MOSCOW, Idaho — Police have dismissed a series of rumors circulating about the November 13 killings of four University of Idaho students at their home near campus in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Authorities have yet to announce the suspects in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 20, and Madison Mogen, 20, sparking speculation among Moscow community members and detectives. on the Internet eager for answers.
“There’s a lot of speculation out there,” Aaron Snell, Idaho State Police public information officer, told Fox News Digital. “Ultimately, the detectives on the scene have the information. The people who are working this case from all three agencies … are the best and the brightest, and have the most up-to-date resources.”
Snell added that rumors sometimes do “a disservice to families and the community by publishing additional information that hasn’t been vetted.” She then mentioned various rumors that the police have squashed since the murders occurred.
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Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, along with the two other roommates of the women in Kaylee Goncalves’ latest Instagram post, shared the day before the murders.
(@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)
Unbound and gagged victims
Authorities have denied false rumors that the four victims were bound and gagged during the attack early in their investigation.
“At one point, we heard that the victims were bound and gagged. Well, we were able to successfully say, ‘No, that’s not accurate.’ And so, we’re trying to put that information out there,” Snell said.
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Each of the four victims had multiple stab wounds, and “some” had defensive wounds, according to the autopsy results of the Latah County coroner, but there has been no indication that they were tied up during the attack.
An investigator tapes a door shut at the house in Moscow, Idaho, on Tuesday, November 22, 2022, where four people were killed on November 13.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Murders not linked to stabbings in unsolved areas
Snell also ruled out the possibility that the quadruple murder was linked to other unsolved stabbings in the Idaho, Washington and Oregon areas.
“We do not believe at this time that … these murders are actually linked to two other knife murders that have occurred in both Pullman [Washington]as well as Oregon,” Snell said.
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He added that police are “aware of these various reports” and have “investigated them.”
Map showing a series of murders in the Washington-Idaho-Oregon region
(Fox Digital News)
“Again, that’s part of the investigation. We have excellent investigators on this case. So … we get criticism from other people who don’t have any knowledge of it,” Snell said. “It’s always a very interesting TV critique from people who aren’t aware of this specific case.”
No connection to a skinned dog nearby
The Moscow Police Department (MPD) said on November 21 that a dog found skinned from head to tail on October 21 is not related to student murders.
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Pamela Colbert’s neighbors found her missing dog, a 12-year-old Mini Australian Shepherd, completely skinned in her driveway, several miles from the site of the off-campus murders.
Members of the FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit were among investigators who returned to the Idaho crime scene where four students were brutally stabbed.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Colbert, 78, told Fox News Digital last week that he remembered a Latah County sheriff’s office supervisor telling him: “This was not done by an animal. This was done by a human.”
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The incident led some to fear there might be a correlation between the two crimes, but authorities believe they were separate. Police have also dismissed rumors of other cases involving dead animals in the area that could be linked to the Nov. 13 killings.
Identity of the 911 caller known to law enforcement
Police have not released the identity of the witness who called 911 at the scene of the killings on November 13 using the phone of one of the victims’ roommates. But police have said the person he called was a friend who did not live at the victims’ home on King Road.
Police named the four victims of an apparent quadruple homicide at the University of Idaho as Maddie Mogen, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves.
(Instagram: @maddiemogen, @kayleegoncalves, @ethanchapin4)
The caller dialed 911 at 11:58 a.m. to report an unconscious person, thinking one of the victims had passed out and would not wake up, MPD said at a news conference last week. Officers arrived at the home shortly thereafter.
It is not clear how many friends had come to the house before the MPD.
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Authorities have ruled out the 911 callers from the residence and several other people as suspects.
MPD does not believe the following people are involved: the victims’ two surviving roommates, a man who appears in a video showing Goncalves and Mogen ordering food from a food truck hours before their deaths, a driver who transported home in the early morning hours of November 13 and a man Goncalves and Mogen called multiple times just before they were killed.
