Law&Crime Sidebar - Idaho Quadruple Murders of College Students: The Story So Far

Episode Date: November 22, 2022

Four University of Idaho college students were brutally murdered inside their home on November 13 while two of their roommates were home. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy and forensic death investigator Joseph Scott Morgan discuss the latest on the investigation and break down the story so far.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.

This incident. Wondry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister,

lurks in the grandview shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Has shaken our community, has continued to shake our community, and we continue to mourn for the victims. It's been a little more than a week since four University of Idaho students were found stabbed to death in their beds, in their sleep, in their home. No arrests have been made, and it appears there are very few clues at this point. Police held a news conference to discuss what happened

in the early morning hours of November 13th. On the evening of November 12th, Kaylee Gonzalez and Madison Muggen were at a local bar and were later at a food truck in downtown Moscow. They arrived home at approximately 1.45 a.m. on the morning of November 13th. Ethan Chapin and Xana Kurnodal were at the Sigma Chi House before also arriving home at approximately 1.45 a.m. Two surviving roommates were also out in the community, and they returned home at approximately 1 a.m. and did not wake up until later that morning. Just before noon, that morning, someone found the bodies of Ethan Chapin, Zana Kurnodl, Maddie Mogan, and Kaylee Guncalvis. And people are terrified by this. At first, the police were trying to calm people's fears and telling them not to worry, but then they kind of walked that back.

So joining me to discuss what goes into solving a crime like this is Joseph Scott Morgan. He is a forensic death. investigator and a frequent guest on law and crime. Joseph, welcome back to Sidebar. Hey, Antoinette. Thanks for having me. I want to know what your initial thoughts are on this. Obviously, this is a horrific thing. They said that the autopsies revealed that all four of these students were stabbed. They were likely asleep in their beds at the time and that some had defensive wounds. They said that the two other roommates in the house have been cleared as suspects along with the person who called 911. So it seems like we have a real mystery on our hands. Yeah, we do. And the first word that really came to mind when I began to hear information

trickle out about this is complicated. And it is. It just makes sense. You know, the more victims you have progressively, the more complicated a scene becomes. And particularly one, heard a lot of people throw around the term intimate and personal. And listen, sharp force injuries are intimate and personal. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's a sexual connotation with it. It's just that when someone is killed, it's not like firing a weapon at someone at a great distance, you're in their space at that moment time, not just once, not twice, not three times, but four times. And so for me, having not seen the scene, obviously, but reflecting back in my career, any time I've had edged weapons that have been involved in a crime like this, you're

going to have copious amounts of blood. And of course, blood can reveal a lot of things. It truly can. I mean, we can learn all kinds of stuff. We can do a DNA profile. You know, we can, and even more generally, you know, we can do blood type. However, they cover up a lot of things with all of the transfer evidence, crusted blood that you'll have on surfaces and, of course, unfortunately, on the bodies, you won't be able to appreciate anything immediately. So it, it, they have got a herculean task in front of them. It would be a herculean task for a large department, but, you know, we're talking, we're talking about a very tiny police department. Sure. And they are being assisted by the FBI. They said that they have two behavioral analysis unit investigating.

and then many more agents assisting with this case. They've also received 646 tips so far. And the police chief said that all will be investigated. And to this point, they've conducted 90 interviews. So I find it interesting to Joseph that it's kind of sad, actually, that we're talking about a case where social media age, they said that there are so many people throwing out people's names online. They tried to dispel some of that at the press conference. But how do you go about eliminating suspects in this case. They say they've already eliminated the roommates and the person who called 911. They're not disclosing who called 911, but they're saying that these people have been eliminated. So where do you go from here? You have four students. I'm assuming this thing

just kind of grows in mushrooms because you're trying to look at everybody who's involved with these four people. Yeah. And think about it if for many of us that have regular jobs, I'm a college professor, so it's not really a regular job. But when you have a regular job, you've got a very tight-knit circle of people that you interact with on a daily basis that have been in collegiate environments can identify with the fact that that circle is gigantic okay in a university setting you might not have day-to-day contact with people but you're going to be surrounded by probably more people on a day-to-day basis than you will at any other part of any other time in your life people that you don't know people that might be sitting next to you eating lunch

