No suspects, murder weapon or motive: Mystery of four University of Idaho students killed in their beds
The grey house with the Christmas wreath on the front door and twinkling fairy lights overhanging the back patio could be any other student home in the remote town of Moscow, Idaho.
A blanket of snow covers the ground, and a rubbish bag overflowing with beer and seltzer cans is propped up near an outdoor grill.
The young women who lived here until recently were popular members of sororities at the University of Idaho and regularly threw parties.
They documented their lives on social media, with choreographed videos of group dances and photographs dressing up for nights out.
Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Xana’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin
But four weeks ago this apparent student idyll was shattered when three of the housemates – Kaylee Goncalves, Maddie Mogen and Xana Kernodle, and Xana’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin – were brutally murdered.
In the early hours of a Sunday morning, as they slept in bed, they were stabbed to death with a large knife, their rooms splattered with blood, while two other housemates slept through the attacks.
Four weeks on, no known witnesses have come forward, there is no named suspect, no murder weapon and no obvious motive.
Moscow’s small police force, which hadn’t had a murder for more than seven years, is at the centre of the race to find a killer, or killers.
“It’s hard to tell when or if this town will ever be the same,” Robbie Johnson, the force’s public information officer, says.
‘We can’t afford to make a mistake’
There are signs that the community and grief stricken parents of the victims are growing frustrated with what they perceive as a lack of progress by police, even as reinforcements from the FBI and Idaho state police have arrived.
The decision to withhold certain information or lines of investigation from the public is deliberate, Ms Johnson tells Sky News.
Robbie Johnson
“We don’t just want an arrest, we want to take it to court,” she adds.
“We need to be sure we are going through all the evidence and it is vast. There are pictures, emails, phone calls coming in. We can’t afford a mistake or to put out information that might compromise the investigation.”
Police have consistently stated their belief that either the house, or its occupants, were targeted, but they haven’t revealed why they believe that.
The house where they were slaughtered
Internet sleuths have pored over the layout of the building. The ground floor, with its sliding patio doors, is where Xana and Ethan, a couple since the spring who were said to be perfect for each other, were slaughtered.
In one of the bedrooms upstairs, lifelong best friends, Kaylee and Maddie, were also sharing a bed when they were murdered.
In the early hours, they had been repeatedly texting Kaylee’s former boyfriend, with whom she was still close and police have discounted as a suspect.
One of the most puzzling aspects of the case is that two other female housemates, Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke, who were in basement level bedrooms, survived.
They say they slept through the attacks and when they woke they summoned other friends to the house, believing one of the housemates to be unconscious.
Just before midday, one of the friends called police, who discovered the true horror of what had happened. Police have discounted Dylan, Bethany and the friends who arrived that morning as suspects.
“The big question is why,” says Troy Lambert, a crime writer whose stepson lives in an apartment less than 100 yards from the murder house.
“Why would they target young college kids who, in my mind would have no enemies,” he adds.
“My stepson and his housemate do gaming and stuff like that, so they didn’t hear anything.
“With the density of students in this area, it is kind of surprising that nobody heard anything. It’s what makes me think that it was somebody and something organised because they didn’t make noise. They knew not to make noise.”
Troy Lambert
The movements of Kaylee and Maddie
Investigators say they’re busy piecing together not just what happened inside the house, but where the victims had been in the hours leading up to the murders.
Kaylee and Maddie had spent the night at a bar called Corner Club with its neon yellow sign and affordable drinks, just off the main street in Moscow.
They left at 1am to walk to a nearby food truck, where Kaylee can be heard on a livestream, stumbling over her words as she orders a portion of pasta carbonara.
There then appears to be a dispute with a man in a hoodie. At one point, Maddie gestures towards him and seems to say “f*** you mister,” before they all disappear out of shot.
Pictures captured at the food truck
Police say they have also discounted him as a suspect.
It had previously been reported that Kaylee’s parents believed she may have been the primary target based on what they had been told about the extent of her injuries compared with the other victims.
But they now don’t think that is the case.
“I don’t think that the family believes that there was an individual target on their daughter,” their lawyer, Shanon Gray, tells Sky News.
“It just doesn’t make sense with the facts that have been presented and other information that we’ve gathered.
“The person might have targeted the home, because there were all girls that lived there and a lot of people came and went, it was a very social scene.”
Five-page-long list of questions
The Goncalves family recruited Mr Gray to push the police for answers. He took a five-page-long list of questions to a meeting with investigators this week, but they are remaining tight-lipped.
“We asked why they haven’t released more information to the public,” he added. “Down the road we may look at it and say, ‘great job not releasing that information’, or they may come to regret those decisions.
“I don’t know if anyone has ever experienced handling a murder investigation that involves four college students that had been stabbed, so I’m sure it’s new to them.
“But they still need to make sure that they’re doing the right things, and we’re here to hold them accountable for it.”
