Ava Wood From The Idaho Four Joins Me For A Live Video Chat

Yesterday I spoke to Ava Wood, a University of Idaho graduate about how she’s feeling in the aftermath of Bryan Kohberger’s sentencing for a quadruple homicide.

Ava was close friends with Kohberger’s four victims: Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. Had Bryan Kohberger gone to trial, rather than opting for a plea deal at the eleventh hour, she would likely have been in the witness box because she had received a subpoena from Ann Taylor, Kohberger’s defense lawyer, something that confused and worried her.

In The Idaho Four, James Patterson and I describe how Ava went to 1122 King Road late morning on November 13th 2022 because she heard police sirens, and when she looked out of her kitchen window she saw an ambulance arriving and Emily Alandt, Xana’s best friend sitting on the ground, shivering and crying. (Emily and her boyfriend Hunter Johnson had been called to the house by Dylan Mortensen who had seen Kohberger the night before and had thought she was hallucinating, until, hours later, none of her roommates answered their phones). Hunter Johnson had entered the house and discovered the bodies of Xana and Ethan Chapin.

He told the others to call the police, which is what was going on when Ava saw Emily through her window. She grabbed a blanket and sweatshirt and went to comfort her friend, having no clue what had transpired. The next thing she knew she and the group on the ground was being interviewed by the cops. Thus began a two and a half year nightmare in the build-up to what everyone assumed would be Bryan Kohberger’s trial.

A possible reason Kohberger’s legal team wanted to hear from Ava was that she’d told police that a month or so before the murders, she had heard someone come up the metal steps to her apartment and turn the lock in her door. But the door had a deadbolt on it.

Our interview is two parts.

In the first part (above), Ava explains how she felt watching Kohberger’s sentencing.

Part Two (below) is where she goes back in time to that awful day of November 13th 2022, which she vividly describes. She explains how roommate Dylan Mortensen kept on with the refrain “I can’t believe someone would do this,” and how she had to watch poor Hunter Chapin, Ethan’s brother, call his mother, Stacy, to tell her that Ethan had passed away.

“You could hear all of us scream and cry from miles away” she says, recalling the moment that a police officer came out of the house and told the group without emotion. “All four of your friends are inside the house and they are all dead.”

I learned yesterday for the first time that each of Ava’s parents took turns living with her in the months after the murders. She also explains how she feels that she could have been better supported in the build-up to the trial. She explains that it’s very unsettling to receive sporadic calls from the FBI.

I’ll bet.

She also says that like many of their friends, she turned her social media from public to private after the murders. And has no intention of reversing the setting now.

One of the theme of The Idaho Four is to show that when something as cataclysmic as what happened in Moscow, Idaho happens, the ripple-effect is broad and long-lasting.

Ava can never rewind the clock and become the person she was before the murders; but she is also determined not to let what happened “sink” her.

One of the things I’ve loved about reporting this tragedy is getting to know the young adults in the victims’ friend group, through whom I got to know the personalities of each of the four victims themselves. They are an awesome bunch, whose resilience is extraordinary and inspiring. I felt a modicum of maternal pride in watching Ava handle herself so well in our conversation!

The book may be finished, but I shall hopefully remain in touch with Ava and the others for a long time to come.

I am excited to see what comes next in her life. I have a feeling she is going to soar!