2022 University of Idaho killings

2022 University of Idaho killings
Moscow, Idaho 1km 0.6miles Sigma Chi house Corner Club Grub Truck Residence    Area around the University of Idaho in Moscow
Location	Moscow, Idaho, United States
Date	November 13, 2022 (2022-11-13) (1 years ago) 3:00 – 4:00 a.m. (PST (UTC−08:00))
Attack type	Mass stabbing
Deaths	4

Moscow

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Location in the United States

In the early hours of November 13, 2022, four University of Idaho students were fatally stabbed while they slept in an off-campus three-story rented home in Moscow, Idaho. On December 30, 2022, a suspect was arrested in Monroe County, Pennsylvania on four counts of murder in the first degree and felony burglary.

Background

Several University of Idaho students lived in a rented off-campus home in the rural college town of Moscow, Idaho. The three-story home had six bedrooms; two on each floor.

The city had not seen a murder since 2015.

Events

In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, between 3 am and 4 am, four University of Idaho college students were stabbed to death in a shared rental home close to campus, in which three of them resided. The three female victims–Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, and Xana Kernodle–lived at the house, while the fourth victim, Ethan Chapin, was Kernodle's boyfriend who was sleeping over on the night of the attacks. Two other female roommates also lived at the house; they slept through the attacks, and were not injured.

Earlier on the evening of November 12, two of the four victims, Chapin and Kernodle, were at an on-campus party at the nearby Sigma Chi fraternity from 8 pm to 9 pm. They returned home at 1:45 am. That evening, the other two victims, best friends Mogen and Goncalves, had gone to a downtown sports bar at 10 pm, from which they departed at 1:30 am. A livestreamed video from Twitch from The Grub Truck, a food truck four blocks south at Friendship Square (Main and Fourth Streets), showed Mogen and Goncalves at 1:41 am, chatting and smiling, getting their food ten minutes later, and leaving to take what the police initially said was an Uber ride home, a trip of about one mile (1.6 km). The police later rephrased their statement to say the ride was provided by a "private party," arriving home at 1:56 am.

All four students were home by 1:56 am. Seven uncompleted phone calls were made from the phone of Goncalves to her former longtime boyfriend, a fellow student, from 2:26 to 2:52 am. Mogen also called the boyfriend three times with similar results from 2:44 to 2:52 am. These calls were investigated with the police concluding they did not believe he was involved in the crime.

The two surviving roommates had returned home by 1 am, and were in their beds on the ground floor of the home at the time of the murders. They were not attacked or held hostage, and did not awaken until later that morning. The four victims were stabbed to death on the second and third floors in the home, where they had been sleeping. The victims were not gagged or restrained, and the walls at the scene were splattered with blood.

No calls to 911 were made until 11:58 am many hours after the early morning killings. At that time, a call was made from inside the residence, from the cellphone of one of the surviving students who lived at the residence, asking for aid for an "unconscious" person. When police arrived, the door to the home was open, there was no sign of forced entry or damage inside the home, and nothing appeared to be missing. The two surviving roommates were in the residence when the police arrived, as were other friends of the victims. The surviving roommates had called friends over to the home because they believed one of the second-floor victims was unconscious and was not waking up. The identity of the 911 caller was not released, and the person was not considered a suspect.

All four victims were pronounced deceased at 12 noon. That night, officers came upon Goncalves's dog, which she shared with her ex-boyfriend, alive and unharmed at the house; it was ultimately handed over to what police said was a 'responsible party'.

Victims

Four University of Idaho students were killed: Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Avondale, Arizona (later Post Falls, Idaho); and Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Chapin was a freshman, Kernodle was a junior, and Goncalves and Mogen were both seniors.

Aftermath

On the evening of November 13, the university canceled classes for November 14; it also scheduled a candlelight vigil to be held on the UI administration building lawn on the evening of November 16, then postponed it two weeks. From the day of the killings, investigators initially said that there was no risk to the community. Three days later, however, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said: "We cannot say that there is no threat to the community."

Fall break was scheduled to begin after November 18, with classes resuming on November 28. Many students and other Moscow residents, not trusting the initial assurances of the police and fearing for their own safety, began an early Thanksgiving holiday exodus from the area, while others who stayed were anxious and cautious, and a number of professors canceled their classes. Because of weather concerns, the candlelight vigil was moved indoors to the Kibbie Dome and held on the evening of November 30.

Investigation

The investigation of the stabbings is being conducted by the Moscow Police Department, supported by the Idaho State Police and the Latah County Sheriff's Office. In all, almost 130 members of law enforcement from the three agencies began working on the case.

