MOSCOW, Idaho – Eleven days after the grisly stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students, Moscow had become a ghost town.
It was a gloomy Thanksgiving, with almost every business on Main Street closed except for the gym. Many students had gone home to spend the holidays with the family or to distance themselves from the shocking unsolved murders.
Outside of Mad Greek, a makeshift memorial honors the victims. It is one of several that have sprung up around the city and on campus.
Two of the victims, Madison Mogen, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20, worked there. In the window there is a flyer asking for tips from the public.
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The four victims in the University of Idaho murders on November 13, 2022.
(Instagram/@kayleegoncalves)
“I don’t know what to say other than they were amazing people who didn’t deserve this,” one note read.
The two women, along with Ethan Chapin, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were stabbed to death in their sleep on November 13 between 3 and 4 a.m. in a rental home where the three young women lived with two other roommates who were not harmed Chapin was Kernodle’s boyfriend and stayed over that night.
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A woman who works at the cafeteria near the Moscow police headquarters said she did not expect anyone else to be open over the holiday.
Few cars circulated in the area. Most of the parking lots were empty.
Mourners have left notes at makeshift memorials around town and on campus for the four slain University of Idaho students.
(Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
But the researchers were seen working during the holidays, starting late in the morning.
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FBI personnel and uniformed officers came and went. A man in plain clothes briefly came out front, said police headquarters was “full” inside, and returned through the locked front doors.
FBI team members arrive at the Moscow, Idaho police department on Thanksgiving after mixed murders.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Two people arrived to drop off boxes of donuts, and at one point, a truck arrived to fuel the mobile command center, which had been parked in the gated parking lot behind the police station earlier in the day.
Moscow Police Chief James Fry did not immediately respond to questions about the Thanksgiving staff, but at a news conference Wednesday, authorities said they planned to continue the investigation over the holiday.
Moscow, Idaho, cruisers in the police station parking lot on Thanksgiving. Uniformed officers and members of the FBI were seen coming and going on the holiday morning.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Aaron Snell, director of communications for the Idaho State Police, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that investigators would be working around the clock and on Thanksgiving and over the holiday weekend.
“We have numerous detectives continuing to work, FBI agents continuing to work,” he said. “They will work during this holiday and during the weekend.”
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Outside the victims’ home, just off campus, Latah County Sheriff’s deputies stood guard. Behind them, a pink ribbon sealed the front door, marking and marking the time of each investigator who had entered.
A Latah County officer guards a crime scene on Thanksgiving morning.
(Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
Crime scene tape remains around the property, where the blinds were closed. The victims’ cars were still parked outside Thursday morning.
And the researchers have a lot of work ahead of them. A classmate told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the victims lived in a notorious “party house” where dozens of friends may have hung out in the days leading up to the murder, complicating the collection of DNA evidence in the scene.
The backyard of an off-campus home where the victims were murdered can be seen through police tape.
(Michael Ruiz/Fox News Digital)
“They could have had a party last week between 40 or 50 people, so the evidence of the hair, all of that becomes very suspicious,” said Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a retired NYPD sergeanthe told Fox News Digital. “Because of the dynamic you’re dealing with here, you have to rely on phone records, internet records and surveillance video to try to piece this together.”
Police have not publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest.
But they ruled out the two roommates who were downstairs at the time of the murders, a man who appeared on surveillance video in a food truck at the same time as Goncalves and Mogen shortly before they returned home, a driver of “private party”. who brought them to the home, Goncalves’ ex-boyfriend and a group of friends who were present at the home Sunday morning when the initial 911 call was made.
University of Idaho victims Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves seen on video footage hours before they were killed.
(Twitch/ GrubTruckers)
Police said Wednesday they had taken 4,000 photos and collected 103 “pieces of evidence.”
They also said detectives seized the contents of three rubbish bins on King Road as part of the investigation.
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They’re asking anyone with surveillance footage in the vicinity to turn them in.
They have not recovered the murder weapon and have not been able to confirm reports that Goncalves had a stalker before the attack.
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“Kaylee mentioned that she had a stalker, but detectives have not been able to corroborate the statement,” police said in a statement. “Investigators are asking anyone with information on a possible stalker, or unusual cases, to contact the tip line.”
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the tip line at 208-883-7180 or email tipline@ci.moscow.id.us.