Shanon Gray
The missing five hours
Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the other two victims, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin on the night of the killings.
Between 8-9pm they were at a party at the imposing Sigma Chi fraternity house, with its basketball court in the garden and stars and stripes flag, now flying at half-mast.
It is less than a five-minute walk through an alley to the house where they were killed, but they didn’t reach home until just before 2am and police are trying to account for those missing five hours.
In a sea of uncertainty, a violent killer, or killers, on the loose continues to terrorise this town of 25,000 people, which includes 11,000 students.
Everything that happens in Moscow at the moment is coloured by loss and fear. At winter graduation, where Kaylee Goncalves was supposed to receive her degree, a swell of police patrol the arena.
‘It’s scary being here’
“I have pepper spray and different self-help things, but it’s scary being here, and it doesn’t feel like home anymore. It doesn’t feel safe,” says Emma Bartlett, a graduate, who went to junior school with Kaylee and Maddie and tutored Ethan at university.
Emma Bartlett
“He was always smiling, so happy, so funny,” she says, “I’m just so glad I got to know him.”
It’s not just students who are living in fear. Treva Adkins visited Moscow to see her daughter Katie graduate over the weekend.
Treva Adkins
“When we checked into the Airbnb, I was scared to death,” she says. “I made my husband check under then bed, and I’m a 43-year-old woman.
“I noticed the windows weren’t locked, and it paralysed me, so I shut all the windows and I closed the curtains. It’s terrifying, constantly looking over your shoulder.”
The lighting of Moscow’s town Christmas tree took place last week and has become a focal point to remember the four slain students. Coloured ribbons are fastened around the guard rails and notes of reflection.
“Gone too soon, Ethan, Xana, Kaylee and Madison,” reads one. “Praying for your family, friends and for justice,” reads another.
In a community desperate for answers and accountability, the unknowns keep stacking up.
US
Donald Trump says Russia and Ukraine are ‘very close to a deal’ – and says ‘two sides should now meet’
Donald Trump has said Russia and Ukraine are “very close to a deal” with “most of the major points agreed” – as he called for the two sides to meet.
Shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral, the US president said high-level officials should now meet to “finish [the deal] off”.
“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off’.
“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”
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Ukraine-Russia peace talks explained
Throughout the week, the US president has criticised both Ukraine and Russia for failing to agree to a peace deal.
On Wednesday, he accused Mr Zelenskyy of harming talks on Truth Social, saying “the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE”.
A day later, after nine people were killed in Kyiv after a Russian missile and drone strike, Mr Trump said: “Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!”
The president and other officials have also threatened to withdraw from negotiations if no progress is made toward a deal.
It comes after Mr Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss a US-brokered peace plan for Ukraine.
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Putin-Witkoff meeting
The talks allowed Russia and the United States to “further bring their positions closer together” on “a number of international issues”, a Kremlin aide said.
Speaking earlier on the flight to Italy, Mr Trump said he hadn’t been fully briefed on Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin’s meeting – but added it was a “pretty good meeting”.
Read more:
US and Russia talks moving in ‘right direction’, top diplomat says
A ‘barbaric’ 24 hours in a ‘horrendous’ war
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it would not accept a deal conceding land or handing over sovereignty to Russia.
However, Mr Trump said in an interview with TIME magazine that “Crimea will stay with Russia,” describing the region as a place where Moscow has “had their submarines” and “the people speak largely Russian”.
“Zelenskyy understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” he added. “It’s been with them long before Trump came along.”
When asked on Friday about Mr Trump’s comments, Mr Zelenskyy did not want to comment but repeated that recognising occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line.
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murdering a US healthcare chief executive – as prosecutors formally confirmed they plan to seek the death penalty for him.
The 26-year-old defendant appeared in a Manhattan federal court for an arraignment over the killing of Brian Thompson in New York last year.
Mangione has previously pleaded not guilty to a separate New York state indictment he faces over the murder of Mr Thompson, the boss of UnitedHealth’s insurance division.
While public officials condemned the killing, some Americans – and people elsewhere across the world – have lauded Mangione, saying he drew attention to steep US healthcare costs and the power of health insurers to refuse payment for some treatments.
A pedestrian walks past a mural of Luigi Mangione in east London. Pic: Reuters
In justifying their decision to seek the death penalty, prosecutors wrote in their filing that Mangione “presents a future danger because he expressed an intent to target an entire industry, and rally political and social opposition to that industry, by engaging in an act of lethal violence”.
US attorney general Pam Bondi earlier this month announced that the Justice Department would seek the death penalty for Mangione.
Mangione’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
They have said Ms Bondi’s announcement on 1 April was “unapologetically political” and breached government protocols for death penalty decisions.
