Threats to Kidnap and Kill Eyewitness to Bryan Kohberger Murders Revealed at Emergency Court Hearing
A judge in Idaho heard arguments on an emergency motion filed by Dylan Mortensen to keep her face blurred in body camera footage set to be released as part of the Bryan Kohberger investigation
Her attorney told the court that Mortensen continues to receive death threats due to her ties to the Kohberger case
The judge said she would take the issue under advisement and issue a decision shortly after the hour-long hearing
The Idaho college student whose four roommates were murdered by Bryan Kohberger continues to fear for her safety.
A lawyer for Dylan Mortensen appeared at a virtual court hearing in Idaho on Nov. 12 to argue in favor of an emergency motion to intervene she filed on behalf of her client.
Mortensen, 22, is asking the court to keep her face blurred when they release body camera footage that was taken outside the home where her roommates were fatally stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022.
Bryan Kohberger appears at the Ada County Courthouse for his sentencing hearing on July 23, 2025 in Boise, Idaho.Credit: Kyle Green-Pool/Getty
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Mortensen’s lawyer Robyn McPherson spoke at length about her concerns should this video be released and show Mortensen’s face. She was most concerned, however, for Mortensen’s safety.
“She has already had prior mistakes of releases of information, including her address, phone number, social media handles,” McPherson told the court.
McPherson also said that Mortensen’s “name has appeared in hashtags more than 30 million times” and “photos of her holding weapons have been Photoshopped.”
There were also the threats, said McPherson: “threats to kill her, threats to harm her, threats to kidnap her.”
McPherson pointed out this has driven the family to move multiple times, and that should this new video be released without her face blurred it would “materially increase the ability of strangers to recognize and locate [Mortensen].”
Mortensen herself shared her fears and spoke about what she has been forced to endure in her emergency motion.
She wrote about being forced to move nine times with her family, using an alias at work and declining to share her actual name when meeting new people.
“Even something as simple as ordering packages or receiving deliveries has required me to use a different name because I worry about my real identity being connected to my location,” Mortensen said.
She also wrote about the threats and how she is still afraid to be out in public.
“Since November 2022, I’ve received numerous unsolicited messages from strangers accusing me of participating in my friends’ murders, blaming me for their deaths and making cruel statements about why what they believe should happen to me,” Mortensen wrote.
Those messages have said “I’ll find you” and “Don’t let me find out where you live” or expressed hope that Mortensen “would be stabbed and die a slow, painful death,” she wrote.
After hearing arguments on Nov. 12, the judge said she would “take the motion under advisement and issue a decision shortly in due course.”
Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.Credit: Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty (4)
Mortensen was in her bedroom in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022 when a noise led her to open her bedroom door and watch a man she later identified as Kohberger slowly exit her off-campus home in Moscow.
She texted her roommate Bethany Funke to tell her about the strange man with “bushy eyebrows” who had just walked out through their kitchen door and then ran to Funke’s room, passing by roommate Xana Kernodle — who looked to be passed out on her floor — on the way downstairs.
Hours later, Mortensen would learn that Kernodle and her three other roommates — Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves and Ethan Chapin — had been brutally stabbed to death.
Source: Crime
