A couple weeks ago I spoke to Christine Pelisek of People magazine, for her cover story, that is now online about The Idaho Four and is due on newsstands later this week.
I’m glad to see that, after reading the book, someone at the magazine decided to feature Emily Alandt and Hunter Johnson on the cover. These two young people are very close to my heart.
Emily, 23, was Xana’s Kernodle’s best friend. Emily’s boyfriend Hunter Johnson, 24, was one of Ethan Chapin’s. They are terrific young people. We’ve been on speed dial for much of the past two years. Emily is whip-smart, vivacious and determined, just like Xana was. Hunter is soulful, athletic and a wonderful guitarist.
When you read The Idaho Four, you’ll discover that they’ve been through hell, quite apart from the shock of losing their friends. Online trolls either falsely accused them of murdering their best friends or ascribed blame to them for all sorts of spurious reasons.
In fact the couple was astonishingly brave. They walked over to the King Road house on the morning of November 13 after Dylan Mortensen, one of the two surviving roommates, phoned Emily, telling her she’d either had a very bad dream, or experienced a drunk hallucination, but she had a feeling something horrendous had happened during the night. Emily initially didn’t take Dylan seriously, because Dylan had had crazy dreams when drunk before.
Hunter got to the house ahead of Emily and two others. Dylan and Bethany Funke, the other King Road roommate, were outside. He went up the stairs first, and saw that Xana’s bedroom door was slightly ajar which was most unusual. When he opened the bedroom door, and saw two dead bodies, he turned around and stopped Emily, who was behind him, from coming any further.
With extraordinary presence of mind, he shouted to the others standing outside, telling them to call 911 because there was an unconscious person. In a split second he’d made the decision to spare the others the visual he’d seen and also to protect them for a few more precious minutes from the ghastly news their friends were dead.
He even thought to grab a kitchen knife and go into Xana’s bedroom to see if the murderer was in there, lurking…
Imagine then, in the coming weeks, to find that he and Emily were now infamous on Reddit and social media, because… they must be the culprits. Even when the Moscow Police Chief James Fry cleared them in a press conference, after Hunter’s mother had phoned the chief and asked for his help, the harassment continued.
Think what that must have felt like! Not only were Emily and Hunter dealing with the trauma of being in the house that morning, the shock and grief of losing their best friends (and also Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves who were found in a room on the top floor), they had no idea who the murderer was, or why he’d done it - and they couldn’t shake the awful thought that whoever he was (it didn’t seem likely a woman would have had the strength), he was now coming for them. Emily is still terrified of the dark to this day. Yet she has refused to go through Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, because it might invalidate testimony she gives at the upcoming trial of suspect Bryan Kohberger.
I was pretty livid when the couple told me in detail about what they’d gone through. Any parent would be. I also got to know Emily’s mother, Karen, well. The two of us spent quite a lot of time wringing our hands at the great harm social media can cause our kids.
(As a side note: one of the positives of reporting such a dark subject has been the friendships that I formed. Emily and I have become especially close. I take great pleasure in hearing about her accomplishments in dental hygiene school and whatever the latest news is with her and Hunter.)
I also know that she won’t be able to start to heal until this upcoming trial is over.
The biggest reason I’ll go to the Kohberger trial in the first week, is to be there for her when she testifies.
I know, unfortunately all too well, how difficult that is going to be.
Meanwhile, I am happy that at least the People magazine cover (which is based on The Idaho Four), gives her and Hunter the opportunity to begin to set the record straight about their part in this tragic story. A redress has been long overdue.
A reminder: you can pre-order The Idaho Four here.
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