Idaho murders survivor raises $50,000 from well-wishers for her 'healing journey'

A survivor of the Idaho murders has raised more than $50,000 to go toward 'building back her life' nearly three years after her friends were stabbed to death under the same roof as her. 

Dylan Mortensen's aunts, Kate and Ellie, launched a GoFundMe page Sunday for their niece to get started on her 'healing journey' following the traumatic incident. 

'It’s been two and a half years of Dylan silently and bravely putting one foot in front of the other, cooperating with law enforcement, processing, and healing from the unimaginable,' they wrote. 

'Dylan has had to learn how to live in her new reality - forever lacking peace, security, safety and her closest friends.' 

The money donated by Mortensen's well-wishers is set to go toward funding her 'relocation, intensive long term trauma therapy, and extra security and privacy measures,' the page read.    

Mortensen was just 19 when her friends and roommates, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20 Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were senselessly killed by Bryan Kohberger inside a home in Moscow. 

She detailed the kind of person he is and the fear she's felt since she found out he snuck into their home and killed her best friends in November 2022. 

Dylan Mortensen, one of the survivors from the Idaho murders, has raised more than $50,000 to help her rebuild her life after the horrid tragedy 

Mortensen was just 19 when her friends and roommates, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin , 20 Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were senselessly killed inside their home in Moscow

Mortensen took several moments to compose herself and had to sit down as she did so before reading her victim impact statement while Kohberger sat just feet away from her. 

Through deep sobs and broken breath, Mortensen described Kohberger as being subhuman.

'He is a hollow vessel. Something less than human, a body without empathy, without remorse. He feels nothing,' she told the emotional courtroom. 

'He chose destruction. He chose evil. He tried to take everything from me, my friends, my safety, their lives. He will stay here, empty, forgotten and powerless.'

After finishing her statement people who had gathered inside the packed courtroom were seen wiping tears from their eyes. 

Meanwhile, Kohberger remained emotionless as he kept his eyes forward the whole time. 

Like Kernodle and Mogen, Mortensen was a member of Pi Beta Phi and her 'Big' was Kernodle's best friend Emily Alandt.

According to friends and court documents, she was a self-described 'scaredy cat' who called Alandt over to the home multiple times because she had heard noises that freaked her out.

Bryan Kohberger was sentenced to life in prison for their deaths last week 

Through deep sobs and broken breath, Mortensen described Kohberger as being subhuman during her victim impact statement

At around 4am on November 13, 2022, Mortensen was woken by strange noises inside the home.

When she looked around her bedroom door on the second story, she saw Kohberger walk straight past her in the direction of the back door.

He was dressed in all black, wearing a mask and with bushy eyebrows. She had no idea that this intruder had just murdered her four friends.

During her intense statement last week, Mortensen added: 'What happened that night changed everything, because of him four beautiful, genuine, compassionate people were taken from this world for no reason.

'He took away who they were becoming, and their futures they were going to have. He took away all of the memories we were supposed to make.

'He didn't just take them from the world, he took them from me. My friends, my people who felt like my home. The people I looked up to and adored more than anyone.

'What he did shattered me in places I didn’t know could break. I was barely 19 when he did this.

'I should have been figuring out who I was, instead I was supposed to learn to survive the unimaginable.'

When asked by the judge if he wanted to make a statement at his hearing, Kohberger, a 30-year-old PhD candidate, awkwardly leaned into the microphone and said: 'I respectfully decline.' 

He will now spend the remainder of his life in Idaho's Maximum Security Prison without parole.