ID - 4 University of Idaho Students Murdered - Moscow # 38

[Palinsmom]

My granddaughter recently graduated from a college in Florida. She entered in the fall of 2019 as a freshman but because she received credit for taking college classes in her last two years of high school, by the end of that school year, she entered the second school year as a junior. She also took classes over the summer. LSS, she graduated in May of 2022 with a Pre Law degree and certification in Advocacy. I'm sure it is different state to state but it's doable.

My son attended a college prep school in MD and he had buddies who did the exact same thing. Not 100% sure, but I think it helps if they have already decided which college they plan to attend.

 

[Ozoner]

If he decided to punish her then why did he also kill 3 other people? If he wanted all of "them" (pretty girls) dead then why did he spare the other two?

Two of the girls (Kaylee and Maddie) were in the same bed. I believe that one of them was likely the target. The other one was probably killed because she awoke.

I think that Xana and Ethan were probably also killed because they were awakened and the killer didn't want them interfering with his getaway. In that situation, three of the four would simply have been collateral damage.

 

[Omega Man]

Two of the girls (Kaylee and Maddie) were in the same bed. I believe that one of them was likely the target. The other one was probably killed because she awoke.

I think that Xana and Ethan were probably also killed because they were awakened and the killer didn't want them interfering with his getaway. In that situation, three of the four would simply have been collateral damage.

So E and X were awakend and potentially interfering in his getaway and they were found dead in their bed/bedroom? How would he know that they were awake if they were on a different floor than M and K?

If only one of the girls was targeted then why kill her in a worst possible place (save for maybe Police station) i.e. house full of people? Surely he could try to kill her when she was alone somewhere.

 

[Palinsmom]

Question about the different wounds:

Is it possible that the clothing being worn made any difference? For example someone stabbed while wearing a t-shirt compared to someone wearing layers such as a hoody on top of a t-shirt?

 

[rescuemom]

This very well may be the case...the killer may not be a *hunter*. My take, they were VERY FAMILIAR with using a knife and probably killed/injured with this weapon previously...be it a human or an animal. You just don't attempt (and succeed) dispatching 4 humans in a short time frame without the knowledge and confidence to do so. Yes, the victims may have been asleep and/ or inebriated, but FOUR victims in TWO separate rooms doesn't ensure success and is fraught with unforeseen consequences. FBI needs to find this killer sooner rather than later. MOO

JMO, it may be the case that this person has this knife for protection, just carries it once in a while, maybe keeps it in the glove box in the car. It's there if they need it but most likely won't use it. When I first learned about these murders and the weapon was a knife, my first thought was that it was a weapon of convenience. If this murder was one of passion or anger and not pre planned, a knife might be more common than having a hand gun or rifle readily available.

Let's say something happened to trigger this anger on that night and the only weapon available might be a knife on your person or in your car. You would not have to go to your house, apt, etc., to get the weapon to fulfill your rage. Knives when purchased are not registered and need no permit to carry.

Knives are used when hunting or fishing, not to kill but to dress the animal or fish. In that area knives may be given to young boys or teenagers who become capable of using them comfortably and skillfully. The number of wounds may be minimal once the victim is incapacitated, not necessarily deceased but not a threat. Again, JMO, someone who can work themselves up into a frenzy to murder another human does not stop to think about the consequences. They may when caught be signing their death certificate but don't think about that or don't care.

 

[DizzyB]

My son attended a college prep school in MD and he had buddies who did the exact same thing. Not 100% sure, but I think it helps if they have already decided which college they plan to attend.

I am the parent of a kid who entered college with 27 credits. Some colleges accept certain credits and not others. My kid was pretty much a year ahead. It’s not odd at all for K to have graduated early. But there is planning involved, cause some courses are only offered during a particular semester. Does UI offer study abroad, and did any of them do it?

