Parent of Student Killed in Idaho College Murders Calls Release of Texts and 911 Call ‘Torture’

In an interview with NBC News, Steve Goncalves, whose 21-year-old daughter, Kaylee Goncalves, was killed at a rented house in Moscow, Idaho, called it “torture.”

Kaylee was one of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death, along with Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, with Bryan Kohberger, a former doctoral student at Washington State University, arrested in December 2022 and charged with their slayings.

In the audio from the 911 call, obtained by NBC News on March 14, the victims’ two surviving roommates can be heard frantically trying to get the help of police after realizing something was going on in the shared home located just off-campus.

“Hi, something is happening, something happened in our house, we don’t know what!” a panicked female caller can be heard saying.

“One of the roommates who’s passed out– and she was drunk last night and she’s not waking up!” another female caller says. “Oh, and they saw some man in their house last night.”

Goncalves said it was difficult to listen to the call, telling NBC “there’s just a lot of pain” there.

“There was a lot of horror in those girls’ voice, the breathing,” he said.

But despite how difficult it was to listen to the 911 call, Goncalves said it did bring some clarity to what happened that night.

“There was a relief of knowing that it was a horrible event but we were truly getting the truth,” he said.

Goncalves also noted that his wife and his kids were given a heads-up about the 911 call before it was released to the public, though he tells NBC News his wife has yet to listen.

“My wife still hasn’t listened to it. She may never, and that’s OK,” he said, before detailing how painful it’s been to learn more of the details about their daughter’s death over the last few years.

“It’s like a slow torture where just a little comes out, a little more comes out,” he said, making it difficult for the family to not only grieve, but attempt to move forward.

Goncalves continued, “My wife describes it — as soon as she starts feeling like she could swim and she could start getting her breath, it’s like somebody just grabs her and rips her back underneath the water again, and she has to start all over.”

“A crime like this is never going to be fair,” he added.

Kohberger, who was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, has yet to stand trial. A judge entered a not guilty plea on Kohberger’s behalf in 2023, while prosecutors, meanwhile, are arguing that the newly released 911 call, as well as texts between the surviving roommates released earlier this month, should be included as evidence when he takes the stand.

His trial is set to begin in Ada County, Idaho, on August 11 and could last until November, according to District Court Judge Steven Hippler.

Kohberger stands to be punished with the death penalty if convicted, per Judge Hippler’s ruling.

He continues to maintain his innocence, despite the evidence stacked against him, with the defense planning to argue Kohberger may have been framed — a claim Goncalves told NBC News he finds hard to believe.

“That’s the excuse or the defense that somebody uses as the very last possible scenario,” he said. It’s the least believable of all of them.”

In addition to Goncalves’ recent interview with the outlet, he and his family released a joint statement about the 911 call on their Goncalves Family’s Facebook page.

“We stand together with all the victims of Idaho—both those we have lost and those who remain, forever marked by a tragedy that no passage of time will ever erase,” the statement began. “The 911 call? It is not the neatly rehearsed dialogue of a well-crafted story, not the polished performance you might expect from a Hollywood script.”

“No. It is raw. It is jagged. A searing, unvarnished truth that no camera could ever hope to capture. Every breath. Every cry. Every tremor in the voice reveals a reality so cruel, so brutally honest, it cuts deeper than anything fiction could devise,” the statement continues.

“After hearing that call, one thing is clear—Hunter, with his quiet, stoic resolve, protected those girls from a nightmare that no one should ever be forced to witness. He stepped into the abyss, shielding them from horrors that will haunt him forever,” the family says of Hunter Johnson. “For that, the Goncalves family owes him a debt that words cannot repay.”

“If you were expecting a neat, cinematic conclusion—something palatable, something that offers closure—let me make this clear: The real world does not operate on such terms. The terror of that night cannot be cleanly packaged, wrapped in a bow, or distilled into a simple, digestible narrative,” the statements continues, touching on the nature of the heinous crime. “It is ugly. It is painful. It is the kind of horror that shakes you to your deepest core. These were not adults. They were children, still clinging to the fragile threads of innocence when the world was violently torn from them in an instant.”

For those criticizing the timing of the 911 call, the family shared an “uncomfortable truth,” “Had the 911 call been made the moment the accused left that house; it would not have saved anyone. Nothing would have changed. So, we ask, respectfully—please, do not waste your energy pointing fingers at those who could not have prevented it.”

“The anger, the grief, the pain—they must all be focused on one thing. One person. The one who stole the innocence of Moscow that night, we demand justice and that cause is all that matters now,” the family’s statement concluded alongside of poem by Zara Bas about both trauma and healing.