2 surviving roommates of slain Idaho students speak out for 1st time

The 4 University of Idaho students who were stabbed to death in their sleep on Nov. 13 were remembered at an emotional memorial service on Friday.

The four Idaho college students who were killed in a home about a block away from the University of Idaho campus were remembered at an emotional memorial service on Friday. At the commemoration, the two surviving roommates who were in the home at the time of the fatal attack, but not harmed, broke their silence about the case for the first time.

Dylan Mortenson and Bethany Funke were named for the first time as the two University of Idaho students who survived the quadruple homicide that claimed the lives of their friends on Nov. 13. They were the roommates of Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, who were killed along with Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, who was sleeping over on the night of the killings.

Mortenson and Funke, both women, were asleep on the first floor of the rental home they shared with their roommates in Moscow, Idaho, when a killer or killers entered the residence and stabbed the four students to death. The victims were on the second and third floors and were stabbed multiple times in their sleep, though some had defensive wounds, according to the county coroner.

Moscow police do not consider the surviving roommates suspects in the case. In fact, investigators have identified no suspects at all, nor have they located a murder weapon, which is thought to be a fixed-blade knife, according to the latest update from Moscow police.

As the investigation into the gruesome deaths enters its fourth week without conclusive leads, frustration grows about whether the victims will ever get justice.

Letters written by Funke and Mortensen were read aloud by a youth pastor during Friday’s memorial service, and paint a picture of a lively group of friends who dearly loved each other, as reported by WFIN.

Funke wrote about looking up to Mogen, who was her sorority mentor at Pi Beta Phi, as the big sister she always wanted.

“You always told me that everything happens for a reason, but I’m having a really hard time trying to understand the reason for this,” Funke wrote to Mogen in her letter.