 

[maskedwoman]

<snipped for focus>

I implicitly trust KG’s mom’s intuition that J is 100% innocent.
I can’t emphasize this enough.
Mom’s intuition is NOT to be taken lightly.
<snipped for focus>

To be fair, Mom's intuition is often misguided in situations like this. Laci Peterson's Mom completely supported Scott until she found out about his mistress. After that, she began to look at things a lot differently. Maybe I should change my user name to Contrarian. LOL

Having said that, I'm very glad the Moscow police have cleared him. That was very kind of them, although I'm afraid that won't keep some people from accusing him of things.

 

[Lalalacasbah]

Question about the different wounds:

Is it possible that the clothing being worn made any difference? For example someone stabbed while wearing a t-shirt compared to someone wearing layers such as a hoody on top of a t-shirt?

I'm going to guess and think not so much...Again, guessing but I think LE was referring to the physical aspect and possible post mortem wounds (to one not to all).

Stab vs slit/slash vs nicks (into vs across vs surface), if victim moved about or was incapacitated instantly and then there's post mortem.

JMO, MOO - I sadly think there was something viciously done to a victim post mortem that hasn't and maybe won't be released that may be pertinent to investigation/profiling. JMO, MOO

 

[Lalalacasbah]

JMO, it may be the case that this person has this knife for protection, just carries it once in a while, maybe keeps it in the glove box in the car. It's there if they need it but most likely won't use it. When I first learned about these murders and the weapon was a knife, my first thought was that it was a weapon of convenience. If this murder was one of passion or anger and not pre planned, a knife might be more common than having a hand gun or rifle readily available.

Let's say something happened to trigger this anger on that night and the only weapon available might be a knife on your person or in your car. You would not have to go to your house, apt, etc., to get the weapon to fulfill your rage. Knives when purchased are not registered and need no permit to carry.

RSBM - Good thought, I've heard of people keeping knives in their car in case of an accident and seatbelt won't come off. I actually thought I should do this myself as it locked on my daughter once and it freaked me out to not get it off!

 

[Ozoner]

So E and X were awakend and potentially interfering in his getaway and they were found dead in their bed/bedroom? How would he know that they were awake if they were on a different floor than M and K?

If only one of the girls was targeted then why kill her in a worst possible place (save for maybe Police station) i.e. house full of people? Surely he could try to kill her when she was alone somewhere.

Nope. From the killer's standpoint, getting her while she was asleep and therefore defenseless was the objective, in my opinion.

As for XK and EC, he could have simply heard them; it's even possible that one of them opened the bedroom door and saw him. (Maybe their bedroom door wasn't even closed.)

It's even possible that he didn't know what room his target was in and happened upon XK and EC first.

 

[Omega Man]

Question about the different wounds:

Is it possible that the clothing being worn made any difference? For example someone stabbed while wearing a t-shirt compared to someone wearing layers such as a hoody on top of a t-shirt?

Logically heavy clothing generally tends to reduce the depth of slash wounds and force of stab wounds but I don't think a t-shirt would be any kind of barrier for a forcefull blow with a k-bar or a bowie knife. To me the difference between slash/stab wounds and "tears" as described by the coroner would be a clean stab (knife blade going in and out) vs a wound where the victim is stabbed e.g. in the chest and then, as a reflex, they roll violently to the side trying to assume safe fetal position. That way when the blade is still in the tissues and the body moves perpendicularly to the blade such motion and strain to the skin tissue would cause wound ends to look torn. Just my opinion.

Also, the knife wounds would be different if the victim and the killer are standing vs when the victim is prone.

[Edit: corrected typos]

 

[Falcon500]

Not sure if thought has been brought up, the threads are impossible to keep up with.

I'm curious if LE has already approached owners of white Elantras to question and any car owners have refused to provide any info without a warrant and/or lawyer.

Or maybe LE aren't legally allowed to ask owners of Elantras anything without a warrant and that's why LE is expecting owners to come forth themselves.

A police officer can ask someone anything at all. ”what color shirt did you wear yesterday“. “ who won the Alabama game yesterday“. “ where were you on November 17th”. The individual doesn’t have to answer but if LE wants to know badly enough they can haul them in front of a grand jury and force them to talk.

