Law&Crime Sidebar - Idaho Quadruple Murders: Everything Known So Far

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Students at the University of Idaho returned to class Monday a little more than two weeks after four students were murdered in a home off-campus. Moscow Police say they're sifting through hundreds of videos and photos looking for clues and more than 100 pieces of evidence have been submitted to the crime lab for testing. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy talks with forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan about how the holiday break could have impacted the investigation, the possible murder weapon and where the investigation stands.GUEST:Joseph Scott Morgan: https://twitter.com/JosephScottMorgLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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University of Idaho students go back to class after the long holiday weekend, as police seem to have few leads in the murders of four students at their home off campus. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and welcome to Law and Crimes Sidebar Podcast. We are taking a closer look at what we know so far in the murders of those four students a little more than two weeks ago. Maddie Mogan, Kaylee Goncalvis, Ethan Chapin, and Zana Kurnodle had been out for the night and were killed sometime after they returned home in the early morning hours of November 13. Maddie and Kaylee were captured on a Twitch stream video at the Grub Truck that was a food, truck shortly before they went home for the night. They had been at the corner club bar before that. Ethan and Zana were dating and had been at a party at the Sigma Kai house earlier in the evening. Here's Captain Roger Lanier of the Moscow Police Department discussing the timelines so

far. On the evening of November 12th and into the early morning hours of November 13th, Kaylee and Madison arrived home at approximately 1.45 a.m. after visiting a local bar, and a street food vendor. Ethan and Zana were also out in the community at Sigma Chai, and they arrived home at approximately 1.45 a.m. Two surviving roommates who were also out in the community arrived home at approximately 1 a.m. Now, later that morning, it was 11.58 a.m.

A 911 call was placed from one of the surviving roommates' cell phones. They had actually called a friend to the house because they believed one of the people who was actually killed was sleeping and unconscious. Police say the 911 call takers had actually spoken to more than one person who was at the home at the time. Autopsies revealed that the victims were all stabbed and some of them had defensive wounds. Others were stabbed as they were sleeping. Police have said there were no signs of sexual assault. So far, police say they've been able to rule out some people related to the investigation. Joining me to discuss the very latest on this case is forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan, who's been following this case very closely since the beginning.

Joseph, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Ann Janette. The timing of this is really interesting and kind of peculiar. This happened a week or so week and a half before the long holiday weekend. So is there any way that that could have impacted the investigation, the fact that kids may have been getting ready to go home for the holiday? Yeah, yeah. In my estimation, yes, of course it could. As a college professor myself and living and working in a university environment, it's kind of amazing when you have these events that kind of shake the university to its core and it extends out. And with an event like this, you've already, you know, let's just think about what the kids are thinking about at this moment and time prior to this event. They've had a long semester. They're coming to the end of it. They see the finish line.

Thanksgiving is on this way. And all of a sudden, bam, this horrible event occurs. They were already thinking about leaving anyway. The floodgate was kind of open when news kind of leached out about this. And people were probably stumbling over their self to get to their cars to leave, to flee to safety, to get home. And from an investigative standpoint, this is a person. storm. You begin to see things in a different light. You think, well, is it worth me hanging around for another day, another night when I know that people that might not be in my immediate

circle, or at least peripheral to me, have had this event that has rocked us to our core. I think I'm leaving. Well, when that happens, the investigators lose a big chunk of potential interviewees, they've left. And here, here's the thing about doing an investigation. Sometimes, sometimes for the investigators, they can stimulate something in the brain of an interviewee that the interviewee might not have thought about. And all of a sudden, information comes out. It comes flowing back to the police. And think about how large this university is. If you're, I've heard estimates, you know, 10 to 11,000 people inhabit this small space. It's amazing how many of these individuals may very well have data contained in their brain or in their remembrances that they might just dismiss and say, well, that wasn't important.

But then you contextualize it when you're sitting across the table from an investigator and suddenly something clicks and you have important data flowing in. Now we're two weeks down range at this moment, Tom. Think about this. Two weeks down range, memories begin to fade after this period of time. recall is not immediate. So not only do you have a scene that is highly complex from a forensic standpoint, from when you're trying to gather biological evidence, now on the other side, you've got this kind of lack of communication or interaction

with individuals that might have knowledge about the case. So I would assume as an investigator, you would want to kind of put that plea out again. if you have kids who are returning back to school, you put that plea out again or you're going through the cell phone dumps of these victims, which can be very tedious and time-consuming. And you're probably looking to say, hey, we need to talk to you. Anybody who knew these people, who knew any of the victims, who might have some information. So I'm assuming we'll hear another plea for people to come forward. Yeah, yeah, you will.