UnitedHealthcare chief executive officer Brian Thompson. Pic: UnitedHealth Group/AP
If Mangione is convicted in the federal case, the jury would determine in a separate phase of the trial whether to recommend the death penalty.
Any such recommendation must be unanimous, and the judge would be required to impose it.
Mr Thompson was shot dead on 4 December outside a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where an investor conference for the company was planned.
The killing sparked a five-day manhunt that captivated Americans.
Police officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, found Mangione with a 9mm pistol and silencer, clothing that matched the apparel worn by Thompson’s gunman in surveillance footage, and a notebook describing an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO, according to a court filing.
In October 2016, Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint – with jewellery worth millions of dollars stolen during the audacious heist in Paris.
It was the biggest robbery of an individual in France for more than 20 years – and made front pages around the world.
Now, almost a decade on, the case is finally coming to court.
Why has it taken so long? Will Kardashian give evidence? And who exactly are the “grandpa robbers” facing trial?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What happened?
Two years after Kardashian and rapper Kanye West tied the knot in an ostentatious week-long celebration spanning Paris and Florence, the Kardashian-West clan were back in the French capital for Paris Fashion Week.
Her then husband had returned to the US to pick up his Saint Pablo tour – but Kardashian, along with her sister Kourtney and various members of their entourage, remained in Paris, staying in an exclusive set of apartments so discreet they’ve been dubbed the No Address Hotel.
Nestled on Tronchet Street, just a stone’s throw from Place de l’Opéra, and close to the fashionable Avenue Montaigne, the Hotel de Pourtalès is popular with A-list stars staying in the French capital.
A stay in the Sky Penthouse, the suite occupied by Kardashian, will currently set you back about £13,000 a night.
Kardashian was staying at the Hotel de Pourtales
On the evening of 3 October, after attending a fashion show with her sister, Kardashian remained in the apartment alone while the rest of her convoy – including her bodyguard Pascal Duvier – went out for the night.
At about 2.30am, three armed men wearing ski masks and dressed as police forced their way into the apartment block – and according to investigators, they threatened the concierge at gunpoint.
Two of them are alleged to have forced the concierge to lead them to Kardashian’s suite. He later told police they yelled at him: “Where’s the rapper’s wife?”
Kardashian said she had been “dozing” on her bed when the men then entered her room.
She has said she believes her social media posts provided the alleged robbers with “a window of opportunity”.
“I was Snapchatting that I was home, and that everyone was going out,” she said in the months after the incident.
The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star vividly described the attack in a police report, as reported in the French weekly paper Le Journal du Dimanche.
“They grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They tied me up with plastic cables and taped my hands, then they put tape over my mouth and my legs.”
She said they pointed a gun at her, asking specifically for her ring and also for money.
Police guard the entrance to the Hotel de Pourtalès the day after the robbery
Kardashian says they carried her into the bathroom and put her in the bathtub. She said she was wearing only a bathrobe at the time.
She had initially thought the robbers “were terrorists who had come to kidnap me”, according to a French police report taken in New York three months after the robbery.
Kardashian told officers: “I thought I was going to die.”
According to police, the robbers – who left the room after grabbing their haul, escaped on bicycles with items estimated to be worth about $10m (£7.5m), including a $4m (£3m) 18.88-carat diamond engagement ring from West.
After they had left, Kardashian said she escaped her restraints and went to find help. After speaking to detectives, she immediately returned to the US on a private jet and later hired a completely new security team.
Kardashian shows off her $4m ring on Instagram
What was stolen?
As well as her engagement ring, Kardashian said the thieves took her large Louis Vuitton jewellery box, which she said contained “everything I owned”.
In police reports given to the French authorities at about 4.30am on the night of the alleged robbery, Kardashian listed these items as having been stolen:
• Two diamond Cartier bracelets
• A gold and diamond Jacob necklace
• Diamond earrings by Lauren Schwartz
• Yanina earrings
• Three gold Jacob necklaces
• Little bracelets, jewels and rings
• A Lauren Schwartz diamond necklace
• A necklace with six little diamonds
• A necklace with Saint spelt out in diamonds
• A cross-shaped diamond-encrusted Jacob cross
• A yellow gold Rolex watch
• Two yellow gold rings
• An iPhone 6 and a BlackBerry
Police recovered only the diamond-encrusted cross that was dropped by the robbers while leaving.
It’s likely the gold in the haul was melted down and resold, while the diamond engagement ring that is now so associated with the robbery would be far too recognisable to sell on the open market.
Kardashian at the Siran Presentation on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What will happen in court?
The hearing will begin at the Court of Appeal of Paris – the largest appeals court in France – on 28 April and is scheduled to last a month.
It will consist of a presiding judge, two professional assessors, and six main jurors.
The hearing involves more than 2,000 documents and there are four civil parties.
Kardashian at the Balenciaga show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Who is being tried?