 

[Palinsmom]

Logically heavy clothing generally tends to reduce the depth of slash wounds and force of stab wounds but I don't think a t-shirt would be any kind of barrier for a forcefull blow with a k-bar or a bowie knife. To me the difference between slash/stab wounds and "tears" as described by the coroner would be a clean stab (knife blade going in and out) vs a wound where the victim is stabbed e.g. in the chest and then, as a reflex, they roll violently to the side trying to assume safe fetal psoition. That way when the blade is still in the tissues and the body moves perpendicularly to the blade such motion and strain to the skin tissue would cause wound ends to look torn. Just my opinion.

Also, there knife wounds would be different if the victim and the killer are standing vs when the victim is prone.

Wasn’t sure if it would be a reason for the differences. Thanks for your input

 

[di anna]

Why "especially in competive sports?"

Sometimes athletic participants are approached to use steroids.
I am just looking at different possibilities, not really sure why I thought of steroids. I do know that anger and unpredictability often accompany use of steroids and if not used for a medicinal purpose, a individual can get really crazy.

 

[Lalalacasbah]

Logically heavy clothing generally tends to reduce the depth of slash wounds and force of stab wounds but I don't think a t-shirt would be any kind of barrier for a forcefull blow with a k-bar or a bowie knife. To me the difference between slash/stab wounds and "tears" as described by the coroner would be a clean stab (knife blade going in and out) vs a wound where the victim is stabbed e.g. in the chest and then, as a reflex, they roll violently to the side trying to assume safe fetal position. That way when the blade is still in the tissues and the body moves perpendicularly to the blade such motion and strain to the skin tissue would cause wound ends to look torn. Just my opinion.

Also, the knife wounds would be different if the victim and the killer are standing vs when the victim is prone.

[Edit: corrected typos]

Well said, better than my post lol I'm cringing but you described it how it would likely make sense! Those poor kids.

 

[10ofRods]

@10ofRods With your background, you obviously bring a lot more through experience to the table here than most of us and I always find your takes fascinating. Can you give the Cliff Notes version of how you came to this scenario? It hasn't been the one in my head but after reading it, it makes a lot of sense.

SPECULATION, THEORIES AHEAD. JMO.

Yes. First of all, I've lived on college campuses for a total of about 20 years, and worked on them for a total of about 40 years. Large and small colleges/universities, public and private.

LONG POST incoming - but I've synthesized so much of what many of you have been writing over the past couple of days - you'll see that I"m using many of the hypotheses here, which kind of clicked together Lego-style for me, with this story.
----
It's always the case that there are longterm hangers-on, who pretend to be students, on every college campus. It's particularly common right now, IMO.

Heck, some of the scariest moments of teaching have to do with some individual being in class and they aren't students!

It's actually difficult to detect in larger lecture classes. Each time it's happened to me, there's been some specific behavior that this person is exhibiting that made me worry/wonder about them and I'd have to do things to get their names (and sometimes, they'd disappear before or immediately after my "investigation" - whereas no other students even notice that I did a pop quiz and then walked around and specifically collected the papers by hand.

At larger schools (U of Id is definitely not tiny), these students can blend in and hang on for years.

I believe that the Elantra belongs to a relative of one of these people.

It was never registered properly for campus use. The person lives in on-campus housing (likely a Greek house, as all the principals in this case were associated with a Greek house), and may be seen as an Elder Brother and as we know, the brothers at the house are not going to turn such a person into housing authorities. Food is no problem for them, in this situation. Some have girlfriends in the house if it's co-ed housing, so they kind of share those rooms off the record. We do not have fraternities on campus where I work right now, but we have them off-campus and I have my students do papers on their residences using social mapping techniques and so I know that every fraternity has at least 1-2 of these people, which seems normal to the members and which they regard as a kind of assistance if they can't launch themselves after graduation.

