Police provide timeline, new details in quadruple homicide of University of Idaho students

WASHINGTON (TND) — While police investigating the murders of four students from the University of Idaho have yet to identify a suspect or weapon, they have crafted a timeline for the victims’ final whereabouts before they were found stabbed to death Sunday morning.

Ethan Chapin, 20, from Mount Vernon, Washington; Madison Mogen, 20, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Xana Kernodle, 20, from Avondale, Arizona, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, from Rathdrum, Idaho were all close friends – Chapin and Kernodle were dating – that shared a rental house in Moscow, Idaho (note: Chapin did not live in the house but visited often).

Police say that Mogen and Gonclaves were spotted at a bar called The Corner Club between 10 p.m. Nov. 12 and 1:30 a.m. Nov. 13. Video shows the pair grabbing a late-night snack from a food truck called the “Grub Truck” around 1:40 a.m. before hopping in an Uber home around 1:45 am. Chapin and Kernodle were reported to be seen at the Sigma Chi house on the University of Idaho campus and returned to the rental house that the women shared shortly after 1:45 a.m.

There were two other roommates at the rental house that night.

At 11:58 a.m. on Nov. 13, Moscow police responded to a call from the house reporting an unconscious and unresponsive individual. Officers discovered Chapin, Mogen, Kernodle and Gonclaves deceased upon arrival. They found no signs of forced entry and a door was found to be already open by the officers that first arrived on the scene.

According to autopsies conducted on Nov. 17 by the Latah County coroner, all of the victims were stabbed to death, each had multiple stab wounds to the chest and upper body, and all were likely asleep when the attacks occurred – he did note some of the bodies showed defensive wounds.

"It has to be somebody pretty angry in order to stab four people to death," Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt told a cable news channel Friday. She also said the weapon would have had to have been a “pretty large knife.”

Police say they believe the students were targeted and that the community needs to remain vigilant for danger. “We cannot say that there is no threat to the community," Moscow Police Chief James Fry said Wednesday. “We still believe it's a targeted attack. But the reality is there still is a person out there who committed four very horrible, horrible crimes.”

The tragedy has shaken the college town of roughly 26,000. Many University of Idaho students left campus early for the Thanksgiving break in the wake of the horrific news.