On November 19, police requested the public provide any video of the house that had been recorded the night of the killings. A phone tip line and email were created for students and others to submit potential evidence to officials. By December 5, it was reported that there had been more than 2,600 emailed tips, 2,700 phone calls, and 1,000 digital media submissions from the public to these tip lines. By December 24, the investigative team reported having received at least 15,000 tips regarding the case.

The Latah County coroner conducted autopsies on the four victims on November 17. She said they all appeared to have been stabbed multiple times (with fatal wounds in the chest and upper body) with a large knife (if not the same knife, very similar ones). At least one victim (with what were apparently defensive stab wounds on her hands) and possibly more appear to have tried to fend off their attacker, and the victims may have been attacked while sleeping in their beds. None showed signs of sexual assault, and toxicology reports are pending. All four deaths were deemed homicide by stabbing. They were not tied and gagged. No weapon has been recovered, though the police believe the killer or killers used a fixed-blade knife.

The police ruled out a fellow student wearing a white hoodie seen in the video footage speaking to Mogen and Goncalves by the food truck; the person who drove Mogen and Goncalves home; the two surviving roommates, who were home during the killings; and Goncalves's former long term boyfriend whom she and Mogen had called a total of ten times that night. The authorities left open the possibility that there could be more than one perpetrator. In a November 23 press conference, the Moscow police chief said that authorities had received a number of tips including that Goncalves allegedly had a stalker, but were unable to verify that claim or identify any such individual at that time.

After receiving hundreds of tips from the public, on December 15th police announced they were searching records of approximately 22,000 Hyundai Elantras of model 2011 to 2013. An Elantra had been imaged by a camera in the area of the murders around the time when they took place.

Investigators traced ownership of this vehicle to a local individual, who drove the car with his father to Pennsylvania for the holidays. Investigators had also obtained a sample of DNA from the crime scene that did not belong to any of the victims. Using a public genealogy database, authorities identified a partial match to an individual with a familial connection to the suspect.

Suspect

A 28-year-old man, Bryan Christopher Kohberger of Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, was taken into custody by an FBI SWAT team and Pennsylvania State Police on December 30 at the home of his parents in Chestnuthill Township in Monroe County, Pennsylvania.

Kohberger (born November 21, 1994) lived in the Lehigh Valley throughout most of his life. Shortly after finishing Pleasant Valley High School in 2013, Kohberger attended Monroe Career and Technical Institute in Bartonsville but dropped out. Kohberger later attended Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, where he earned an associate's degree in psychology in 2018. After graduating from Northampton, Kohberger worked as a security guard for the Pleasant Valley School District. Around the same time, Kohberger attended DeSales University, where he received a B.A. in 2020 and an M.A. in 2022 in Criminal Justice. He relocated to Washington to pursue a PhD in the same field at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington and had completed his first semester at Pullman nine days before his arrest. The Pullman campus is about 10 miles (16 km) west of Moscow.

Arrest

Kohberger was arrested on four counts of first-degree murder and one felony count of burglary, was appointed a public defender, and detained without bond at the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. On his return to court January 3, 2023, he agreed to extradition. He was extradited on January 4, departing from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and landing at the Pullman–Moscow Regional Airport and taken to the Latah County Jail where he was held without bail.

Kohberger made his first appearance in Latah County court on January 5, 2023, and was officially charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, for breaking into a home with the intent to commit a felony. Court documents showed that Kohberger was linked to the murders through DNA evidence found on a knife sheath found at the scene.

Response

Due to the slow release of details about the crime to the public, TikTokers, self-proclaimed psychics, and social media users began to speculate and spread rumors and misinformation about the case on social media. The father of Chapin stated that "There is a lack of information from the University of Idaho and the local police, which only fuels false rumors and innuendo in the press and social media." The father of Goncalves spoke of the lack of flow of information from police to the families of the victims about eleven days after the attack, saying: "They're just so vague with everything that they say and then they like slowly peel it back later until you like find the real story."

The Moscow Police Department criticized Internet sleuths for creating rampant online rumors and disrupting investigation, and in a December 2 news release, stated that "There is speculation, without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts". They also warned that "people harassing or threatening those potentially involved with the case could face criminal charges." Moscow Police Captain Roger Lanier stated that "Tracking down rumours and quelling rumours about specific information and specific events that may not have happened is a huge distraction", and said "We are not releasing specific details as we do not want to compromise the investigation. We owe that to the families and we owe that to the victims. We want more than just an arrest. We want a conviction."

See also

• List of attacks related to post-secondary schools