A former roommate of the slain University of Idaho students broke her silence Tuesday to mark the 18 months since the bloodshed — and revealed the final message she sent her late friend.
“Are you okay?” Ashlin Couch texted Madison Mogen immediately after receiving an alert from her alma mater that there was a homicide on the same road as her old college house, she told Spokane-based KXLY-TV.
Couch lived at 122 King Road in Moscow with Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, both 21, until she graduated and moved out in May 2022, relinquishing the remainder of her lease — and her old bedroom — to Xana Kernodle, 20.
The three girls and Kernodle’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, were slaughtered in their upstairs bedrooms around 4 a.m. Nov. 16, 2022 after spending a night on the town.
The university sent out a text alert to its community the next day informing of a suspected homicide on King Road, driving an inexplicable pang of concern through Couch’s heart.
“I remember I think getting a second alert or I had been driving home and I texted our group of friends and I just had said, ‘Has anyone heard from Maddie?’ Couch told the outlet while choking back tears.
That’s when Couch rushed to text Mogen herself — a message that would go forever unreturned.
“I feel like right then and there, I kind of just knew that something was wrong.”
Mogen and Goncalves –who Couch said were “like sisters” — were in the same bed when they were stabbed to death by alleged killer Bryan Kohberger.
Kernodle and Chapin were slaughtered in the bedroom across the hall — the one Couch had lived in just six months earlier.
Her name was even still on the lease.
“It crosses my mind more that that could have happened while I was there. And you never know like how long someone is watching your house,” Couch lamented.
The terrifying thought induced panic in Couch through the two weeks her friends’ killer was in the wind — and even lasted after Kohberger was cuffed for the crime.
“I couldn’t even walk to my car in the dark for months after it happened, like you just want to at least feel a little bit safer,” Couch said.
Her grief has inspired her to kickstart a new foundation in honor of her friends that focuses on raising awareness and educating students on social media safety.
The Made with Kindness Foundation works to teach students on how to protect themselves from home, especially because the actions of others are beyond one’s control.
“Horrible people are going to do what they’re going to do. It’s not anything that they could have done. They absolutely did nothing wrong,” Couch said.
Despite her best efforts, the grieving friend’s work has done little to fill the missing hole in her heart that her friends left.
“You wish that you could just say goodbye. And that’s one thing that I just wish that I could do at least one more time: Just give (Mogen) one last hug just to be able to say goodbye,” Couch said.
The Moscow home that once held so many happy memories has since been demolished by the university, a controversial decision the victims’ family claimed eliminated the potential hope of finding additional forensic evidence.
Through his lawyers, Kohberger — who faces four counts of murder and one count of burglary — recently claimed he was nowhere near the college house during the vicious killings, but was instead driving alone 40 minutes away.
He is due back in court May 14 for a hearing, which a judge ordered to be behind closed doors.