Documents released by the Moscow Police Department on Wednesday shed new light on the brutality of the murders of four University of Idaho college students in 2022 and the extensive investigation that ultimately concluded with the sentencing of a former Ph.D. student from a nearby university, Bryan Kohberger, to life in prison on Wednesday.
The department released hundreds of files after the sentence was handed down.
Here are some key revelations from the documents.
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A Moscow police detective wrote that Xana Kernodle, one of the four victims, had suffered more than 50 stab wounds and that many of them were defensive wounds, meaning that she had tried to protect herself or fend off the attack. Prosecutors said earlier that Mr. Kohberger had encountered Ms. Kernodle, who was awake, as he walked downstairs after killing Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves in a bedroom on the third floor of the house they shared. After killing Ms. Kernodle, he also fatally stabbed her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, who had been sleeping in her bedroom.
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Dylan Mortensen, one of two surviving roommates at the house, told a police officer that she had heard a scream that she believed to be from Ms. Goncalves, according to a police report from November 2022, when the murders took place. She also told the police she had heard the sound of someone running from the third floor down to the second floor. Ms. Mortensen told officers that when she looked outside her room, she saw a man clad in black leaving the house. The other surviving roommate, Bethany Funke, told the police she did not know what to make of what Ms. Mortensen had told her about what she saw, thinking it was possible that a fraternity member was playing a joke on them.
