Every case is made up of more than headlines. Behind the court filings, timelines, evidence, and reporting are people whose names become part of the story. Explore each case below to find the people connected to it, along with timelines, court records, source documents, and ongoing research.
Idaho Student Murders
Like so many people, I started following this case after four University of I daho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were murdered in the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho.
Kaylee, Madison and Xana lived at the house. Ethan, who was Xana’s boyfriend, was visiting that night. Two other roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, survived.
At first, I followed the case through the news like everyone else.
Then Bryan Kohberger was arrested, and I started reading the court documents.
That’s when this case changed for me.
The more documents I read, the more questions I had.
Some things seemed straightforward when I first heard about them. Then I would find the actual filing, read what it said for myself, and realize there was more to the story.
I started noticing names buried in court filings and police reports and wondering: Who is this person? What was their connection to the case? What did they actually say? And is what I’ve heard about them really what the records say?
That is really where the idea for Faces in the Footnotes came from.
There are so many people connected to this case who have become a name, an initial, a witness, a roommate, an investigator or just a line buried somewhere in hundreds of pages of documents.
I wanted to know more about them.
By the time Kohberger’s case was approaching trial, I already had serious questions about the evidence against him and about how the case had unfolded.
Then, on July 2, 2025, he pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.
I remember thinking: How did we get here?
The plea didn’t answer the questions I already had. If anything, it left me with more.
On July 23, 2025, Kohberger was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, plus a consecutive 10-year sentence for burglary.
For a lot of people, the guilty plea settled the question.
It didn’t for me.
I wanted to understand why someone I already had serious doubts about being guilty would suddenly admit in court that he committed these murders.
And I kept reading.
Then, in July 2026, Kohberger filed a petition for post-conviction relief asking the court to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. In that filing, he alleges that he received ineffective assistance from his former attorneys and that his guilty plea was not knowingly and voluntarily entered. He has also raised allegations about how his decision to plead guilty came about and about information he believes should have been handled differently by his defense.
Those are Kohberger’s allegations. They have not been established as fact by the court, and his guilty plea and convictions remain in place.
But suddenly, some of the questions I had when I first heard that guilty plea were questions I wanted to revisit even more closely.
That’s where I am with this case today.
I’m going back to the documents.
I’m looking at the timelines.
I’m comparing what we were originally told with what the records actually say.
I’m paying attention to the things that don’t quite fit as neatly as I once thought they did.
And most of all, I’m looking at the people.
Who are they?
How did they become part of this case?
What do the records actually tell us about them?
What is fact, what is allegation, and what is still unknown?
You don’t have to agree with me.
Actually, I’d rather you didn’t take my word for any of it.
I’ll show you what I find. I’ll tell you where I found it. And you can read it and decide for yourself.
Because behind every name buried in a court document is a person.
And sometimes the details that make me stop and ask another question are found in the smallest places.
Those are the faces in the footnotes.
Faces in This Case
Bethany Funke
Bethany Funke was one of the surviving roommates at 1122 King Road and was home during the early morning hours of November 13, 2022. Her name appears throughout the case record, including in court filings concerning her potential testimony and communications from that morning
Read the Bethany Funke Face File
Faces in the Footnotes 