And the other thing that you have to kind of entertain with this. And you don't know if their remembrances have now been kind of polluted by virtue of the fact of everything they've heard in the news. Because trust me, when they're at home, they've been watching this and they're back at mom and dad's house. They've been watching this. This is where they go to school. This is where they live their lives. And so all of that data is coming in and it can perhaps impact those remembrances that we've just talked about. and it kind of creates it creates a headache for the investigators and it

diminishes the potential for clarity you know if you if you had gotten to people like within that 24 to 48 hour window that that could have worked and you know this increases exponentially we've got four victims so each one of these victims have individual lives where they're going to class they're going out to eat maybe they've got jobs and they're interacting with all of these different people that populate this area So from a mathematical standpoint, when you begin to think about this, it becomes highly complex. And that, that again is a problem. I've been looking at some of the stats that the Moscow Police Department has released. So far, more than 260 pieces of digital evidence, whether that's photographs or

video, have been uploaded to the FBI's link. 113 pieces of physical evidence have been submitted to the Idaho State Police Crime Lab for processing. We know those things can take some time, even though they may be putting a rush on it. So we're a little more than two weeks in. What should investigators know by now? Well, I think that what they know, and this is, you know, kind of obvious, you know, on my part, you know, when you begin to think about this, they know that they have something that they're dealing with that is very complex, particularly when you begin to think about the biological evidence that I've already mentioned. I always return back to the idea of commingling of this evidence. And I'm talking specifically about blood evidence. And also that's layered on top

of that, Antoinette, is the problem. If we are to believe what we have heard, this location was a hangout spot for a lot of kids that come and go. And there's no negative connotation. People do that in college. I did that in college. Everybody I know did that in college. There was a place that you went to, friends, off campus. Well, for every person that entered into that resident, there's a potential that they left some remnant of themselves behind. And right now I'm talking about touch DNA. Not only that, I'm thinking about the shedding of hair because you lose, you lose hair in this environment as well.

And the trouble that that presents for the forensic scientist is they have to weigh through all of that potential data and examine it bit by bit to try to understand who this is connected to. Also, you begin to kind of whittle this down. You're five, well, let me see. Let me get my arithmetic right. You're six knowns that inhabit that space day in and day out. You've got five roommates and you've got a boyfriend.

Well, you also have to think about, did anybody else in that environment have a romantic partner that might visit it, that might be visiting that location on a more than regular basis? They're kind of in and out. They might have access to the property. So that's another person that would be connected to this. Then you think about, well, did parents help anybody move in or move out? Have parents been there? So you think about their DNA. And then you've got the hangout crowd.

All of those people that kind of migrate through this location in and out, what are they dragging in with them? So it is a daunting undertaking for people that work and trace evidence and specifically for those that work in DNA. Police have been battling a lot of things having to do with this case, including the spread of rumors. And they addressed one of these when they discussed the 911 call that was placed from the home on November 13th. So let's listen as Captain Lanier discusses the 911 call in this case. We have not released the names of any of the subjects who spoke on the 911 call, and we have not released the call itself. any online reports of the victims being tied and gagged are not accurate. Joseph, you heard Captain Lanier saying that the victims in this case were not tied or gagged or anything like that.

So obviously there are a lot of rumors spreading about this case and they're trying to dispel those rumors. But the 911 call itself, do you find it unusual that that has not been released? A lot of times in cases, we hear these 911 calls. are released pretty quickly, but they're not talking about who was on the call, who placed the call, and they're not letting us hear it. So why is that? Yeah, I think that it's a major piece of evidence, or at least the police view it that way. And they want to try to keep this as locked down as they possibly can. I take issue, I think, with people that say that the police are lagging or they're not on top of things as they should be. I think just the opposite. I think they're really on top of this,

and that they are trying to keep in check all of the evidence that they have, whether it be, you know, the blood evidence and, you know, I've heard all these wild things about people, perpetrator, possibly taking a shower at the residence and changing, brought a change of clothes with them. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but a lot of the stuff is wild speculation because people want information for whatever reason. And I don't necessarily think that it's the people that, occupy Moscow, Idaho, I think more than anybody, they want these crimes solved. People just have

a thirst for information. And so things can kick off very, very easily. And rumors can start. I have no understanding where the idea of binding came up. That seems like it would be unusual with four victims, right? Yeah, it would be. How are you going to maintain that? And then, you know, you open the door up, well, you know, I've heard people say that there were more than, that there was more than one perpetrator. I even heard one wild rumor that said there were three that went in. And I don't see how people are coming to these conclusions at this point. And at this point, it's total and complete speculation until the police confirm it. And they're not going to releasing this information. Information is the coin of the realm, if you will. The data here is

