Neighbours of the four University of Idaho students killed in Idaho said the victims often hosted parties in their rental home.
Jeremy Reagan, a third-year law student who lives near the scene of the murders that shocked the university town of Moscow last week, told Fox News that the victims would often host self-contained gatherings and added that people went in and out of the house “pretty frequently.”
“There were parties that were kind of loud,” Mr Reagan said. “As I would take my dog in and out to go to the bathroom [and] I would see people in the windows almost every night, probably four or five nights a week ... it was kind of a party house but then again this whole neighbourhood is a party neighbourhood.”
Fellow Moscow resident Heather Tetwiler also told the network that the slain students — Xana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Moge, 21, — would host typical college gatherings, but that the residence was “not necessarily a party house.”
“They had like small gatherings, maybe like ten people or so and it never really got crazy other than the usual college stuff but they were pretty respectful,” Ms Tetwiler said.
Moscow police have reiterated that there were no signs of forced entry into the six-bedroom home. Investigators continue to piece together what happened in the early morning hours of 13 November and the circumstances surrounding the brutal fatal stabbings.
The victims returned home before 2am on the night of the murders and were killed between 3am and 4am, police have said.
A 911 call was made from the cellphone of one of the two surviving roommates nearly nine hours later. Investigators said that the surviving individuals had summoned friends to the home because they believed one of the victims was unconscious but it is unclear if they saw the crime scene.
They are not necessarily considered witnesses, according to information released by police.
When authorities arrived, the bodies were found on the second and third floors. Autopsy findings released last week revealed that all four had suffered multiple stab wounds from a large knife.
The deaths have been ruled homicides with the killer or killers still at large a week on from the slayings. Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt confirmed that some of the victims had defensive wounds from the knife attack, adding that she had seen “nothing, nothing like this” in her almost two-decade-long career.
There was no sign of sexual assault on any of the victims but they each suffered “pretty extensive” wounds, she told NBC News, confirming that each victim was stabbed a different amount of times and in different places on the body.
During a press conference on Sunday, Police Captain Roger Lanier denied reports that the victims had been found tied and gagged and said that any information circulating online about the identity of the 911 caller was mere speculation.
Police have said that the two surviving roommates, a male seen on Twitch video that also featured Goncalves and Mogen at a food truck hours before the murders, and an individual who drove the two of them home that night are not considered suspects.
Authorities said that more details will be released during a press conference scheduled for Wednesday.
