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If it
happened in a novel, people reading it would say it didn't make sense. But what
happened in real life during the early morning hours of November 13, 2022 wasn’t meant to make sense.
Everyone with a heartbeat knows the score by
now: Four University of Idaho students
were murdered in a rented house during the wee hours of November 13.
The murder
victims are: Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Kaylee Goncalves, 21,
of Rathdrum, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and freshman Ethan
Chapin, aged 20. Also living in the house where the four were murdered were Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, two
female students who were not attacked.
There are as
yet no suspects, as the investigations moves into a third week. The Moscow
community of about 26,000 people lives in terror of a prowling psycho-maniac.
Authorities speaking to media have walked back statements describing the horror
as a “targeted attack, and then reiterated the characterization.”
An additional irony is that authorities have
said that the building, not the
occupants, may been the target of the attacks, a speculation that makes little
sense. Targeted buildings are typically attacked by arsonists.
The murder
scene was horrific, described as a “mess,” all four victims being stabbed to
death with a K-Bar style military knife. Such a bloody mess was the murder
scene that the police forensics teams assigned to the case will take weeks to
process blood and other evidence found at the scene. Some of it is just now
coming in.
Astonishing
to many people is the fact that two other female students were at home at the
time of the vicious attacks. Police
say Dylan and Bethany came back to their apartment roughly an hour earlier than
the four murder victims.
Police won’t
say specifically where each of the four victims were found but did say the
murders took place on the second and third floors of the three-story
building. It is believed, yet unconfirmed,
that Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were found dead on the second or middle
floor where the kitchen and common living room were located. A sliding door to the second floor kitchen was open when police arrived.
Also
unconfirmed is that Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, close friends since
elementary school, were found slain on the top floor. During a memorial service,
the father of one of the girls let slip that the two victims lay dead in the
same bed.
People were puzzled by the language used by
authorities when the crimes were first reported.
A police spokesman said it was approximately 11:58 a.m. November 13th
when they received a call regarding an “unconscious person” at the house where
the four victims were stabbed to death.
Public reaction
to this statement was and still is one of incredulity. A person phoning in to police
describing an abattoir as an “unconscious person” seems
outrageous without details. In the statement, there is a level of cognitive-dissonance
on the order of describing Attila the
Hun as a mean guy.
But there is
an alternative explanation circulating on social media, not confirmed by authorities, that makes perfect
sense. It requires some imagination. The
two survivor girls on the bottom floor wake up in the morning, go upstairs to
the second floor, where they discover an unimaginable horror.
They are panicked,
so distraught they can
only think to run screaming out of the house to the street. One of the girls, Bethany or Dylan, tries to
call police but is so unnerved she can cannot
put words together. She faints, drops her cell phone.
Another person comes to her aid, picks up the cell phone, and tells the police dispatcher there
is an “unconscious person” lying on the ground in front of the apartment. The
“unconscious person” referred to by police is not one of the slaughtered
victims. It is one of the young surviving women on the bottom floor. This
version of the “unconscious person” phone call makes sense where nothing else
would.
Police respond to the report of the "unconsciouis person." They find the four murder victims.
Also puzzling is how four students could be stabbed to death in their bed on
two floors above without the bottom floor occupants hearing it. CourtTV
interviewed a detective and investigator of many crime scenes who said that it
was not an uncommon occurrence.
Aside from academics, college culture
involves socialization, relationships, parties, passion, music, and angst. Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke believed
the sounds coming from the upper floors were the sounds of partying. Or perhaps
it was just as authorities suggested; the two surviving women were asleep.
In any case, police have taken pains to make
clear that Dylan and Bethany had nothing to do with the evil on the floors above
them. Same for the person who drove
Maddie and Kaylee home. Also for the boy
who spoke to them by the food truck.
Police have also been careful to say that the six phone calls made to
Kaylee’s on and off boyfriend, Jack (DuCoeur, according to a New York Times
article) were a separate private matter unrelated to
the investigation.
With those
avenues ruled out, the case is wide open to speculation. There is good reason
for wild theories. Police are holding facts close and being extra careful of
information released. Touching off the
investigation was indeed a phone call about an “unconscious person” at the
address.
Note: Police are rightly holding
information close to the vest so as not to despoil a criminal prosecution. I don’t
want to make their jobs more difficult, nor do I want to create more suffering,
more anguish for the victims’ parents, relatives, friends. I’m trying to be constructive, rather than
destructive, I’m motivated by anger that such horror could be inflicted on
young lives just as I would feel if the victim was my own daughter.. I’m not in
Idaho. Most of what I’ve written has been put into public discourse from
sources I deem reliable. I want the case to be solved. I believe it
will be solved.