The Miracle of D.M.
On the 13th of November 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered in their off-campus home between 0400 and 0425 in the morning1. Two occupants survived. Initial reports had suggested that the two survivors slept through the event, but on arrest of a suspect and the unsealing of the probable cause affidavit (PCA) it was revealed that not only was one of them awake, but she saw the suspect.
The PCA, one of the things that drew your writer to this case, is utterly compelling. The identity of the surviving witnesses has been widely circulated, but we keep things proper here and so will use their initals. The description of the encounter is as follows:
D.M. stated she opened her door for the third time after she heard the crying and saw a figure clad in black clothing and a mask that covered the person’s mouth and nose walking towards her. D.M. described the figure as 5'10" or taller, male, not very muscular, but athletically built with bushy eyebrows. The male walked past D.M. as she stood in a “frozen shock phase.” The male walked towards the back sliding glass door. D.M. locked herself in her room after seeing the male.
This account was like a bomb going off in the news cycle. It was the talking point of the affidavit. There has been much discussion of DM’s quoted “frozen shock phase” but it is not the focus of this post. If the chronology of the PCA is assumed to be authoratitive, DM had a very, very lucky escape.
DM’s bedroom was situated on the 2nd floor, on the Eastern side of 1122 King Road2. It is a node, forming a junction at the bottom of the stairwell. Slap bang in the middle of the house. It is the first door someone would see as they left the kitchen, before either turning left into the living room, or right to take the stairs to the third floor. The suspect by definition would have passed her door three times; going upstairs, coming back down, and leaving via the kitchen (the last of which was when he was seen by DM).
When DM sighted the suspect, it can be deduced that he had come from the Northern side of the house, which contained the bedroom where the bodies of Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were found. Conventional wisdom and the timing given suggests this couple were likely victims three and four. Therefore, as the affidavit asserts: DM saw him on his way out.
So: did he see her? And if he saw her, why did he not attack and kill her? He’s already stabbed four people to death, why leave a living witness? There’s two schools of thought.
The first is that he did not see her. There is a decorative LED sign in the living room (It reads ‘Good Vibes’ in what must be tremendous irony) that could have ruined the suspect’s night vision adaptation. Also the kitchen light may have been on. DM had the benefit of shadow (she has been assumed to have been peeking through a gap in the door, although this is not stated anywhere).
Alternatively, the suspect had just been in an altercation with at least one victim that was not asleep (Kernodle, per PCA), and was perhaps exhausted from the exertion required to overpower and kill them, and so he had nothing left in the old murder fuel tank when he approached DM. It is also possible, in the words of an acquaintance, that he had "…done what he’d gone there to do" and had no particular motivation to harm anyone else.
Did he hear her close her door? Did he at any point try her door? It is not told in the PCA. All we know is that she woke up to sounds upstairs which is assumed to be the murder of Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen in progress, but again, that’s a matter of inference.
DM has been absolutely torn to shreds by the internet. A survivor of a multiple homicide that took place in her home. Think about that. If one reads the PCA, it becomes apparent there was around an 8hr period before Moscow Police arrived at the scene. This delay has been fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and cranks to spin various crackpot stories about what took place that morning. It is vital to recognise that DM was interviewed by the investigation (including the FBI) and they would have been very rigourous in establishing her account. She’s not a suspect. Bryan Kohberger - innocent until proven guilty - is the only named suspect.
DM reminds me of Ripley in Aliens, she survives this monster that kills most of her friends, and nobody believes her. Worst, they treat her with suspicion and question her actions as if she somehow responsible. DM isn’t a fictional character; she’s a 21yr old kid that survived the stuff of childhood nightmares: A monster that came into her home in the dead of night, killing people in their beds, and melting away into the darkness. It is absolutely horrific, and she deserves every sympathy.
For six weeks nobody knew anything; these survivors are having to exist in the knowledge that whoever did this is still out there. Ostensibly no progress had been made and the knives were out for the local police. Behind the scenes, it could not have been more different. They pulled in state and national manpower. Then, one late December day, we got news of an arrest.
The arrest was just over one year ago. The PCA remains the sole narrative that has been publicly released, and it was written very early in the investigation. It has been sliced every way imaginable on the internet. Some good, mostly bad. The reason this has happened is the case is under the blanket of a non-dissemination order3, so absolutely nothing is getting out. Alongside the PCA we’ve had some warrants with the occasional tidbit (like the seized contents of some searches executed on the suspect’s property) but very little else.
The vacuum has been filled by the true crime community, a collection of internet discussion boards, vloggers, and the occasional big-hitter print article (Howard Blum for Airmail). I don’t rate most of it. Reddit has some good communities, but there’s also some inexplicably weird Bryan Kohberger fan subs which I do not understand at all, nor will I, as they banned me. Like the rest of Reddit, it’s a bit like putting your hand into a bucket of shit trying to find a nugget of gold. The biggest issue with content creators is hits mean advertising revenue, and so they’re incentivised toward sensationalism because it literally turns into cash money. Shock value drives content, and DM’s treatment is certainly a symptom of that.
Take a step back and breathe, and recognise just how little is known. It’s okay. It will all come out. We just have to wait.