There were initially 12 defendants in the case, but one person has died and another has a medical condition that prevents their involvement. This means 10 people – nine men and one woman – are standing trial.
Five of them, who were all aged between 60 and 72 at the time of the incident, face armed robbery and kidnapping charges. They are:
• Yunice Abbas
• Aomar Ait Khedache
• Harminv Ait Khedache
• Didier Dubreucq
• Marc-Alexandre Boyer
Abbas, 72, has admitted his participation in the robbery. In 2021, he published a book about the robbery, titled I Kidnapped Kim Kardashian. In 2021, a court ruled he would not benefit financially from the book.
Aomar Ait Khedache, 69, known to French crime reporters as “Old Omar”, has also admitted participating in the heist but denies the prosecution’s accusation that he was the ringleader.
The remaining five defendants are charged with complicity in the heist or the unauthorised possession of a weapon. They are:
• Florus Heroui
• Gary Mader
• Christiane Glotin
• François Delaporte
• Marc Boyer
Among those, Mader was a VIP greeter who worked for the car company Kardashian used in Paris, and Heroui was a bar manager who allegedly passed on information about Kardashian’s movements.
With many of the accused now ageing and with various serious health conditions, and some having spent time in jail following their arrest, all are currently free under judicial supervision.
If found guilty, those accused of the more serious crimes could face 10 years to life imprisonment.
Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Will Kardashian give evidence?
Yes.
Lawyer Michael Rhodes said Kardashian has “tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system” and “wishes for the trial to proceed in an orderly fashion in accordance with French law and with respect for all parties to the case”.
A trainee lawyer herself, Kardashian has become a high-profile criminal justice advocate in the US in recent years.
(R-L) Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kris Jenner in the front row three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
Why has it taken so long to come to court?
There was initially a manhunt after the robbery, with French police under pressure to prove that Paris’s security was not in question.
Just the year before in 2015, the capital had been shaken by terrorist attacks by Islamic militants, in which 130 people were killed, including 90 at a music event at the Bataclan theatre.
French police initially arrested 17 people in the Kardashian case in January 2017 – three months after the robbery – assisted by DNA traces found on plastic bands used to tie her wrists. Twelve people were later charged.
It was ordered to be sent to trial in 2021 – at a time when limited court proceedings were happening due to multiple COVID lockdowns, and France was holding its largest ever criminal trial over the November 2015 terror attacks.
Kardashian at the Givenchy show on the day of the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
What has Kardashian said about the incident?
Kardashian has described the robbery as a “life-changing” moment. She took three weeks away from filming her reality TV show Keeping Up With the Kardashians, and took a three-month break from social media.
In a March 2017 episode titled Paris, Kardashian first spoke publicly about her ordeal.
She described first hearing a noise in her apartment, and calling out, thinking it was her sister and assistant: “At that moment when there wasn’t an answer, my heart started to get really tense. Like, you know, your stomach just kind of like, knots up and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s going on?’ I knew something wasn’t quite right.”
She went on: “They asked for money. I said, ‘I don’t have any money’. They dragged me out to the hallway on top of the stairs. That’s when I saw the gun, clear as day. I was looking at the gun, looking down back at the stairs. I was like, I have a split second in my mind to make this quick decision.
“Either they’re going to shoot me in the back or if I make it [down the stairs] and the elevator does not open in time or the stairs are locked, there’s no way out.”
Three months later, she told a Forbes Power Women’s Summit she had changed her approach to posting on social media: “They had followed my moves on social media, and they knew my every move and what I had.”
She added: “It was definitely a huge, huge, huge lesson for me to not show off some of the things that I have. It was a huge lesson to me to not show off where I go.
“It’s just changed my whole life, but I think for the better.”
West and Kardashian at the Off-White show three days before the robbery. Pic: Rex Features
In October 2020, Kardashian told US interviewer David Letterman she feared she would be raped and murdered during the heist, and that her sister had been at the forefront of her mind during the incident.
Speaking on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Kardashian said: “I kept on thinking about Kourtney, I kept on thinking she’s going to come home and I’m going to be dead in the room and she’s going to be traumatised for the rest of her life if she sees me… I thought that was my fate.”
When speaking to French police about the impact the robbery had had on her three months after it, Kardashian said: “I think that my perception of jewellery now is that I am not as attached to it as I used to be. I don’t have the same feeling about it. In fact, I even think that it has become a bit of a burden to have the responsibility of such expensive jewels.
“There is nothing of sentimental value to compare with the act of going home and finding one’s children and one’s family.”
She went on to describe Paris as “not the right place” for her, and didn’t return to the French capital for two years following the robbery.
Kardashian has since said in a 2023 episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that she did not purchase any jewellery in the seven years following the robbery, kept no jewellery at her home and only wore items that are either borrowed or fake.
She said the realisation that material items don’t matter has made her “a completely different person in the best way”.
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