The former roommate of University of Idaho murder victims talks about the last message she sent to her friends and how she’s honoring their legacy.
Ashlin Couch lived with Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen in their off-campus home on Kings Road in Moscow until May 2022, when Xana Kernodle took over her lease.
Goncalves, 21, Mogen, 21, Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in that home in November 2022.
Couch recalled the heartbreaking moment when he received an alert that there had been a homicide near his former residence and texted his friends to see if they were okay.
‘I texted her like our group of friends and just said, ‘Has anyone heard from Maddie?’ And I remember my last text was like, ‘Are you okay?’ Couch told him. KXLY.
Ashlin Couch (left), former roommate of Madison Mogen (center) and Kaylee Goncalves (right), revealed the last message she sent to her friends.
Couch lived in the off-campus house on Kings Road in Moscow until May 2022, when Xana Kernodle took over his lease.
Couch recalled the heartbreaking moment when he received an alert that there had been a homicide near his former residence and texted his friends to see if they were okay.
“It felt like at that very moment I knew something was wrong.”
‘It crosses my mind more that that could have happened while I was there. And, you know, you never know how long someone will be watching your house,” she said.
Couch and her mother Angela Navejas founded the Made With Kindness Foundation to honor her friends and created a scholarship in her name.
“I just wish I could do it at least one more time, you know, just give him one last hug so I could say goodbye,” Couch said.
“I couldn’t even walk to my car in the dark for months after it happened. You just want to feel at least a little safer. And if we can help college students do that and just raise more awareness about it and help them feel a little bit safer knowing that something like this had happened, I think that would be helpful in some way.”
Bryan Kohberger is accused of committing the heinous crime that shocked the nation, but a trial has yet to be scheduled nearly two years later.
Although he was initially scheduled to be tried in spring 2024, repeated delays caused a judge in February to push back the trial date until at least spring 2025.
When Kohberger was arrested in December 2023, more than a month after the murders, police said a key piece of evidence was a white Hyundai seen on surveillance footage driving to and from the scene of the murders that matched Kohberger’s car. .
However, Kohberger’s alibi presentation states that cell phone expert Sy Ray will offer testimony showing that his cell phone did not travel to the house and “therefore, could not be the vehicle captured on video.”
Along with surveillance footage, another key piece of evidence presented by prosecutors is Kohberger’s DNA allegedly found on a knife sheath left during the massacre.
Bryan Kohberger (pictured) is accused of committing the heinous crime that shocked the nation, but a trial has yet to be scheduled nearly two years later.
The scenes inside the house were so gruesome that blood dripped down the outside of the property’s wall, in what investigators described as the worst crime scene they had ever seen.
On the night of the murders, the four victims and their friends were enjoying a typical night out at local college bars, and Mogen and Gonçalves were last seen purchasing pasta carbonara from a takeout truck shortly before returning home. around 2 in the morning.
Chapin and Kernodle had spent the night at their Sigma Chi fraternity house and arrived home at about the same time.
After the white Hyundai was initially seen loitering around the house later that night, it was seen again on surveillance footage just over an hour after the friends arrived home.
At that time, Kernodle appears to have still been awake as she had just received an order from DoorDash.
Investigators also determined that she had been playing TikTok around the same time the white Hyundai was seen performing a three-point turn in the street, at 4:04 a.m.
Kohberger’s phone was turned off in Pullman at 2:47 a.m., where he lived about 10 miles from the murder house in Moscow, and was turned on again at 4:48 a.m. south of Moscow, en route back to Pullman.
The victim’s surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, later told police that she was also awake at the time and even heard what were likely the sounds of the murders occurring in the room upstairs.
Mortensen told investigators he believed the sounds were Gonçalves playing with his dog, and even called his friends to calm down, thinking they were simply partying.
‘Calm down, you’re making noise!’ she allegedly screamed around 4am, in addition to: ‘I’m trying to sleep!’
After hearing questionable sounds hitting the house in the dead of night, Mortensen said a male voice upstairs said something like, “Okay, I’m going to help you.”
Surveillance cameras later captured what was considered a sob, a loud bang and the barking of a dog, at 4:17 in the morning.
(LR) Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were stabbed to death on November 13, 2022
Couch and his mother Angela Navejas founded the Made With Kindness Foundation to honor their friends and created a scholarship in the names of Gonçalves (right) and Mogen (left).
Boyfriend and girlfriend Ethan Chapin (left) and Xana Kernodle (right) were murdered together in bed in the gruesome November 2022 murders.
In a move that has raised numerous questions since the murders, Mortensen says she opened her bedroom door to investigate the sounds and was stunned to find herself face to face with an intruder, dressed all in black and wearing a mask.
She claims the killer walked past her and out a sliding glass door at the back of the house, leaving her frozen in fear.
No one called 911 for more than seven hours.
At 4:20 a.m., the white Hyundai Elantra was again seen on surveillance footage driving through the neighborhood, and the car later became a key piece of evidence that prosecutors say places Kohberger in the area in that moment.
This led to Kohberger’s initial alibi, claiming to have been “driving alone” at the time the murders occurred.
In December, Idaho officials came under fire again after the off-campus house where the four students were stabbed to death was torn down, against the wishes of the victim’s families.
Although both the prosecution and defense agreed that it should be torn down, the families argued against it, and Gonçalves’ loved ones feared that the move would “destroy one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case.”
Before it was torn down, the scenes inside the house were so gruesome that exclusive images from DailyMail.com showed blood seeping through the outside of the house.
