No suspects, murder weapon or motive: Mystery of four University of Idaho students killed in their beds

Published

3 years ago

December 15, 2022

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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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

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.

“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.

“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

James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife’s protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

Published

4 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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James Craig: Dentist in Colorado poisoned wife's protein shakes with cyanide, murder trial hears

The trial of a dentist accused of murdering his wife by poisoning her protein shakes has begun in the US state of Colorado.

James Craig denies using cyanide and tetrahydrozoline, an ingredient in over-the-counter eye drops, to kill Angela Craig in a suburb of Denver.

During the trial’s opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutors claimed the 47-year-old was having an affair with another dentist, had financial difficulties and may have been motivated by the payout from his wife’s life insurance.

Assistant District Attorney Ryan Brackley told the jury at Arapahoe District Court that the 43-year-old victim – who had six children with her husband – had been suffering worsening symptoms including dizziness, vomiting and fainting.

She died in March 2023 during her third trip to the hospital that month.

Mr Brackley accused Craig of poisoning her protein shakes – then giving his wife a final dose of poison while she was in hospital, and said: “He went in that [hospital] room to murder her, to deliberately and intentionally end her life with a fatal dose of cyanide … She spends the next three days dying.”

Craig, who shook his head at times during the prosecution’s opening statement, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including first-degree murder, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.

Prosecutors said Craig had tried to make it appear his wife of 23 years had killed herself. His internet history showed he had searched for “how to make a murder look like a heart attack” and “is arsenic detectable in an autopsy”.

In an argument, captured on home surveillance video, his wife also accused him of suggesting to hospital staff that she was suicidal.

After Craig’s arrest in 2023, prosecutors alleged that he had offered a fellow prison inmate $20,000 (£14,993) to kill the case’s lead investigator and offered someone else $20,000 to find people to falsely testify that Angela Craig planned to die by suicide.

Craig’s attorney, Ashley Whitham, told the jury to consider the credibility of those witnesses, calling some “jailhouse snitches”.

Ms Whitham argued that the evidence didn’t show that he poisoned her, instead seeming to suggest she may have taken her own life.

She described Angela Craig as “broken”, partly by Craig’s infidelity and her desire to stay married, since they were part of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints.

Hospital staff had said Craig had been caring and “doting” while Angela Craig was in the hospital, said Whitham.

The defence argued prosecutors had overdramatised Craig’s financial problems and dismissed the prosecution’s suggestion that Craig was motivated to kill because of an affair he was having with a fellow dentist from Texas.

“That’s simply not the case,” Whitham said, adding that Craig had many affairs over the years that his wife knew about. “He was candid with Angela that he had been cheating.”

The trial continues.

US

Trump to ‘refine trade deal’ with UK during Scotland trip

Published

10 hours ago

July 16, 2025

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Trump to 'refine trade deal' with UK during Scotland trip

Donald Trump has said he will “refine the trade deal” with the UK during his private trip to Scotland later this month.

The US president told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday that he will meet with Sir Keir Starmer “probably in Aberdeen”.

Politics latest: Reeves committed to ‘non-negotiable’ fiscal rules

Mr Trump is expected to travel to Scotland in the coming weeks to visit his golf courses ahead of an official state visit in September.

“We’re going to be meeting with the British prime minister, very respectful, and we are going to have a meeting with him, probably in Aberdeen, and we’re going to do a lot of different things.

“We’re going to also refine the trade deal that we’ve made.

“So we’ll be meeting mostly […] at probably one of my properties, or maybe not, depending on what happens, but we’ll be in Aberdeen, in Scotland, meeting with the prime minister.”

The UK and US signed a trade deal earlier this year that reduced car and aerospace tariffs, but questions have remained about a promise from Washington to slash steel tariffs.

In May, the White House said it would exempt the UK from plans for a 25% tariff on global steel imports but that is yet to be ratified and the levy has since been doubled on all other countries.

Mr Trump had insisted that unless Britain could finalise the details of a metals trade deal with the US by 9 July, when wider “Liberation Day” tariff pauses were expected to expire, he would slap the UK with a 50% rate as well.

However that pause was extended until 1 August, with the US president saying nations would instead get letters informing them of his plans.

As Sky News’ economics and data editor Ed Conway has reported, the metals deal has floundered on two key issues, including that while the government has taken control of British Steel, the company itself still legally has Chinese owners.

Downing Street is still hoping it can secure 0% tariffs on steel.

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On Tuesday, a Downing Street spokesperson played down the significance of the meeting in Scotland, stressing it was a private trip so it “will not be a formal bilateral”.

Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has imposed tariffs on countries across the world in a bid to boost domestic production and address trade deficits.

As well as sector specific tariffs, there is a baseline tariff of 10% for most other imports, though some countries face higher rates.

The UK was the first to hash out a deal on exemptions after a successful charm offensive by Sir Keir.

Mr Trump has praised the PM, telling the BBC earlier on Tuesday: “I really like the prime minister a lot, even though he’s a liberal.”

There are also plans for Scottish First Minister John Swinney to meet Mr Trump during his trip.

It will be followed by the official state visit between 17-19 September, when Mr Trump will be hosted by the King and Queen at Windsor Castle and accompanied by his wife Melania.

It will be Mr Trump’s second state visit to the UK, having previously been hosted during his first term in 2019.

US

Donald Trump sending ‘top of the line’ weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Published

1 day ago

July 15, 2025

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Donald Trump sending 'top of the line' weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.

Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”

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Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.

Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.

The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.

Later on Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Mr Trump and said he was “grateful” for the US president’s “readiness to help protect our people’s lives”.

After criticising Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag it out”, he said he appreciated “preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine” – and added Kyiv is “working on major defence agreements with America”.

It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.

During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.

After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”

Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.

He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.