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United StatesMystery around a quadruple murder of students in Idaho
Living in a roommate, three young women and a man were found stabbed with knives. A month later, still no suspect in this case that fascinates America.
The four victims: Kaylee Goncalves carrying Madison Mogen on her shoulders and Ethan Chapin with Xana Kernodle. The two blurred people are the housemates who weren’t woken up while the others were stabbed to death.
It is 11:58 a.m. on Sunday, November 13, when the emergency services receive a call from students at 1122 King Road in Moscow, a town in the middle of the hills of Idaho, a rural state in the American northwest. On the spot, the police discover four corpses: two on the first floor, two on the second. The bodies of Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, both 21, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin, 20 each and a couple, are stabbed with stab wounds. No trace of a sexual crime was found, but some of the victims had defense wounds.
According to the first elements of the investigation, these uneventful students were killed in their sleep, without waking up their two other roommates in this three-storey white house with small windows. The time of the crime? Between 2:52 a.m., the time of the last calls recorded on Kaylee Goncalves’ phone, and the call for help at the end of the morning. Everyone had partied the night before, an ordinary student Saturday night.
The father of Kaylee Goncalves, one of the victims, said on Sunday December 11 that the bodies bore large gaping wounds which he said were clearly the work of a sadist, reports the BBC.
Hours of surveillance video analyzed
Quickly, a hundred investigators from the local police, that of the State and the FBI are mobilized. They collect 113 seals, 4000 photographs and more than 5000 clues. But “there are currently no known suspects, no arrests or any weapons found,” summarizes the police on its website. On Monday, Dec. 12, Roger Lanier of Moscow police said an “army of analysts” were watching surveillance videos from across the city that were uploaded by residents and business owners. “As you can imagine, there are hours and hours and hours of video, so it takes a long time.”
The list of individuals cleared of all suspicion is longer: the two surviving roommates; a hooded man seen near Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen as they bought food from a “food truck” on their way out of a bar, around 1:30 a.m.; the one who led them to the now cursed house; the friends called in the morning by the surviving roommates; a man who would have followed Kaylee several months before.
fear on campus
The news item is fueling fear on the University of Idaho campus. Many students have taken refuge with their parents, continuing their studies remotely, far from a city now covered in snow where there have been increased police patrols and security around schools. Anxiety boosted by a discourse of the authorities as fluctuating as it is stingy with information.
It is a “crime of passion”, declared the mayor of Moscow the day following the murders, before returning to his remarks. The following day, the police reassured by saying that there was “no danger”, the attack being “isolated and targeted”, then backpedaled, being more evasive. Saturday, four weeks later, she still called on the public to “move as a group”.
The police are silent on the details
And then, the investigators are careful not to make public a number of details: where exactly were the victims found? What are their plagues? What traces, fingerprints, DNA samples were collected? What is the content of the first call for help? These unanswered questions have sparked a rumor mill online.
On a branch of the giant Reddit forum, thousands of apprentice investigators develop all sorts of speculations, dissect video surveillance images in their own way, and even go on site. The man in the hood next to the two girls near the food truck is him, his gait is suspicious, some claim, even though the police have removed him from the list of suspects. He’s a serial killer, a professional, that’s for sure, others allege. Pools are calling for funds to help a family recruit a private investigator.
And what regarding this white Hyundai that is still wanted by the police and was seen near the house on the day of the murders? On a Facebook group of more than 75,000 members dedicated to the case, an Internet user linked her to a theft a few days earlier and called the police, 996 comments rained down. Faced with the influx of calls concerning this car, the authorities had to resort to a federal call center. The police now devote most of their press releases to denying outlandish assumptions
(AFP/MP)
