So one of the surviving roommates of the four victims said in her witness statement that she saw a figure in black clothing and a ski mask walk out of the back sliding door of the house around 4am on the night of the murders. She was so scared that she then locked herself in her room and presumably slept for 8 hours before the bodies were discovered around noon. So just to run down the timeline:

• wake up at 4am and hear noises that you think are your roommate playing with her dog upstairs
• hear a woman's voice saying, "there's someone here," then a man's voice saying, "it's ok, I'm going to help you"
• open your door three times to figure out what's going on
• the third time, a figure in black clothing and a ski mask walks past you and exits the back sliding door (which opens to a balcony)
• freeze in fear
• lock yourself in your room
• don't check on your roommates
• don't call the cops
• sleep in until noon
• find your roommates stabbed to death
• call the cops to report your roommates are unconscious

Obviously this is a big ??? moment, and people are questioning why she didn't call the cops or check on her roommates. So a woman named Alanna Zabel, whose roommate was also attacked in her college apartment about 30 years ago, has stepped up to explain why Dylan didn't call the cops. Zabel's account of her 1992 story is:

• go out partying
• come home and roommate won't unlock the door
• get in through a bathroom window
• there's a weird smell and heavy breathing from your roommate's room
• go to sleep
• discover your roommate unconscious in a pool of vomit the next morning
• when paramedics arrive, you realize the vomit is actually blood
• (roommate is actually still alive and in a coma)

Ok so first of all, the two situations aren't really the same. Weird smells and heavy breathing are kind of suspect, and she probably should've knocked on the door, but if you're a drunk college student those things aren't really that crazy. On the other hand, if some ski mask guy walks out of your apartment at 4am, and you're so scared you lock yourself in your room, maybe don't go back to sleep?????

Another thing is, if Zabel is telling the truth, she was a 20-year old girl and her own mind bent reality to ignore a life-threatening emergency directly in front of her. If that's not true, then this is a Herculean feminine defense effort. If it is true, then I'm not sure how I'm supposed to trust women to handle any kind of situation unless it involves their own kids.

Let's say the Idaho roommate was a dude. He would be getting absolutely dragged in the press right now. Imagine a dude hearing suspicious noises and watching a slasher villain walk past him, then holing up in his room and going to sleep. Upham behavior.

I have sympathy for the survivor because in the end, she's an innocent victim and she's going to have to live with this for the rest of her life. But if she had checked on her friends right away, who knows, some of them might have lived.