the coin of the realm. And they have to protect it very carefully. Because if they, if they they don't know who the perpetrator is, okay, at this point, anything that they can release if they capture somebody in this case, any information that is disseminated to the general public is disseminated to the perpetrator. And they can adjust their statement when they are finally brought in for questioning. It's interesting you bring that up because one of the things I've been thinking about is the fact that they've released information about the murder weapon in this case, or at least what they believe to be the murder weapon. And they've said that they believe they're looking for a fixed blade knife. That to me was pretty shocking because I'm

listening to this press conference and they're talking about this. And this seems like a really key piece of evidence. It is the key piece of evidence in this case. It could lead you to the killer. Obviously, you want the public to know maybe what you're looking for and if they've seen something like this. But it also tips off the killer. So what were your thoughts? on them releasing the fact that they believe this was a fixed blade knife because they were obviously probably able to tell what made these wounds, or at least the coroner, was able to do so. Yeah, yeah, they would have been. And I was shocked. I was shocked because let's go over the descriptors that we've heard. We've heard military style. We've heard Rambo style. We've heard hunting

knife. And more specifically, we've heard Kbar. And Kbar is a type of knife that is associated primarily with the Marine Corps. Our Marines have carried K-Barr since I'm probably going to get this wrong, but I think since World War II or maybe even before, it's a very specific type of knife. You can purchase them anywhere, though. You don't have to be a Marine to own one. And so that's very specific. Where's all of that coming from? Okay. You know, all of these different identifiers relative to the type of knife that keeps coming up. I think the one thing that you can take away from this is that it is a single-edged weapon because military-style knives are not double-edged weapons, you know, where you're thinking about like a dagger, for instance. It has, with military-style

knife, they have a facility to them where you'll have an edged, an edge side. And many times along the spine, that is the bulky backside part of it, you can't have a saw, like saw-teeth. and they're very robust looking so that if you're in a survival situation, you can saw down small saplings and these sorts of things. Also, a military-style knife, one of the features of it, and remember, you said fixed blade. This is not a flip knife. This is not like what people would call a pocket knife or a buck knife or that sort of thing.

Many times with a military-style knife, it will have a hilt guard, and that's that little bar that separates the handle from the blade. And when you're examining wounds that are brought about as a result of the use of a weapon with a hilt guard, it'll leave a contusion around the actual wound itself because obviously that's not going to penetrate into the body, but it'll contuse the body as a result of the stab wound. So you've got the blade leading into the body and then where the hilt guard is, it will leave a contusion adjacent to the injury itself, to the fatal injury or to the stab. I want to take a look now at just this TikTok video. that Kaylee Gunkalvis posted on October 27th. It's just her and some of the roommates just having a little bit of fun.

Hey guys, I know I talk about myself a lot, but like, what would you guys do in my situation? Dan, where are you going? Yeah, I've got to the group pole. Yeah, I've got to go home already. Joseph, it's really sad for me to look at this video and to see these girls, they're, these young women, really, really just having a fun time

and then to think what happened to two of them, a couple of weeks later, one of the things that they've been talking about on these press conferences is the fact that there have been reports that Kaylee Guncalvis thought she had a stalker. Police said they've been looking into that and they haven't found any evidence of that, but that they are continuing to look into that. These are people, you know, obviously who were really active on social media. So your thoughts on this kind of rumor that's been spreading around or maybe it's not really a rumor, but the information that she may have had a stalker.

Well, this is the age that we live in because it's not just your business or even back in the days before there was this proliferation of social media. It's not just like the population of the University of Idaho is involved in this. Now you're sending this out far and wide. Everybody has access and as scary as this is an insight into your life. You just mention them kind of cutting up in this environment. imitating one another, that sort of thing. That's very intimate. In the past, we might have a joke between us as friends and might mimic another person.

That view into their life is very intimate, and it gives you a peek into a window of their life. And for every little peak that you glean there, the opportunity is that anybody that is a vicious killer that's opportunistic can see. the world that you inhabit. Because what did we learn? Well, we learned something about the personalities of these young women. We learned something about the physical structure, didn't we? We could see. I think I saw a staircase in there. I saw them walking around. You know, you kind of get a sense for the orientation of the place. Yeah. Yeah. So you're opening the whole world up to the space that you occupy. In the most intimate sense, everybody can see. And it's terrifying. It is absolutely terrifying. Well, Joseph Scott Morgan, we want people who have information, tips about this case, suspicions, even if people think it's not important, they need to report it to law enforcement, and they can do that. There's a tip line. It's 208-883-71880. There's also an email. It's tipline at c.moscow.org.com.com.com.com.com.com.

forensic death investigator. Thanks as always for your time and your expertise. We really appreciate it. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg. Logan Harris does our video editing. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings and Kiera Bronson does our social media. You can download and listen to Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And you can also watch it, as always, on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. And we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this

law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.