people that you walk into class with that you don't know. I mean, you're in a classroom with 40 people. You're not going to know everybody in there. So that for the police, everybody is a suspect, a person of interest, if you will, until they can begin to narrow that down. And it's obviously they have started with a normal progression here, all right? You think about the roommates that were present with them that night, those, you know, two that were left alive, they've checked them off at this point. So they're kind of progressing out. And you work, you work concentrically, you know, out to the periphery. So you start with everybody that's in the tight, intimate group that they've been to parties with, they hang out with regularly. Because it's not necessarily

that those people are full on suspects, but they might know somebody that said something or did something that was menacing in some way, some creepy guy that was hanging around that was on the peripheral, the periphery of their lives, that kind of gave them a bad feeling. You have to go out and interview all of these people. So the fact that they've gotten a lot of tips is not surprising in a case like this. You mentioned we're in social media age, obviously. So you have all of that to contend with as well. There'll be people out there that truly do want to assist. And of course, there's other people that want to create havoc sometimes. You'll get calls that come in that mean nothing whatsoever. So you have to be very skilled now, particularly

nowadays as a police officer when you go to run down these these leads and I want to add because you had mentioned this earlier about this being an intimate crime stabbing there were no signs of sexual assault the police chief said that from the autopsy so we would want to clear that up as well I find this just to be really confusing Joseph because they this person stabbed four people I mean I can't imagine having somebody stabbed and not screaming and waking up the person next to me. So are we talking one person here or are we talking more than one one stabber or more than one assailant? I got to tell you, you know, I think that some of these people that have been disseminated information have stated, I think a couple of them had stated that they felt this was

one person. Now, I rely on that. I think that we all do. That's, you know, is being put out at this point in time. Is it possible more than one person can be involved? Possibly. Because you, you're talking about four people are deceased, right? So my big question, when this first kind of came across my field of view was, well, if that's the case, how do you control, how do you control four people in order to facilitate this? This is not like somebody walked in with a handgun and shot everybody. But the coroner openly stated, which again was interesting because she spoke, she gave conference before the police had actually had a comp. And, you know, she said that they were asleep when this occurred. Okay. Well, they're asleep. So

that means that the individual that engaged in this, the perpetrator, was systematic. You can kind of, if that's the case, if what they're saying is accurate, the takeaway is, okay, well, they had to be familiar with the location, the layout, because anybody could agree. This floor plan is kind of odd. you've got a split level kind of, you know, structure here. They're saying there's a first floor, but it's really not a true first floor. It's more like a basement. And you have the second floor that has entrance through sliding glass doors, which is kind of on a flat plane.

You can look out through those windows, I think, the Zillow photos. And you can see for some distance, you've got the top floor. So the individual didn't apparently harm the people on the bottom floor. On the second floor, they did harm. And on the third floor, they did harm. and then they had to exit. So the dynamic of this environment is interesting. It gives you an indication, I think, of a familiarity.

Maybe the subject was watching them from a distance for some time, which I think would not be very difficult to do in that backyard. I urge anybody in the sound of my voice, please go look at these photographs, and you can see looking out of the sliding glass doors, you can see for some distance. And if the lights are all on in this place, there's a wood line over to the left.

You could stand the wood line. No one would ever see you at night, and you can see everything that's going on. the side of that house that's backlit, you know, through those windows. Very troubling. Very troubling. Yeah, very troubling indeed. And let's hope that because there were defensive wounds, they could see that they tried to fight off their attacker. Hopefully some type of evidence that can lead to the perpetrator can be found. We want to give out the tip line really quickly. Anybody who has information about this should call 208-883-71880. That's 208-883-7-1-80. There's also

an email inbox, tipline at c.moscow.orgia.orgia. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic death investigator, thanks so much for coming on to talk with us about this. We really appreciate it. Anytime, Internet. You have a great day. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg and Logan Harris. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher handles our bookings and Kiera Bronson does our social media. You can listen to and download Sidebar anytime on Apple, Spotify. Google, and wherever else you get your podcast, and of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and we will see you next time.

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