CrimeOnline’s Nancy Grace says there’s “no need” for a surviving roommate of the slain University of Idaho students to return to Idaho to testify during a preliminary hearing.
Bryan Kohberger is behind bars for the murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. All four students were found stabbed dead in their off-campus rental near the school in November 2022.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, an affidavit filed in March by the defense says that roommate Bethany Funke was in a first-floor bedroom of the house where the students lived during the murders, and was “interviewed by police on several occasions.”
Funke has been subpoenaed to return to Idaho to testify but her attorney filed a motion to quash the subpoena. Funke currently lives in Washoe County, Nevada.
“Her version of what happened that night has remained sealed,” Grace told Fox News Digital. “It’s in a police report, unlike her roommate Dylan Mortenson, who saw a figure clad in black, wearing a mask, that generally fits the description on Bryan Kohberger.”
“Many people are asking with Bethany Funke is fighting the subpoena. Who wants to travel from home (Reno), all the way back to Mosc0w, Idaho, which is about 650 miles, to testify for the guy you believe murdered all your roommates except one?”
“Aside from her personal feelings, the defense attorney for Bryan Kohberger has woefully laid out a very bad case to a local judge. This process is called ‘domestication, where another jurisdiction in another state wants you to come to their jurisdiction under subpoena. You domesticate the subpoena.”
“The reality is there’s no precedent in the law in Nevada, to force a resident back to Idaho to testify in a prelim [preliminary]. And that’s the kicker here. In a preliminary hearing, the defense puts nothing up. So, there’s no need for her to come back,” Grace added.
The motion states that there is “no authority for an Idaho criminal defendant to summon a Nevada witness to Idaho for [the] preliminary hearing.”
Neither Funke’s attorneys nor Kohberger’s public defender commented. Latah County Magistrate Judge Megan Marshall issued a gag order in January barring lawyers, police, and other officials connected with the case from making statements.
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[Featured image: Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves (left)Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle;/Instagram]
