Law&Crime Sidebar - Slain Idaho Student's Family Lawyer Speaks on White Hyundai, Investigation Status

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

Slain Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves' family lawyer spoke to the Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy about the student murders investigation status, white Hyundai Elantra and harassment the victims' families have received. Sidebar host Jesse Weber breaks down key points from the interview.LAW&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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery 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 grand. View 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. Did the Gonzalveses leave that meeting satisfied? You know, when you're not get all of your questions answered, obviously you're not satisfied. So it's one of those things where we're hopeful and we're optimistic. And, you know, we want them to catch the person that committed these crimes. Sidebars and Jeanette Levy sits down with Shannon Gray, the attorney for the family of Slane University of Idaho student, Kaylee Gonzalez, one of four people brutally stabbed to death.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We are continuing our coverage of the University of Idaho murder investigation. The quadruple killings of 21-year-old Kaylee Gonzalez. 12-year-old Madison Mogan, 20-year-old Zana Kurnodal, and 20-year-old Ethan Chapin. Their bodies were found in their off-campus rental home out in the college town of Moscow. They were stabbed to death. It is a horrible, unsolved crime.

And in this fourth week, we still have no arrests, no suspects, no recovered weapon. However, Anjanette Levy, my co-host here on Sidebar, had the chance to interview Shannon Gray, the attorney for the family of Kaylee Gonzalez. Now, we know that the Consolvis family, particularly Kaylee's father, Stephen, has been quite vocal with the media about his frustrations with the progress of this case. He had mentioned that they hired a private investigator, and I even recall when he announced that they planned to hire a lawyer. I'd say the basic concern that he has expressed is a lack of transparency from law enforcement and miscommunications. But before we get even to any of that, Angenet first asked Mr. Gray, how's the family doing? You know, they're in grief. They're grieving.

you know they're trying to handle and manage a lot of things and you know they've hired me to kind of guide them through this criminal justice process and how complicated it is if you've never been involved in it before then you know you don't know anything about it you don't know the questions to ask things like that you know they've gotten probably 20 to 25 so a media requests a day you know and they still have to live their lives they have to work they have to raise their other children you know they have to do those things and so you know it's been uh you know the family and I are a team. We work together, and I'm just helping them through this process. And that is completely understandable. And I also want to mention something else that Mr. Gray brought up, and it's important. And that is the intense criticism that has been leveled at the Gonzalez family, particularly Mr. Gonzalez, because what we've been seeing online and even on media outlets are people taking aim at him specifically. And while there is perhaps a legitimate question about whether a victim's family member should be revealing information to the world, during the sensitive time in an investigation, it's a whole other thing for people to come up

and attack and harass him. There are even rumors online suggesting the worst. They're accusing him of being involved to what happened, which is just absolutely terrible. So before we go any further into this interview, I think it is very important to hear what Mr. Gray had to say about that. You know, the families are going through a tragedy right now. And it's emotional. It's raw. And there are some media outlets that are picking apart interviews that the Gonzávez family has done, Steve or anyone else. And I would like to say that, you know, if you are in a position where you are going after the families of individuals that their daughter was murdered, you need to take a real hard look at yourself and not do that anymore. The other part of it is that there shouldn't be news platforms that are giving those people talking points and that they need to be aware of those things. So, you know, they can say whatever they want because they have, we should show some compassion, some kindness and some understanding towards all of the victims' families through this really troubling time that they're going through.

It's a story for a lot of people, but it's a life. This is a life tragedy for the families. So just making people aware of that. All right. So now let's get into the frustrations with law enforcement between not releasing enough information about what is happening or this mixed messaging. This has led to people losing confidence in the authorities. And this has also spawned conspiracy theories.

