A major twist has emerged in the University of Idaho murder case, as one of the surviving roommates has agreed to sit down with the defense team for the man accused of killing four students.
Bethany Funke, 21, is now set to meet with attorneys representing Bryan Kohberger in Reno, Nevada, where she currently resides. This development comes after Funke initially fought a subpoena that would have required her to appear at a preliminary hearing in Idaho this June.
Kohberger, 28, remains in custody on four counts of murder and one count of felony burglary. He was arrested in Pennsylvania in late December, roughly six weeks after the bodies of Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were found at their off-campus home in Moscow.
Both Funke and fellow roommate Dylan Mortensen were inside the house during the early morning stabbings last November. According to police reports, Mortensen woke around 4 a. m.
and saw a masked figure near her door, prompting her to lock herself in her room. Neither she nor Funke contacted authorities for another eight hours.
While Mortensen’s account of that night was later included in a search warrant for Kohberger’s property, Funke’s version of events has never been released to the public. Both women cooperated with investigators and were interviewed separately, but what Funke saw or heard remains a mystery.
In the subpoena filed in Nevada, Kohberger’s legal team argued that Funke holds “exculpatory” information that “cannot be provided by another witness.” Funke’s attorney fired back, calling that claim “without support” and noting a lack of detail about the testimony’s substance or materiality.
Kohberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice at nearby Washington State University in Pullman at the time of the killings. His preliminary hearing is scheduled to begin June 26. He has not yet entered a plea, though sources claim he is reportedly “eager to be exonerated.”
As the case inches closer to its next court date, all eyes are on what Bethany Funke might finally reveal behind closed doors. What could she know that the defense believes could change everything?
