‘We certainly have a crime’: Police search for suspect in University of Idaho homicides
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University of Idaho homicides
Four U of I students were found dead in a house off campus on Nov. 13. Follow our coverage here.
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Details remain scant, but police said they were searching for a suspect after finding four University of Idaho students dead at a home just off campus in what a police official characterized as four murders.
Moscow police Capt. Anthony Dahlinger declined to say whether he would describe the deaths as violent, but reaffirmed that each of the deceased students was considered a victim. None of the four students was believed responsible for the deaths that have torn a sudden hole in the college-focused North Idaho city, he said.
“All I can say is the deaths are ruled a homicide at this point, and homicide and murder are synonymous,” Dahlinger told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “We certainly have a crime here, so we are looking for a suspect.”
Mayor Art Bettge revealed in a phone interview that the crime happened between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. Sunday, Pacific time. Police said they did not receive an initial report of an unconscious person at a house in the 1100 block of King Road until almost noon that day.
Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington, was one of the victims. His mother, Stacy Chapin, told the Statesman in a Facebook message that a friend found the bodies.
The other three victims were identified Monday as Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; and Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls. Police and the university separately confirmed that all four were U of I students.
The New York Times reported Monday that a local official called the homicides a “crime of passion.” In a later conversation, Bettge told the Idaho Statesman that when he used that descriptor to The Times, he was simply suggesting a “crime of passion” as one potential scenario.
“It could be any of a number of things,” Bettge said. “The police don’t know yet. I haven’t been told.”
Bettge said the police conclusion that there was no threat to other people in Moscow derived “from what (police) know about the crime scene itself” and the way the crime scene appeared, the mayor said.
“They have ascertained that there’s no other threat to the community,” he said. “I would say it was just a crime focused on this one location.”
A university spokesperson told the Statesman late Monday night that the university doesn’t have any information on the motive or relationships of the victims in the case.
At around 4:30 p.m. Monday, a pair of police cruisers sat parked outside the location of the four students’ deaths, while two uniformed officers stood watch over the property. Yellow police tape wrapped around a tree out front to make a perimeter that ran from the single-family home’s front door down to the end of the driveway, warning passers-by not to enter.
Several neighbors in the vicinity of the home and within several clustered apartment units nearby declined to answer questions from a Statesman reporter who knocked on doors Monday evening. Most said they didn’t know the victims and didn’t feel comfortable commenting.
Jackson LaBaugh was out for an evening walk. He said he lives in an apartment complex off Queen Road right next to the home where the four students died, but doesn’t attend the college. A police officer previously knocked on LaBaugh’s door to see whether he heard anything the morning of the deadly incident now making national headlines, he said.
LaBaugh was at home early Sunday morning, but told the Statesman the same thing he told police: He didn’t know anything. He felt for his neighbors and his community regardless.
“Nothing in life is promised,” LaBaugh said. “It sucks that four people died.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2022 at 6:57 PM with the headline "‘We certainly have a crime’: Police search for suspect in University of Idaho homicides."
