Police investigating the murder of four University of Idaho students offered an update on the one-month anniversary of the brutal stabbings.
In a video released on Tuesday, Moscow Police Department Captain Roger Lanier reflected on the emotional “highs and lows” of the probe into the murders of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xena Kernodle in their off-campus rental home.
Capt Lanier said the FBI, Idaho State Police and his department are working around the clock and sifting through thousands of tips. Last week, investigators asked for the public’s help in locating the occupants of a 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra seen near the crime scene around the time of the murders on 13 November.
The captain said the case was far from “going cold” and that the department continues to receive a good amount of viable tips every day. He urged the public to only listen to information made available through the department’s official channels.
“Just look at social media and the rumours that fly out there,” Capt Lanier said. “A small [piece] of information that has speculation added to it just takes its own life on the internet and starts rumours and then we find ourselves not only tracking those rumours down and trying to quell them but also, we see that tips that come in are more geared toward the rumours.”
He continued: “The unfortunate part of it is the effect that it’s had on the victim’s families, on the college students and friends of the victims, some of whom have had death threats and constant harassment by various media outlets ... In many ways, it just revictimizes folks who have experienced trauma.”
Capt Lanier discussed the shock of first hearing about the quadruple murders.
“Everybody just kind of fell into a role that was an all-hands-on-deck moment that Sunday afternoon,” he said.
The FBI joined the investigation almost immediately, Capt Lanier said. He added that some of the younger officers had a hard time due to the scope of the crime.
The last murder before the November stabbings in the college town of just 25,000 happened in 2015.
“It was incredibly hard for the community but it was also really hard on our officers,” Capt Lanier said. “Some of them are really young and that is the first major crime scene that they had encountered, so emotionally was a very draining day.”
He went on to highlight that investigators across the US are actively following leads sent by the public every day.
Moscow Police have been so inundated with tips about a vehicle that calls are being directed to a national FBI tip line. As of Saturday, police said that they are still looking to speak to the occupants and the licence plate remains unknown.
The victims were killed between 3am and 4am on 13 November, authorities have determined.
On the night of 12 November, Kernodle and Chapin were at a sorority party at Sigma Chi house together from 8pm to 9pm and arrived back at the home at around 1.45am. It is unclear where they were in the five-hour time gap.
Goncalves and Mogen had spent the night at The Corner Club bar in downtown Moscow, before stopping by a food truck and then getting a ride home from an unnamed “private party” to arrive at the property at around 1.56am.
Two surviving roommates were also out that night and arrived home at around 1am, police said. The two women, who lived in rooms on the first floor of the home, are believed to have slept through the brutal killings and were unharmed.
The horrific crime scene went unnoticed for several more hours, with police receiving a 911 call at 11.58am on Sunday, reporting an “unconscious individual” at the home.
The two other roommates had first called friends to the home because they believed one of the second-floor victims was unconscious and would not wake up. When the friends arrived, a 911 call was made from one of the roommates’ phones.
Several people have been ruled out as suspects: the two surviving housemates, the man who was caught on camera with Mogen and Goncalves at a food truck in the downtown area before they headed home on the night of the slayings, the person who gave Mogen and Goncalves a ride home from the food truck, Goncalves’ former long-term boyfriend and the friends who were in the home when the 911 call.
