Idaho investigators were seen taking photos and measurements of some tire tracks outside the home where four college students were killed last Sunday, while some are wondering if it could be connected to a heinous crime against a dog.
Moscow police believe victims Kaylee Goncalvez, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20, were stabbed to death at their home near campus between 3am and 4am.
A local reporter said they were state forensics investigators who photographed the tracks.
Latah County Prosecuting Attorney Bill Thompson said Saturday that law enforcement is trying to ‘expedite everything’ that could solve the case, the first murder recorded in the city of Moscow in seven years.
Meanwhile, local sleuths on Facebook are attempting to connect the killings to the story of a man who found his neighbors’ dog skinned alive just two miles away from where they were last seen.
On October 22, a man named Clint Hughes posted on Facebook that his neighbors’ ‘sweet little dog was skinned like a deer. No animal did this. Our dog is bigger, and was so anxious about the same time that he tore his bed up into a thousand pieces. Also, our cat has been missing for the last couple of days.’
In a Facebook group, it was noted that the girls were last seen in public just under two miles away from the area where the dog was murdered.
They also note that the four students were killed with a knife, which would’ve been used in skinning the dog.
DailyMail.com has attempted to contact Hughes for comment.
Kaylee Goncalvez, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, are believed to have been calling a ‘young man’ named ‘jack’ just minutes before they were killed in a brutal stabbing alongside Ethan Chapin, 20, and Xana Kernodle, 20
Idaho investigators were seen taking photos and measurements of some tire tracks outside the home where four college students were killed last Sunday
Local sleuths on Facebook are attempting to connect the killings to the story of a man who found his neighbors’ dog skinned alive just two miles away from where they were last seen
Mogen and Goncalves, both 21 and friends since 6th grade, were last seen at a downtown bar and a food truck outside, before returning home at 1:45am.
The other two, Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend Ethan Chapin – who did not live at the house – were at a party on campus on Saturday night.
All four were back in the house by 1:45am on Sunday morning, and were murdered between 3-4am.
Their two roommates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, were in the house at the time of the murders but survived. They’re not considered suspects in the killings. Cops have yet to arrest anyone in connection with the killings and have pleaded for eyewitnesses to come forward.
On Friday it emerged that the four may have been stabbed to death in their beds.
Kaylee’s sister Alivea (left) said ‘a lot of people’ had access to the house and the code to the front door because the girls were so sociable and revealed that the girls had collectively called ‘jack’ 10 times before the massacre
Police in Moscow, Idaho on Friday released a map showing the last known movements of the four students murdered in the early hours of Sunday. They were stabbed to death, possibly in their own beds
Police appealed for assistance in tracking down the killer or killers
Kaylee Goncalves (left) and her best friend and roommate Madison Mogen
Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle. Kernodle lived at the house with the other two women who were killed, plus two more roommates. Chapin, Kernodle’s boyfriend, was staying at her home
Cathy Mabbutt, Latah County Coroner, told NewsNation that the victims were found in bed with multiple stab wounds to their chest, and described the weapon as a ‘really large knife.’
She told Idaho News that the attack seemed ‘personal.’
He also noted that some of the victims appeared to have fought back, according to the New York Times.
The house that the six women shared showed no signs of a break in, police said at a press conference on Wednesday.
James Fry, chief of Moscow police, said nothing appeared to have been stolen from the house, which had a keycode lock.
‘We’re not 100pc sure if the door was unlocked, but there was no damage to anything and the door was still open when we got there,’ said Fry.
Asked about the mayor of Moscow’s description of the killing as a ‘crime of passion’, Fry said they were looking into it, and also investigating social media posts and any boyfriends or relationships the women had.
‘We’re looking at everyone,’ said Fry.
‘Every tip, every lead. There’s no one we’re not going to talk to.
‘We’re going to make sure nothing goes unturned.’
James Fry, chief of Moscow police, is seen on Wednesday addressing a press conference
Fry confirmed that they still had not identified a suspect in Sunday’s killing, and confirmed there were two roommates in the house at the time of the murders
Kernodle’s father Jeffrey has revealed his theory that the killer may have slipped into the house through a sliding door off the kitchen.
The four University of Idaho students who were found dead in off-campus housing
‘The door locks with a number code.
‘Every time you go, you have to go around the house because of the number code so they either knew that or went around and maybe found the slider door open,’ he told Arizona Family.
Goncalves’s sister Alivea said that many of the other young people in the area had access to the house and knew the code for the door.
