Idaho police say they still have no viable suspects in the massacre of four University of Idaho students at their home last month, while heartbreaking testimonies have come from the two roommates who survived the attack.
The November 13 knife attack at her off-campus home killed: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Maddie Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20.
In a statement on Saturday, the Moscow Police Department said it had received thousands of leads, but “no suspect has been identified at this time”.
Local cops and Moscow Police Chief James Fry have come under fire in recent days, including from the victims’ families, over the lack of apparent progress in the case.
In the new statement, the department said “only verified information that does not impede the investigation will be released to the public.”
“There is unfounded speculation fueling community fears and spreading false information,” the statement added.
The Moscow Police Department released the statement on Saturday, admitting it has not made any solid progress in catching the killer of four students who were murdered in their beds last month
Survivors Dylan Mortensen (left) and Bethany Funke (right) broke their silence in heartbreaking statements on Friday following the murder of their four friends: Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee’s shoulders), Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle
The Moscow police chief James Fry can be seen. Idaho police say they still have no viable suspects in the massacre of four University of Idaho students at their home last month
The department said it received 2,645 email tips and more than 2,770 calls to the tip hotline, as well as 1,084 digital media filings with the FBI.
Investigators are poring over 113 pieces of physical evidence and about 4,000 photos from the crime scene, the department said.
Meanwhile, survivors Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who slept on the first floor of the home when the killings unfolded on the upper floors, broke their silence in heartbreaking statements read by a Real Life Ministries pastor on Friday.
Mortensen wrote touching tributes to her friends, saying that Kernodle and Chapin, who were a couple, were “the two best of friends but a perfect couple together”.
“They had this unstoppable, loving relationship. They both looked at each other with so much love. Everyone knew they were the perfect duo,” she wrote.
“They both had this fun, passionate, crazy but good energy. They were both the kind of people who cared about everyone and would help everyone.
She went on to describe Mogen and Goncalves as “an inseparable duo” who were “like second mothers to me.”
In her own statement, Funke said she wishes she could give each of her roommates “one last hug” and tell them how much she “loves” them.
“You always told me that everything happens for a reason, but I’m having a really hard time understanding why,” Funke wrote to her murdered roommate Mogen.
The Moscow Police Department has not yet named a suspect or made any arrests.
The investigators have not yet found a weapon either, the department wrote in a press release on Wednesday.
Autopsies revealed the four students were stabbed, likely with a fixed-blade knife, and investigators checked local shops to see if military-style knives had been sold recently.
All four victims were friends and members of the Greek university system.
Xana Kernodle, 20, was a junior student studying marketing. A native of Post Falls, Idaho, she joined the on-campus Pi Beta Phi sorority. She lived in the rented apartment with the other two women who were stabbed and she was with Ethan Chapin, who was visiting on the night of the murders.
Chapin, also 20, was from Mount Vernon, Washington and was a triplet. His brother and sister also attend UI, and both Chapin and his brother were members of the Sigma Chi Brotherhood.
Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen were both 21 and friends who grew up together in northern Idaho. Mogen worked with Kernodle at a local Greek restaurant in Moscow. She was also a member of Pi Beta Phi.
Goncalves was a senior general education major, a member of the Alpha Phi sorority, and was planning a trip to Europe next year.
Police have released statements revealing the victims’ movements on the night of the killing, in an appeal for the public for information.
Goncalves and Mogen went to a local bar, stopped at a food truck and then drove home with a private party around 1.56am, according to a police timeline from the evening.
Chapin and Kernodle were at Sigma Chi’s home – a short walk away – and returned to Kernodle’s home around 1.45am, police said.
Two other housemates who live in the house were also out that evening but returned home at 1am, police said. They woke up later in the morning.
After waking up, they called friends to their home, believing that one of the victims found on the second floor had passed out and would not wake up.
At 11:58 a.m., someone inside the home called 911 from a roommate’s cell phone. Several people spoke to the dispatcher before police arrived.
Police found two of the victims on the second floor of the three-story house and two on the third floor. A dog was also unharmed in the house.
Autopsies showed the four were probably all asleep when attacked, some had defensive wounds, and each was stabbed multiple times. According to police, there were no signs of sexual assault.
Before Steve Goncalves said Wednesday that his daughter Kaylee died in the same bed as Maddie, the college students were believed to have died here — though it’s still unknown which top-floor bedroom they were in were
Kaylee and Madison were found on the top floor of the house in Moscow, Idaho. College lovers Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were found in a second-floor bedroom, while survivors Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke were sleeping on the first floor
On Wednesday night, detectives announced they were unsure whether the slain University of Idaho students were being attacked by the killer, contradicting Chief James Fry, who previously insisted that was the case.
“We think they’re being targeted because we’re considering all the circumstances that we’re looking at,” Fry told reporters on November 20, a week after the killings. The statement was recently repeated by Latah County Attorney Bill Thompson.
But the department has since filed a correction, which said: “Detectives do not currently know if the apartment or any residents were targeted but are continuing to investigate.”
Nearly three weeks after the Grizzly murders, few replies have come out, although the father of one of the victims said the killer was “careless” and left a “mess” of evidence.
Anyone with information about the killings is urged to contact the Moscow Police Hotline at 208-883-7180.