Former King Road roommate recalls learning of killings at Idaho off-campus house

(NEW YORK) — More than a year after her friends and former roommates were killed in an off-campus house in Idaho, Ashlin Couch said she wished she could have said a proper goodbye.

Couch had lived until May 2022 in the sixth bedroom in an off-campus house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho. Four University of Idaho students were killed in the house months later, in Nov. 2022.

“It crosses my mind more that that could’ve happened while I was there,” Couch said in an interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America on Wednesday. “And, you know, you never know, like how long someone is watching your house.”

Police in Dec. 2022 arrested Bryan Kohberger, a graduate student at Washington State University, and later charged him with first-degree murder and burglary. A judge entered a plea of not guilty for Kohberger in May 2023.

Couch had moved out months after graduating in Dec. 2021, but kept in touch with her former roommates, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, she said. Both were killed in the house, along with Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, in Nov. 2022.

Couch recalled getting a text from the University of Idaho alerting her to a suspected homicide on King Road. She recalled texting a thread with her former roommates on it, she said, asking if anyone had “heard from Maddie?”

“And I remember, like my last text message to her was like, are you okay?” Couch said. “And, I feel like right then and there, I kind of just knew that something was wrong.”

The three-story house where she had lived with her friends was demolished in December 2023.

The killings were often on her mind and, more than a year later, she was still having difficulty walking to her car in the dark, she said.

But she also wished she could say a proper goodbye to her friends.

“And that’s one thing that I just wish that I could do at least one more time,” she said. “Like, you know, just give her one last hug. Just to be able to say goodbye.”