A year after the massacre of four University of Idaho students, the roommate who came face to face with the cold-blooded killer but was spared has transferred colleges and is struggling with survivor’s guilt, her stepmother told The Post in her first public comments.
Patricia Munroe said Dylan Mortensen is doing “okay” since Bryan Kohberger allegedly slaughtered Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin on Nov. 13, 2022, inside 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho.
“There’s a lot of guilt because, you know, if someone says, ‘Oh, well, Dylan was so lucky,’ you know, you don’t want to take on that luck — because all of the children deserved luck. They all deserved to be spared from that,” said Munroe, 53, of Costa Mesa, Calif.
Munroe — who was married to Mortensen’s father, Brent Mortensen — helped raise Dylan from the time she was 7 years old, almost up until her graduation from high school.
She and Brent Mortensen have since gotten divorced, but she insisted she is still “very aware of the situation and what [Mortensen’s] doing and how she’s doing,” she said.
Dylan’s stepmom said the 20-year-old transferred universities this year but declined to say which one.
Dylan came face-to-face with the alleged killer as he exited the house, standing in a “frozen shock phase” as “a figure clad in black clothing and a mask walked towards her,” then “towards the back sliding glass door” of the house, a police affidavit stated. She then locked herself in her room for the night.
For reasons still unknown, she and Bethany Funke, the other roommate who survived the attacks, didn’t call the police until around noon the following day, according to Idaho investigators.
This is just one fact that social media trolls and citizen sleuths have latched on to in slamming Mortensen and Funke since the case gained worldwide attention last year.
They’ve called her everything from a murderer and a drug dealer to transgender.
“You never really think about online backlash and trolls until you deal with it, and it’s just a really hurtful thing,” Munroe said.
“I challenge anyone to be in a position where they wake up to four of their roommates gone and, you know, not even realizing it,” she continued.
“People have to understand that these children are very young . . . You know, they’re just young kids, and it’s just a really traumatizing thing. I just think that people need to have compassion.
“There needs to be space and time for all the details to come out in trial,” said Munroe.
Kohberger, a 28-year-old Washington State University Ph.D. criminology student, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and faces the death penalty.
A trial date has not been set. Kohberger’s lawyer, Anne Taylor, did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