Thing is, some of these people linger for years and never graduate. Students come and go and may not realize this, but staff at the universities, including police, usually know of them. It's an area like underage drinking or noise complaints - no real push to put a stop to it. Unless the person does something really bad.

There's been an increase in such students at many colleges. It's a form of homelessness or being indigent, but the people who meet these men do not realize it, as they dress and act like students. They are unable to move on from college life, they won't move on, they are often regarded as BMOC (Big Men On Campus). BTW, I know of no women in this category except a couple of girlfriends who lived irregularly with their boyfriends - but they were students). I know about them most when I investigate cheating - it's often one of these students who has been collecting copies of exams (mostly given online these days) and is selling them/distributing them with answers to their housemates.

Anyway, such students are often trouble. So that was one of my first thoughts.

They are well versed at avoiding and defying authority, was my second thought. They are jealous and suspicious of real students, but hide it fairly well. Nearly every physical fight I've witnessed or been involved in recording/adjudicating involved one of these non-students. They usually claim they are about to enroll again, or they enroll every 3-4 semesters, constantly fail to complete. BTW, the federal government has put into place modest nation-wide measures to try and prevent these characters from continuing to get student loans AND to force repayment under some circumstances - if they can find them. Some of these non-students actually run large scams involving stealing identity and registering under different names at various other colleges than the one they are living at - thereby occasionally grabbing some money from an online university or college. At my college, we now have about 5 current restraining orders against such men because their behaviors ended up with criminal prosecution and they violated a local order not to come on campus. One of them has been sent to another state for his parole, because he won't stop coming on campus. He has come on campus armed.

This person I am describing cannot destroy the Elantra because their relative (or other person from whom they borrowed) would notice and might just be the type to put 2 and 2 together. These students cannot go home because their families have had it with their behavior (they steal from their families - and sometimes even brag about it). They steal from their dorm mates and house mates, too. They steal from the library too.

I believe this person is University related because LE has mostly received tips from and interviewed people from the University.

I'll bet professors have been interviewed, but also students from every single house/dorm associated with the victims and their social life. So not just Sigma Chi but also SAE, the two Pi houses (sororities) and any other place where they had friends or acquaintances.

Patterns have emerged. The type of individual I'm talking about will certainly have been mentioned by more than one person and LE surely will have asked, point blank, whether other students know of any such person - an older person pretending to be a student and perhaps using tactics of intimidation will be mentioned, and if several people mention the same guy, he's gotta be a POI.

I think one of these men has been associated with the Elantra by video or by testimony. The police also see the Elantra near the house on the night of the murders. Elantra is back out of town and at the house of the relative (who has likely been talked to, because I think they tracked it down).

The murderer - and perhaps an accomplice or unwitting tag-along on that night - went to that relative's house to return the car, clean up, and stay for Thanksgiving. Caught a ride with someone to come back, to be close to the crime scene and, as several here have suggested, see whether his own views of what LE is going to do are actually coming to pass. The car would still contain DNA from the victims.

This profile is based on whatever cases I could find that are remotely similar, and on other university murders that I know about. This person *could* have a part time job with the university in some capacity, may involve night work. This person uses university facilities as if they are entitled to them, but will have no transcripted credit-bearing classes for the past year or two (they may occasionally enroll, but fail to finish or the transcript will record a withdrawal or a fail). They may be lying to their families about still being in college (IME, this type of person is really volatile, scared and often suicidal - and to me, a suicidal student is always one that's capable of harming others as well, because they are constantly contemplating the great tabu against killing humans - they've decided that some humans deserve death, and they have both suicidal and homicidal fantasies). That's why when committing heinous crimes, they have no fear in the moment of being caught. Afterwards, they may find that being homicidal suits them better psychologically than being suicidal - which is another reason they are so scary.

As an aside, when I learned through MSM that there were animal mutilations in 2017 (associated with university life, let's just say - and the victims of the carcass dumpings were targeted), I realized that would make this person about 3-4 years older than our victims, if they started this behavior a couple of years after arriving.

