Crucial Evidence: Idaho Police Refuse to Release 911 Tapes and Public Records In University Students' Murders
Dec. 1 2022, Published 10:18 a.m. ET
Police trying to hunt down the butcher who slaughtered four University of Idaho students are blocking the public release of the 911 tapes because they say it will “interfere” with the stalled investigation, RadarOnline.com has learned.
For weeks, investigators have remained tight-lipped since coeds Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, and friends, Xana Kernodle, 20, and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were brutally killed with a Rambo-style knife on November 13th inside an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho.
Investigators think the victims were killed around 3 AM but authorities were alerted later that morning after surviving housemates Dylan Mortensen, and Bethany Funke woke up and summoned other students to the home before one of them called 911 to report an “unconscious person.”
RadarOnline.com filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 911 tapes, which Moscow Police Chief James Fry said contain conversations between various panic-stricken students and the dispatcher.
“The City’s examination of records requested indicates that the contents are exempt from public disclosure because the records are active investigatory record which, if released, would interfere with enforcement proceedings…” wrote Moscow City Attorney Mia Bautista.
Police have also refused to release the initial bare-bones police report, which gives a general description of what responding officers saw and heard when they arrived.
Mortensen and Funke are not suspects in the case, police say, while one online sleuth on the “University of Idaho Student Murders- Case Discussion” Facebook group page claimed the housemates were alerted to a problem by the incessant ringing of Chapin’s cell phone alarm clock.
Bumbling police investigators are also now backtracking on a claim that one of the four victims was targeted in the grisly attack that has shaken the roughly 8,000 students who are now arming themselves with guns, knives, and pepper spray.
“Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted but continue to investigate,” the Moscow police stated on its webpage.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 mourners gathered on Wednesday night at the university’s Kibbie Dome, where an emotional Stacy Chapin, the mom of victim Ethan, encouraged students to spend time with loved ones.
“Make sure that you spend as much time as possible with those people because time is precious and it’s something you can’t get back,” the heartbroken mom said choking back tears. “It’s really important.”
Another devastated parent, Steve Goncalves, speaking with the support of his wife Kristi, noted how his daughter Kaylee and her best friend Madison did everything together – even in death.
“They went to high school together. Then they started looking at colleges. They came here together,” Goncalves said. “They eventually get into the same apartment together. And, in the end, they died together. In the same room, in the same bed. … It’s like a book. It’s like some kind of terrible chapter.”
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