By Kevin Fixler and Angela Palermo | Idaho Statesman
MOSCOW, Idaho — It’s been one month since four University of Idaho students were found dead in an off-campus home, abruptly thrusting this college town into an unfamiliar spotlight that some fear may forever link it to the baffling crime the community is still struggling to comprehend.
Since Nov. 13, #MoscowHomicides and #Idaho4 have trended as social media hashtags, increasingly needing no other explanation while a nation remains transfixed. The outside attention only seems to grow with each passing week as the victims’ unthinkable stabbing deaths continue to go unsolved.
Within the bucolic North Idaho border town where residents regularly didn’t bother to lock their doors, the shocking incident has shaken their sense of security while also threatening to alter their way of life. Members of the student body and local police force have acknowledged that the city’s first homicides in seven years robbed not just the victims of their lives, but the community of its innocence.
“This is something that simply doesn’t happen in Moscow,” Mayor Art Bettge told the Idaho Statesman in an interview last week. The 30-plus-year resident took over in January as the city’s lead executive after serving two terms on the Moscow City Council.
“Nobody in this town is ever prepared for the magnitude of an incident like this,” he said. “In the past, we’ve had other incidents, but the perpetrator’s been in hand within hours and the case is closed.”
This case, however, which police call a targeted attack while refusing to offer the rationale for their conclusion, has proven different. And the absence of information from investigators, contributing to the ongoing mystery surrounding the students’ deaths that police have labeled murders, has led trained criminologists, armchair detectives and cybersleuths to shower it with intense inquiry.
The four victims who lost their lives were U of I seniors Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, and Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene; junior Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The three young women lived together with two surviving female roommates at the rental home in the 1100 block of King Road, while Chapin was staying the night with Kernodle, his girlfriend.
Bouquets of flowers in tribute at sites around the city, including the end of the driveway of the home where the victims were killed and atop a wooden table outside a downtown restaurant where two of them worked, remain where they were laid last month. But today, they rest wilted under a thick layer of snow, their condition marking the painful passage of time.
During that period, police have yet to land on a suspect, or locate the large fixed-blade knife officials say was used in the early Sunday morning slayings less than two weeks before Thanksgiving. Expanding concerns of a potential cold case — especially among some of the victims’ grieving family members — warn of a lasting cloud that could hang over the community for years to come.
Local leaders, meanwhile, are working to reassure students and residents they won’t let the tragedy come to define them.
“We don’t know how long this investigation will take and we don’t know the why behind this horrific act,” Blaine Eckles, U of I’s dean of students, said in remarks at a campus vigil held last month. “But what we do know is we will all go through this together, because that is what the Vandal family does.”
‘This is just not what you expect’
In the past two weeks, family members and friends shared fond memories and sorrowful remembrances of their loved ones at the school-organized public vigil, followed days later by a more private memorial live-streamed to a larger audience.
Mogen, a marketing major whom friends and family knew as Maddie, was a hard worker and accomplished student who loved live music, her father said. She and Kernodle were members of the U of I’s Pi Beta Phi sorority and worked together as servers at the Mad Greek restaurant downtown.
Kernodle, also majoring in marketing, was remembered by her older sister as the more worldly of the two. She rarely allowed an opportunity to pass her by, and easily made friends throughout the campus, including across Greek life.
“Losing her is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” Jazzmin Kernodle said at the Dec. 2 memorial. “She always told me she wouldn’t know what to do without me, and now I have to live this life without her.”
Chapin, a triplet whose siblings also attend the university, was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity and a recreation, sport and tourism management major. He relished campus life while tolerating school, his mother said.
Goncalves, a member of the Alpha Phi sorority majoring in general studies, had an eye for fashion, her father said. She and Mogen were tight since sixth grade, and Goncalves had plans this winter to move to Austin, Texas, for a job at a marketing firm.
On Saturday at the university’s fall commencement, U of I President C. Scott Green honored the four victims in the midst of celebrating the accomplishment of members of the rest of the student body. Goncalves was set to be among the group of graduates.
“It’s been a tough few weeks for our community and I want to acknowledge an enormous loss in our Vandal family recently,” Green said. “Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were taken from us far too soon by a senseless act of violence. They were bright lights on our campus and cherished members of our community.”
A moment of silence and hymn followed in remembrance.
Signs usually reserved for advertising at businesses throughout the city, roughly 3 square miles and populated by about 26,000 people, continue to echo the sentiments. Their messages act as a daily reminder of the loss, while encouraging residents to continue to push forward.
“Love & Prayers To All Vandals,” read the backlit board outside the A&W Restaurant along Interstate 95 at Moscow’s edge. “We Love You Moscow. Stay Safe,” another sign out front of a downtown retailer shared.
#VandalStrong in the school’s customary gold-and-black theme is now the ubiquitous message holding the tight-knit town together, even as many students decide whether they feel safe enough to return in person next semester.
This is not a place used to such notoriety. But residents’ usual anonymity is no longer a luxury they can depend upon. The uniquely designed three-story, six-bedroom King Road home, known to neighbors for frequent parties, has become etched in the minds of all who are tracking the investigation.
“This is just not what you expect,” Max Patenoude, a U of I senior studying management information systems, told the Statesman in an interview. He lives up the street from the home in an adjacent apartment complex, but said he was away working a double shift at his job at a fast-casual restaurant when his roommate texted him about the incident that Sunday afternoon.
