Survivor Raises $50,000 for Healing Journey After Idaho Murders

A Survivor’s Journey to Healing

A survivor of the Idaho murders has raised over $50,000 to help her rebuild her life nearly three years after her friends were killed in the same home where she lived. Dylan Mortensen's aunts, Kate and Ellie, created a GoFundMe page to support their niece as she begins her healing journey following the traumatic event.

The aunts shared that it has been two and a half years of Dylan silently and bravely moving forward, cooperating with law enforcement, processing the events, and trying to heal from the unimaginable loss. They emphasized that Dylan has had to learn how to live in a new reality—one marked by a lack of peace, security, and safety, as well as the absence of her closest friends.

The funds donated by Mortensen’s supporters are intended to cover her relocation, intensive long-term trauma therapy, and additional security and privacy measures. These steps are crucial for her recovery and future stability.

Mortensen was just 19 when her friends and roommates—Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, and Xana Kernodle—were senselessly killed by Bryan Kohberger inside a home in Moscow. The tragedy occurred on November 13, 2022, when Kohberger entered the house and murdered the four young women.

Last week, Kohberger was sentenced to life in prison, and families, including Mortensen, spoke out about the impact of his actions. Mortensen described the kind of person he is and the fear she has felt since discovering that he had sneaked into their home and killed her best friends in November 2022.

During her victim impact statement, Mortensen struggled to compose herself, taking several moments to gather her thoughts before speaking. She sat down during the emotional process, reading her statement while Kohberger sat just feet away from her. Through deep sobs and broken breaths, she described Kohberger as subhuman.

“He is a hollow vessel. Something less than human, a body without empathy, without remorse. He feels nothing,” she said, addressing the courtroom. “He chose destruction. He chose evil. He tried to take everything from me, my friends, my safety, their lives. He will stay here, empty, forgotten and powerless.”

After finishing her statement, people in the packed courtroom were seen wiping tears from their eyes. Meanwhile, Kohberger remained emotionless, keeping his eyes forward throughout the entire process.

Like Kernodle and Mogen, Mortensen was a member of Pi Beta Phi, and her “Big” was Kernodle’s best friend, Emily Alandt. According to friends and court documents, she was a self-described “scaredy cat” who often called Alandt over to the home because she heard noises that frightened her.

On the night of the murder, at around 4 a.m., Mortensen was woken by strange noises inside the home. When she looked through her bedroom door on the second story, she saw Kohberger walking past her toward the back door. He was dressed in all black, wearing a mask and with bushy eyebrows. She had no idea that this intruder had just murdered her four friends.

In her intense statement last week, Mortensen added: “What happened that night changed everything, because of him, four beautiful, genuine, compassionate people were taken from this world for no reason. He took away who they were becoming, and their futures they were going to have. He took away all of the memories we were supposed to make. He didn’t just take them from the world, he took them from me. My friends, my people who felt like my home. The people I looked up to and adored more than anyone. What he did shattered me in places I didn’t know could break. I was barely 19 when he did this. I should have been figuring out who I was, instead I was supposed to learn to survive the unimaginable.”

When asked by the judge if he wanted to make a statement at his hearing, Kohberger, a 30-year-old PhD candidate, awkwardly leaned into the microphone and said, “I respectfully decline.” He will now spend the remainder of his life in Idaho's Maximum Security Prison without parole.