The boyfriend of slain University of Idaho student Madison “Maddie” Mogen has publicly spoken out for the first time, weeks after she and three friends were stabbed to death in a brutal, yet-to-be-solved attack.
Jake Schriger, a fellow student at the university who had been dating Mogen for nearly a year, spoke about his 21-year-old girlfriend at a vigil in Post Falls, Idaho, on 2 December.
Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in their off-campus home in the college town of Moscow on 13 November. Three weeks later, the police are yet to name a suspect in the quadruple murder.
“None of these people deserved this,” Mr Schriger said in front of the families of the victims in Kernodle’s hometown.
“She was the first person I talked to every morning and the last person I talked to before bed,” he said, adding: “She was the person that I loved most.”
He talked about their first date at The Breakfast Club in Moscow and how their friendship evolved over the last two years.
“Maddie was my best friend,” Mr Schriger said. “I was lucky enough to be able to explore life with Maddie for about two years.”
Earlier, his mother Stacy Schriger described the young couple as being like “peanut butter and jelly” who often posted loving photos of each other on their social media accounts. She said her son’s world has been “turned upside down” following Mogen’s death.
Scott Laramie, the stepfather of Mogen whom she called “dad”, said losing his only child was the “hardest thing in the world”.
“It’s still hard to believe sometimes. We get up in the morning, and it’s like, ‘Nah this isn’t happening,’ then it kicks in,” Mr Laramie told Fox News on Monday.
The emotional father said: “We love her and we miss her, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to try to figure out how to live without her.”
“It’s the hardest thing to imagine right now.”
Mr Laramie said his daughter’s boyfriend is having a tough time dealing with the loss and is “all broken up”.
“He’s having a hard time dealing with this too,” the father said, adding that he has been in touch with Mr Schriger. “Those two, they were really good together. They really clicked.”
Meanwhile, Kaylee Goncalves’s father Steve Goncalves said the killer “chose” to go up to the third floor where his daughter and her best friend Mogen were sleeping – a route that took the perpetrator out of the way of the entry point to the home.
