Some of the families of the four students killed at the University of Idaho last year have urged college officials to delay demolishing the house where the slayings occurred.
While college officials did not provide a specific date, they said they plan to raze the Moscow home before students return to school in late August. Shanon Gray, an attorney representing Kaylee Goncalves’ family, told the Idaho Statesman they oppose this because they want the off-campus home to remain standing for Bryan Kohberger’s trial, which is scheduled to begin in October.
Gray said that Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle’s families also oppose the upcoming demolition.
“The university asked for the families’ opinions on the demolition and then proceeded to ignore those opinions and pursue their own self-interests,” Gray said in an email. “The home itself has enormous evidentiary value as well as being the largest, and one of the most important, pieces of evidence in the case.”
According to the Idaho Statesman, the homeowner donated the Moscow home to the university in February, months after the quadruple slaying.
Kohberger, a Ph.D. criminal justice student at Washington State University, was arrested in December in Pennsylvania for fatally stabbing Mogen, Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, and Kernodle at the women’s off-campus home on November 13, 2022.
Kohberger is believed to have turned off his phone during the murders. However, police claim he visited the area 12 times before the slayings.
Kohberger was arrested after a cross-country trip with his father from Idaho to Pennsylvania. During their trip, Indiana police pulled over the pair twice.
Kohberger is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and burglary. Prosecutors filed court documents detailing their intent to pursue the death penalty as they deemed the four slayings were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”
Kohberger remains jailed without bail as he awaits trial.
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[Featured image: AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File]
