Newly released body camera footage has revealed the harrowing and deeply unsettling moments when law enforcement first arrived at the University of Idaho murder scene, responding to a frantic 911 call from the survivors. The footage provides an unfiltered look at the officer’s perspective as he entered the off-campus home where tragedy had struck, capturing both the eerie calm of the house and the chaos and fear experienced by the remaining residents.

The video shows the officer walking through 1122 King Road, where four students, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, had been brutally stabbed to death in the middle of the night. At first glance, the house looked like a typical college residence, the kind familiar to many students, with empty beer cans scattered across the stairs, a beer pong table set up near Kernodle’s second-floor room, and signs of ordinary student life frozen in the aftermath of violence. The contrast between the everyday college setting and the horrific events that had taken place there is jarring, underscoring the sudden intrusion of terror into what should have been a safe environment.

Once outside, the officer confronted the roommates and friends gathered in the driveway, visibly distressed and unsure of what to do. Calmly but firmly, he instructed them, "Nobody's allowed to leave for now," emphasizing the need to preserve the scene while maintaining order. He then returned to his vehicle to retrieve crime scene tape for the home, a procedural step that felt almost surreal to the students as they watched from the driveway, still processing the gravity of what had occurred inside.

The officer then spoke with Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates, who was wrapped in a blanket over her pajamas, trembling and tearful as she recounted the night’s events. Mortensen explained that late at night she had heard Kaylee Goncalves, along with her dog, heading up to Goncalves’ bedroom on the third floor. "That’s when I’m pretty sure [Goncalves] said, 'Someone’s here,' and she screamed and just ran downstairs," Mortensen told the officer, her voice breaking as she relived the terror of that moment.

Mortensen also recalled hearing a man’s voice saying, "You’re gonna be OK, I’m going to help you," words that investigators later determined were likely spoken by Xana Kernodle as she tried to respond to the intruder. Despite the chaos and fear, Mortensen attempted to reach out to her friends, calling Goncalves’ name, but received no response. In a state of panic, she locked her own door, trembling, as the reality of the situation sank in.

Mortensen described hearing crying coming from the bathroom, which she assumed was Goncalves. After calling her name again and receiving no answer, she briefly opened her door, only to see a man dressed entirely in black, wearing a mask that covered both his forehead and mouth. "He didn’t say anything to me," Mortensen said. "I just shut my door because I didn’t know what to do, I think he went out the sliding door in the kitchen that leads to the back."

Following this, Mortensen ran to the room of the other surviving roommate, Bethany Funke, located on the ground floor. She recalled pausing momentarily when she saw Xana lying on the floor, initially thinking she was merely asleep. "We just locked the door, not thinking anything of it," Mortensen explained, "We were like, 'Nothing happens in Moscow,' so we just tried to go to bed."

The following morning brought further horror as Mortensen noticed that none of their four housemates had awakened. "We called all of them, they were not waking up," she told the officer. Recognizing that something was seriously wrong, Mortensen and Funke reached out to friends Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson, asking them to come to the house. Johnson entered first, immediately grasping the magnitude of what had occurred, and he quickly guided the girls out while instructing them to call 911, ABC News reported earlier this year.

Mortensen, still unaware of the fate of her roommates at that moment, provided the officer with a detailed account of each student living in the house, their ages, and the location of their rooms. "Then there’s Maddie Mogen and Kaylee up top, I don’t know where they’re at, though," she said, highlighting the lingering uncertainty and fear that defined the early moments of this tragic incident.

The body camera footage paints a haunting portrait of a night of unimaginable fear, capturing the confusion, terror, and heroism of those who survived, and the procedural steps taken by law enforcement as they navigated the scene of one of the deadliest crimes in the University of Idaho’s recent history. Every frame underscores the fragile line between ordinary life and sudden tragedy, leaving an indelible impression of the night when four young lives were violently taken.