Now, my whole story could be wrong - but LE has a similar story about someone, right now. I'm convinced of it. They know that this same person whose name has been coming up has some kind of run-ins with law, maybe back in high school. They have warned and talked to his family. He's feeling increasingly cornered, but they know where he is. It's essential that the extra FBI agents go to the homes of vacationing students to talk to every person who knows this person (or persons, if there are more than one).

This person is acquainted with every person who was killed. He lives nearby. He fits all the psychological criteria that people here on WS keep mentioning (jealous, rejected, fantasizer, angry and perhaps fearful) Scared humans who are about to be caught for something are dangerous. And it's more than just being turned in to university authorities for leaving without permission on campus. This person is likely also a petty drug dealer (as others here have hypothesized). So it all clicked for me. He would have been in the house before, but is not a boyfriend or an ex. Women on campus have had negative encounters with him already. He has likely approached at least one of the women romantically and was rebuffed (21 year old women often think a 24-25 year guy is a bit too old). He likely tries to hit on the 18-19 year olds, though. If he's around for so many years, he gets to watch the women he wanted to date move on to other men. This is highly displeasing to him.

If I am at all close, then this murderer knows that he's in the cross-hairs, although he may believe he's one of a handful and has almost certainly started rumors/stories to implicate others, or when interrogated, he implicated others. It's a dangerous time in the investigation because if that Elantra has been located, the instant LE moves in with a search warrant, the gig is up and this killer will know he's going down. If the owner of the Elantra cooperates, though, it can all be done without him finding out, at least not immediately.

As for the "context" quest by LE, I feel it fits with this theory. If this guy is who I think it is, there's definitely context - and from that night and from that weekend. His housemates are probably used to him coming and going at all hours, borrowing various cars, etc, but something still was amiss/relevant that happened on Nov 12 and if no one saw him on Nov 13, that needs to be established. I figure he told at least a few people he was "going home" for Thanksgiving, so no one would have thought much about it, and he very well did arrive at some relative's house on the 13th - and stay for Thanksgiving.

Weakest part of my theory is any good hypothesis about where this guy is right now. Could be on the run. Could be back at school (my guess, as this guy knows nothing else and can't function outside the life he's made at university). Could be at home with family. Could be staying with friends' family. LE surely are at the point where they either know exactly where he is (my guess) or are about to locate him,

I've read every post on this thread and the last one - and I appreciate the opportunity to write all of this out, using so much of what you all have been saying.

 

[jumpingjackflash]

So between that and his comments on potentially releasing the 911 call—I hope the murderer is very nervous.

What stands out to me is the Chief's phrasing, which implies that a trial is a certainty!

 

[HopeValleyDevil]

In my opinion, the perpetrator was outside watching the lights out in the bedrooms.

Given enough time at that time in the morning, with alcohol consumed, its safe to say, once the lights out, the bedroom occupants were well on their way to sleep.

Attacking with blankets over, the attacker might not have seen any blood what so ever
AIMOO

 

[Lalalacasbah]

A police officer can ask someone anything at all. ”what color shirt did you wear yesterday“. “ who won the Alabama game yesterday“. “ where were you on November 17th”. The individual doesn’t have to answer but if LE wants to know badly enough they can haul them in front of a grand jury and force them to talk.

Thank you for your knowledgable reply, so nice to hear from actual LE the answer

I thought so too, I thought they can just knock on a door and no harm in asking questions right? I guess it's up to the person being asked if they willingly want to answer or not. What would LE need to "force" someone to answer to a grand jury? Evidence, a warrant? They can't just go in suspicion?

I'm thinking out loud if strategic about white car video being released and if LE actually knows the owner but owner's not answering questions, so using the video and public pressure.

 

[Omega Man]

Wasn’t sure if it would be a reason for the differences. Thanks for your input

I'm no expert on this by any stretch of imagination. Although I think that what's meant by the the differences in wound patterns between the victims is more about placement and number rather than shape, just MHO.