence 11 miles away at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.

The prison opened in 1989 to “confine Idaho’s most disruptive male residents,” according to the Idaho Department of Corrections. Officials say it houses as many as 549 inmates who are mostly “close custody” and segregated from others. Its security includes a double perimeter fence reinforced with razor wire and an electronic detection system.

Correction officials will first evaluate Kohberger’s mental and physical health, David Leroy, Idaho’s former attorney general, told NBC affiliate KTVB. They will also examine his criminal behavior and actions to help determine his housing arrangements, the activities he can participate in and the extent of contact with other inmates, Leroy added.

“I would expect him to be in solitary confinement for the rest of his life,” he said.

The prison is also home to the state’s death row, although Kohberger, under his plea agreement, will not be among them.

Ahead of the sentencing hearing, prosecutors filed a motion asking Hippler to extend an order that bars Kohberger from trying to communicate with the victims’ families.

“This Motion is based on the fact that Defendant has now entered guilty pleas to all offenses charged in the Indictment and will be sentenced on July 23, 2025,” Thompson wrote. “The current No Contact Orders expire on January 5, 2027, and the State respectfully requests that they be extended for an additional ninety-nine (99) years.”

It’s unclear if Hippler would rule on the motion today.

Xana Kernodle’s father, Jeff, and sister Jazzmin, along with aunt Kim Kernodle and her husband, Stratton, just entered the courthouse.

Ethan Chapin, 20, had a lighthearted, sometimes goofy presence his loved ones still feel today.

The 6-foot-4 freshman rarely took things too seriously, they said, making their loss staggering and the family’s recovery a daily battle against the weight of darkness.

“The days do get better,” Stacy Chapin, speaking alongside her husband, Jim, told NBC News in an exclusive interview earlier this month.

Kohberger’s plea has so far come without an explanation or a disclosure of a motive, but nearly three years after the murders, the Chapins say they don’t need an explanation anymore.

The Chapins added that they do not plan to attend the sentencing today or address the court. Jim Chaplin said that he would rather spend the day with his children.

Read the full story here.

The public began lining up around 4 p.m. local time yesterday to try and get a seat inside the Ada County Courthouse for the highly anticipated hearing. Overnight, security had them set up their chairs and wait across the street because they weren’t allowed to be on the courthouse property.

But by almost 5 a.m. today, at least 30 people were waiting to get inside — mostly media and online content creators. News crews began setting up outside the barricades along the sidewalk.

The courthouse opens at 7:30 a.m., and the courtroom itself seats about 50 people. Court officials plan to open an overflow room, where the proceedings will be livestreamed.

President Donald Trump weighed in on the case against Kohberger on his social media platform Truth Social this week, writing that the “deaths of four wonderful young souls” have left “so many questions unanswered.”

“While Life Imprisonment is tough, it’s certainly better than receiving the Death Penalty but, before Sentencing, I hope the Judge makes Kohberger, at a minimum, explain why he did these horrible murders,” Trump wrote. “There are no explanations, there is no NOTHING. People were shocked that he was able to plea bargain, but the Judge should make him explain what happened. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Goncalves’ family, which has been vocal about its opposition to the plea agreement, wrote on Facebook in response to Trump’s post that while it doesn’t want to “get into politics,” it was “absolutely shocked” about his message.

“Kaylee, Maddie, Xana, Ethan — you have always mattered so much,” the family said. “You are so loved & your nature, your light, your entire being is so bright & visible. You guys did this. You guys deserve every last ounce of recognition for this.”

At the plea change hearing this month, Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson recited the evidence the state has against Kohberger — including cellphone, DNA and surveillance video — to help lay out its case.

“On Nov. 13, 2022, excuse me,” an emotional Thompson began as he composed himself. 

Thompson said Kohberger’s phone connected to the tower near the home at 1122 King Road about 23 times leading up to the killings.

He described how the state believes Kohberger went to the home in the early morning of the murders and entered through a sliding door in the kitchen. He believes Mogen and Goncalves were killed first on the third floor, where a Ka-bar knife sheath was left.

He said, “That sheath was tested, and single-source DNA was found on the snap of the sheath.”

Kohberger then came upon Kernodle, who was still up after receiving a Door Dash order, and killed her, Thompson said, and then found Chapin, asleep in bed, and killed him. Two other housemates were home, and one of them saw Kohberger, who was in a ski mask, before he left, leaving them physically unharmed.

Thompson said the defendant’s car was “seen on a surveillance camera for 1122 King Road leaving the area at a high rate of speed.”

The other evidence against Kohberger included online purchases similar to the type of knife and sheath in the case, and a Q-tip taken from the garbage of Kohberger’s parents’ house that was used to match what was recovered on the sheath, Thompson said.

The hearing at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, is slated to begin at 9 a.m. local time and is expected to last throughout the day.

Kohberger, his defense lawyers, prosecutors with Latah County, family members and the state attorney general’s office are expected to attend. District Court Judge Steven Hippler, who has been handling the case since it was transferred from Latah County to Ada County, will preside over the sentencing.

The victims’ families and others involved in the case will be able to provide statements at today’s sentencing. Goncalves’ mother previously told “TODAY” that she plans to address the court.

Kohberger also will be granted the opportunity to address the court directly before he is sentenced. It is unclear whether he will say anything, however.