Tragedy in Idaho

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 13th of December, 2022.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

On Sunday, November 13th, someone killed four University of Idaho students living off-campus in Moscow, Idaho. After a month, police have arrested no one, leaving a community in limbo as they try to cope with the tragedy. WORLD’s Lauren Dunn has our story.

LAUREN DUNN, REPORTER: The day after four college students were found stabbed to death in Moscow, Ida., Martin Trail attended a weekly meeting for the University of Idaho Sigma Chi chapter.

TRAIL: I was in this fraternity. And they like to have an older guy. You know, when I started, I was barely older, and now I'm a lot older, but I'm an advisor for the house.

Law enforcement officials have yet to identify any suspects in the early morning stabbing deaths of Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, and Ethan Chapin. The tragedy shocked the community of about 25,000 people. The last murder recorded in the area was in 2015. That’s the year a gunman killed three people–including Trail’s father.

TRAIL: What am I going to say? Just tell him how you did it. I felt like God had given me through my own experiences, some things that I could speak into their lives.

Trail says about 20 to 30 students attended that fraternity meeting in November. Many of them likely knew one of the stabbing victims. Ethan Chapin was a member of Sigma Chi.

TRAIL: Half these guys, they were his roommates, you know? And all of a sudden, their roommate’s gone, and they’ve got all his stuff there—and what do they do, you know?

Three of the four students lived at the residence where they were killed. Two roommates living on the first floor of the house were unharmed.

Moscow Police Chief James Fry spoke at a press conference a few days after the homicides.

FRY: There was no sign of forced entry into the residence. Investigators are continuing to collect evidence at the scene.

University of Idaho officials canceled class that Monday. When class resumed the next day, officials assured students that professors would be flexible about attendance. The school increased its security and continues to offer a free, 24-7 Safe Walk service for students, faculty, and visitors. Officials announced students could finish the semester online if they wanted to go home.

One of the slain students, Kaylee Goncalves, would have graduated last Saturday. City and state police provided extra security for the commencement ceremony. University of Idaho president Scott Green addressed the 500+ students graduating.

GREEN: For our community, and I want to acknowledge an enormous loss in our Vandal family recently. Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Maddie Mogen, and Kaylee Goncalves were taken from us far too soon by a senseless act of violence. They were bright lights on our campus and cherished members of our community.

Kirk Brower pastors Bridge Bible Fellowship in Moscow, Ida., about two miles from the university campus.

BROWER: Everybody's familiar with the road, and the location. There are those that probably had class with some of those kids, or were connected in some capacity, because it's, you know, a relatively small campus in a very small town.

Brower is grateful for police officers’ work, and says the church has reached out to encourage local officers and authorities coming to Moscow to solve the crime. He adds that the long wait for answers worries many residents.

BROWER: There's some some of that fear factor going on and wonder, is there a murderer in town. But there's also some, I think, that are, you know, vigilant in the sense of like, hey, this really rallies people to pray and to offer up services and to be available. So I would say there's a spectrum between fearful but also vigilant and hopeful that justice will come, you know.

Brower’s church offers free certified counseling services. He said the church reached out to the university’s dean of students, as well as student ministries, to offer counseling help.

Last week Martin Trail planned to meet with a University of Idaho student after work.

TRAIL: I just said, Hey, can I buy you a burger? Let's talk. And there's something, I don't know, I just had an intuition that maybe he might want to talk about something…There's a lot of people in our church praying for me that, and I'm, I've asked that I could be bold.

Even as church members pray for Trail to be bold, he’s praying for students, too.

TRAIL: That's been my prayer for these guys, that this would help them maybe face their own mortality, face that they're not really in control, like they might be told, and turn to God.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lauren Dunn.

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