‘There was a key pad on their front door,’ she told KHQ.
‘I will say, due to the closeness of the community and due to the safeness of it, I think a lot of people had access to that door.
‘But yes, that door had a keypad code on it.
‘They lived on one of the most iconic streets of being seniors it’s kind of a well known place.
‘I know my sisters and I know for a fact they locked their doors.’
She said they were deeply disturbed by the targeted killings.
‘It wasn’t a hit and run, it wasn’t a car accident. Someone did this with a purpose of doing this. Not once, not twice, not three times but four times.
‘I don’t know of anything scarier than that. I don’t know what more people could be scared of. I do want to add that being vigilant in this case isn’t enough.
This is the sliding door that one of the girls’ fathers believe may have been used by the killer to gain access to the home in the early hours of Sunday morning. All four victims were stabbed in their beds
Eyes all round: There are multiple homes near the property but so far, no neighbors have come forward with any information that has led to the killer
Another sliding door in the home opens into the master bedroom. It’s unclear where exactly each student was sleeping, but they were all in their beds
The murder scene home is on King Road in Moscow, a quiet cul de sac near the University of Idaho campus
Blood drips down the outside of the wall of the house the four students shared. Investigators describe it as the worst crime scene they have ever seen
‘They were vigilant. They went out in pairs.
‘They only went downtown in a trusted Uber. They only came home in a trusted Uber. They only went to trusted places that they went every other weekend.’
She made a desperate plea to the other college students in the town.
‘If you saw someone acting out of their nature, I know it’s important to protect family and friends and I know those ties of loyalty are strong but you should be scared,’ she said.
‘If you noticed off behavior, if you noticed something in the shared bathroom trashcan, if you noticed a weird smudge on the fridge after your roommate came home late, call it in.
‘Any injuries, anything at all. Worst case scenario the police talk to them and they get to go home and you did your job,’ she said.
The families said they are becoming frustrated with the lack of action by the local police department.
The killer remains on the loose with no real leads or suspects named.
Kaylee’s sister, Alivea Goncalvez, told Inside Edition that her sibling and Madison had started making calls to Jack, who she described to be a ‘young man,’ at about half past two on the morning of the brutal massacre.
‘Kaylee calls Jack six times between 2.26 am and 2.44 am,’ Goncalvez said.
‘From 2.44 to 2.52 Maddie calls Jack three times, then Kaylee makes a final call to him at 2.52 am.’
Photos on social media posted by Kaylee show her with a young man named Jack – however it is unclear whether this is the same person she and Madison had been calling.
Its been revealed that Kaylee may have also had a stalker – the 21-year-old complaining about this person just months before her death.
‘THEY COULD HOLD THE KEY’: TWO IDAHO STUDENTS WHO SURVIVED STABBINGS ARE PICTURED
The two University of Idaho students who survived the crazed knife attack that left four of their friends dead at their shared off-campus rental house are students Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, DailyMail.com can reveal.
On Wednesday, police revealed both Dylan and Bethany were in the modest Moscow home at the time of the attack but miraculously survived the carnage.
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell said the two survivors are helping police with their investigation but would not give further details of how they survived or whether either Dylan or Bethany called 911 later on Sunday morning.
DailyMail.com can reveal the two roommates who escaped death while their four friends were knifed at their off-campus house are Bethany Funke (left) and Dylan Mortensen, (right)
He also told DailyMail.com the pair are not suspects but said every possibility is being looked at by the investigative team which now includes detectives from the Idaho State Police and the FBI as well as the Moscow Police Department.
Neither Dylan, 19, who is from Boise, Idaho, nor Bethany, a member of sorority Phi Beta Phi, have responded to messages from DailyMail.com and both have locked their social media profiles.
But both girls appear frequently on accounts that belonged to Madison and Kaylee – including a poignant Instagram post made by Madison on August 16 that shows all five girls together posing happily on the back porch of the home where three of them died on Sunday.
The two girls also appear in photos posted by Kaylee hours before she died which she captioned: ‘One lucky girl to be surrounded by these ppl every day’.
Another set of photos showing Dylan and Kaylee together was posted last Friday night and shows the pair dressed up for a night out.
Dylan Mortensen (left) and Bethany Funke (middle) lived in a modest Moscow rental house with fellow University of Idaho students Xana Kernodle (second from left) Kaylee Goncalves (second from right) and Madison Mogen (right)