Sometimes when you don't have enough information, there's too much information. Well, Mr. Gray talked about meeting with the different members of law enforcement and these authorities. And here's what happened. Well, we were, you know, we had a meeting with the investigators on Monday, the investigators, the prosecutor, Chief Frye was there as a few other people in the room. And, you know, our theme going into that was accountability and communication, accountability, meaning that a lot of the information that had gotten out had been inconsistent and confusing not only to the families, but also to, I think, the public, you had the corner making statements, you had the Bill Thompson, the prosecutor making statements about targeting, and that was walked back by Chief Fry in another statement. You had Art Bedke, you know, within a day or two making a statements about crime of

passion. And so a lot of inconsistencies in that, you know, it was, consistency promotes trust. And so, you know, part of our theme going in was that, you know, you need to, there needs to be some accountability within the investigation about having really one voice. And that, you know, they had made a lot of decisions during the investigation to do, to do things or not to do things regarding help, you know, reaching out to the public and having the public help them during the investigation, and we wanted some answers to there. I came in with five, a full page, five pages of answers, of questions, and we walked out with not much being answered at all. The second part was communication. They've done a really poor job of communicating with the Gonzávez family and most

and most of the families. And so we wanted to make sure that they were now aware what our expectations were, that it's the investigation, the families, and then the media. That Gonzávez family should never hear anything on a press release or social media release or anything like that that we don't know up first. Yeah, I mean, I hope they're receptive.

I hope that they're mature enough to be able to take some criticism and understand some of the expectations that we have. And, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't popular when I left that meeting, Brenny Mien. Now, he did indicate that he's taking them at their word when they say that they're hopeful the investigation is moving forward. He said it's not his job to be critical, but to merely express concerns that the family is having. Having said that, we do have to talk about his stance on the coroner. I'm talking about Lata County coroner Kathy Mabbitt, because according to Steve Gonsalves, Mavitt revealed very gruesome details of the killing statement. him and that she herself, we know, has spoken to the media talking about the toxicology reports,

the extreme nature of the case, the possible murder weapon. Mr. Gray was not too happy about her comments. Well, I mean, I have issues with the coroner, number one, you know, expressing all of her opinions over the media at, I think, inappropriate times, number one. Number two, you know, making a personal phone call and describing graphic details of the of what she discovered and what she um to the family i don't think was beneficial in any way um i don't think she did it out of a place of spite i think she did it because she was you know trying to give them more details but once you hear certain details um it's not helpful to the family um and certain things so and i you know I could go on and on about the coroner, the idea that she's a criminal defense attorney at the same time that she's a coroner, I think could present a conflict down the road, and the fact that she's continuing to defend people during this investigation.

And she's done it before. I mean, the fact is, is that there was, she was involved in a, she was a coroner on a murder investigation in Moscow years ago. and she also was the defense counsel on the case, which blows my mind. Yeah, that conflict of interest could be a problem, for sure. That case that he mentioned, we believe, is the James Curtis Leonard case. You can definitely check it out to see Mabit's role there. But he wasn't shy about criticizing her actions. Now, he did say that law enforcement hasn't indicated a suspect to the family, that they're keeping things close to the vest, including about that white Hyundai, Alontera, that police had asked the public's help in identifyingly. said it was near the crime scene at the time of the killings, anything anybody knows about the car

or the occupants of the car. I will tell you this, according to Anjanette, the Moscow County police informed her that they are getting useful tips on that Hyundai Alontera. Well, through our tips, through our leads, some of the evidence that came in, we start to identify patterns. And like we said earlier, we are confident that the occupant or occupants of that vehicle have information that's critical to this investigation. We also understand that even though there's sometimes a fascination with the particular case, some people simply don't see the news and may not know that we're looking for it. So if we get the word out there, hey, maybe your neighbor has one in the garage that they don't drive very often. Maybe there's one that's just not on the registration database.

Let us know. So far, we have a list of approximately 22,000 registered white Hyundai Alonteris that fit into our Christi. that we're sorting through. That's an awful lot of information, but it may not be all of them. So the public can help us with that. And Mr. Gray finally said that the reason a reward hasn't been put out for more information is because police were concerned that it's too early in the investigation to do that. That if they put out a reward, there could be a flood of non-useful information in leads. And as we continue to report on this case, we encourage anyone with useful information to call the tip line, the Moscow County Police tip line at 208, 883, 7180.

You can email tipline at c.moscow. . . . . . . . and digital media submissions can go to FBI.gov slash Moscow, Idaho. And that's all we have for everybody here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus.

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