“It being so close by, I think the proximity is kind of freaky,” said Patenoude, noting his girlfriend was friends with Mogen through their Pi Phi sorority, and is still struggling with it. “When I heard it was four people, I just couldn’t imagine.”
The devastating news has traveled the world over, drawing reporters and network television crews from across the U.S. The real-time drama even has brought some overseas outlets to town.
The popular One World Cafe located downtown is the only place in Moscow to pick up a copy of The New York Times, where it’s sold at the register. One morning, patrons and workers suddenly found their community featured on the front page of the nation’s most prominent newspaper.
“It feels rather strange and kind of sad to be highlighted by this tragedy in our small town,” Bailey Kidd, a 2019 U of I graduate working the cafe’s espresso machine, told the Statesman. “You can tell everyone’s on edge, and there’s just kind of the vibe in the air, and by the energy.”
Some of the school’s most accomplished alums say they also are affected deeply by the tragedy. U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, finished his undergraduate degree in Moscow before attending its law school. His three sons also went to U of I.
“This thing is personal to me, and I think it’s personal to Idahoans,” he told the Statesman in an interview. “It’s certainly personal to anybody that went to the University of Idaho. … It’s heartbreaking. It really is.”
Risch said he’s received condolences from contacts in Britain, France and other places, too. He recognized that his alma mater will likely be associated with the deadly incident for years to come, but was hopeful of its eventual healing.
“You can’t erase something, an event like this,” he said. “Moscow is a resilient place. It’s got a long, long history of tradition. … I don’t think it’s going to be definitive of what happens in the future.”
#VandalStrong
Police continue to build a time frame of each victim’s movements leading up to the knife attack that claimed their lives. The four victims were out in pairs around town, all returning just before 2 a.m., police have established.
Investigators also are reviewing thousands of tips from the public via email, calls and digital submissions, and analyzing test results as they come back, including with the state’s forensics team. Still, much remains unknown in the case, at least to the public.
The Moscow Police Department, for instance, hasn’t hosted a press conference to provide in-person updates and answer questions in nearly three weeks. Such decisions have earned the ire of some of the victims’ family members, for lack of new details in the case.
Specifics such as the confirmed point of entry at the victims’ rental home, extent of their injuries — even who called and spoke with 911 dispatch late the morning after the deadly incident — remain shrouded in secrecy.
“We’re not releasing specific details, because we do not want to compromise this investigation. It’s what we must do,” Moscow police Capt. Roger Lanier said in a video released Monday. “We owe that to the families, and we owe that to the victims.”
The local police department, made up of 31 sworn officers and 10 support staff, is receiving ongoing assistance from dozens of on-the-ground investigators with the Idaho State Police and FBI, including federal agents stationed in Salt Lake City and Virginia. Even so, the case and national scrutiny make for one of the most challenging criminal probes in recent memory, said Moscow Police Capt. Anthony Dahlinger, an 11-year member of the force and U of I graduate.
“Certainly this is a very large case for our town and for our community,” he told the Statesman in an interview. “And certainly we understand there’s a lot of concern, and we’re trying to do our best to help with that, but (members of the public) have been extremely supportive of the police department, and we really have been very appreciative of that.”
Likewise, Bettge, the city’s mayor, who initially termed the almost-unspeakable incident a “crime of passion” in an interview with The New York Times before later that day walking back the characterization — calling it just one of many possibilities — said the month since the quadruple homicide has been the most difficult of his political career.
The last mass homicide in the community was in 2015, when a gunman killed three and injured one in three locations around town. In 2007, a shooter killed four, including himself.
In both cases, local law enforcement was able to quickly identify the suspect.
“In this case, the open-ended nature of the crime is making everybody feel a lot less safe, a lot more concerned, and to deal with that is very difficult,” Bettge told the Statesman. “When the incident originally came out everybody was completely shocked that this had happened in our town, where major crime usually consists of bicycle theft or minor in possession.”
After the initial shock, he said, the rumor mill started. The lack of publicly available information about what occurred the night the students were killed has fueled online speculation and placed the small community under a national microscope, Bettge said.
He said he wants to continue honoring the victims, but also help the community move on.
“We owe it to the citizens of this city to try to move forward and reestablish some new sense of normality for folks,” Bettge said. “This doesn’t mean that we forget what has happened and we forget the victims that were involved — no. It means that we have to try to heal and move on with our own lives.”
It’ll take time, he said, and likely require a suspect or suspects in custody, for the community to fully heal. In the meantime, residents have become more diligent about locking their doors and traveling in pairs, Bettge said.
The city is trying to reassure its people that Moscow is still a safe place to live. Last week, for example, the city followed through with plans for its annual holiday parade and Christmas tree lighting. Hundreds of people bundled up and attended the downtown event.
Several residents left roses and notes near the tree that shared messages like “Vandal Strong,” and “We will get through this together, Moscow.”
Tributes are lined up outside a sign along Pullman Road in Moscow to honor the four students who were killed in the early morning attack Nov. 13 at their rental house just off campus. Angela Palermo | Idaho Statesman
“I don’t think anybody’s going to forget what has gone on here,” Bettge said. “But I don’t think it’s going to necessarily define the community. We’re all going to work through it together and emerge from it on the other side.”
Idaho Statesman reporter Sally Krutzig contributed to this story.
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