ID - 4 University of Idaho Students Murdered - Moscow # 8

[L.laricina]

JMO.

Great post, @otto — thank you!

Speculation re victim “targeting” and connections to other crimes:

The Chi Omega murders in Tallahassee (Ted Bundy) have been mentioned several times as a possible corollary. Immediately after fleeing the Chi Omega house, Bundy broke into an apartment and assaulted another young woman (she survived despite severe injuries).

Bundy’s MO differed and there has been a lot written about his victim preference — but he has not been definitely tied to the murder of a woman to whom he could be socially connected.

Bundy and other killers were known to engage in trolling behavior wherein they may stalk intended victims and/or research/case locations for some time before acting.

We know this (and LE knows it), which is why the other incidents in the immediate Moscow area will be investigated.

The chilling thought is the flip side — victims / locations that were already on this killer’s list and that he had trolled.

LE hasn’t asked for any tips on strange behavior leading UP to the murders. Maybe they’ve ruled this type of killer out?
JMO.

My thoughts about the trolling, related to Bundy, are that Bundy was a very good looking and charming, psychopatic man and I'm not sure if anyone whom he may have encountered on the street during a troll would have had a clue that he was up to something murderous. The same thought applies if any of these students might have met the killer around town, thereby landing on his/her radar..."just some charming person who bought me a drink.."

 

[TwoBlueJays]

Anyone who is still curious about who called 911, this is what happened. Hopefully this clears up any confusion about whether the murderer placed the call at noon.

"The 911 call came from the phone of one of the two surviving roommates who were home at the time of the killings, according to a statement from the Moscow Police Department.

Police said the surviving roommates called friends over to the house on Nov. 13 because they believed one of their roommates had passed out. Multiple people spoke with the dispatcher during the 911 call made at 11:58 a.m. to report an unconscious person, according to police."

MSN

The above is why I do not support the theory that Ethan was lying dead in the middle of the second floor or even in the bedroom doorway. You cannot correlate 'passed out' with stabbed to death. Even if he was face down he would still be bleeding. And LE stated all victims were in bed. I believe the bedroom door was locked and someone was worried that he was unconsciousness due to not responding to calls or knocks. Moo

 

[momrids6]

This may have been said since there is no way to read through all of the comments, but has anyone else considered that EC & XK were already dead when KG & MM got home? Their calls to J could have been panicked emergency calls. The killer could have still been in the house and killed them as well. JMO

drunk dialing an ex, imo. Typical college behavior.

 

[CuriousGeorga]

I haven't seen this in the timeline so I'll ask...if we know:
Was the takeout food from the grub truck already eaten - in other words they were home, ate the food, made the calls to male friend, went to bed? Then everything went down.
Or not eaten...and they potentially walked into a situation, made desperate calls to the male.

 

[white rabbit]

reposting my last from thread 7 (lost in transition to 8). agree with the posters that at this point, details are moot. where the bedrooms were, the dog, etc. we need to focus more on the killer(s). though at this point imo there was only one:


here's a question i haven't seen asked (though with seven threads it must've been). some stabbing victims have been known to survive, for sure. did the killer KNOW they were deceased when he/she left the house? iow, did he/she wait around watching them exsanguinate? pretty risky to stab four people and stick around...and just as risky to flee immediately, not knowing who else was in the house, if anyone, and who of his victims would be able to crawl to a phone and call 911.

trying to get inside perphead is frustrating for sure...but think about it from perphead's perspective. he/she was "sloppy", probably enraged, maybe on drugs...did he/she stick around to make sure there were no living witnesses?

 

[Chestnutsunfish]

I think it's interesting this person did not harm the dog. Maybe they're an animal lover.

Or knew and loved this particular animal.. MOO

 

[Strong1]

As far as suspects go I am not sure which way I lean. A random person who just happened to enter this house and commit these murders seems unlikely. The stalker theory is a possibility, but the distance between staking and murder ,not to mention multiple murders, is a pretty big leap. Another possibility is a scorned ex, but that is usually a very specific person crime. This seemed like a vendetta against multiple members of this house. If this was meant for a specific person, then why kill the others? I feel there is more to this story as far as a possible motive. It is possible that more than one person in this house was targeted.

 

[Sheila Terranova]

I've only posted here once or twice so bear with me as someone who's read a lot of Agatha Christie recently, I'm personally thinking a lot more about the psychology of the case, not necessarily who did it.

To me, when I look at it, the single most mind-boggling thing is that there were ZERO 911 calls from the house. If you think about it, for one murderer to take on 4 people, even asleep, is a huge task considering that all it takes is for 2 people to call the police (one to distract the murderer, one to make the call) or even 1 if the murderer doesn't get to the victim fast enough. Given that, IMO, the murderer HAD to know the layout of the house. I don't just mean Zillow, I mean the killer had to know the layout of every room, how the furniture was laid out. Think about it. This thing happened in the dead of night and if the murderer turns on lights, that will likely alert people way before the murderer wants to. And even then, all it takes is a stray backpack full of college books to send the murderer flying and possibly wake someone up. And, here's the important part, this is a party house, yes, but also, I would imagine, a house where girls don't just invite random people into their bedrooms, especially on the 3rd floor. So given the picture of complete darkness as the murderer is going through the house, the murderer has to know where the beds are located in the rooms, where everything is located as well as possible. That's not a random stranger, that spells targeting, which is what LE was reporting at the start.
Now, there are reports of defensive wounds but still no 911 call, which means that the people fighting back were only doing so one at a time. Otherwise, a second person definitely would have made a 911 call even if all they can do is leave the phone on the line, that would have brought the cops in minutes.
For lack of a better word, this feels like someone who has practice; I won't be surprised to find this person might have military experience or background or training of some kind and quite possibly also might have used night vision goggles. The dog, assuming it was in the house, is also a tip-off. Dogs in general are unpredictable and I would guess the murderer is probably someone the dog knows. Sure, some dogs might go run and hide, but not all dogs will, even all the time. The murderer KNOWS the dog will not alert anyone.

Not sure about the dog…but he could have night goggles? If he really knew the house wouldn’t he have killed the other girls also?

 

[KrisCo16]

The above is why I do not support the theory that Ethan was lying dead in the middle of the second floor or even in the bedroom doorway. You cannot correlate 'passed out' with stabbed to death. Even if he was face down he would still be bleeding. And LE stated all victims were in bed. I believe the bedroom door was locked and someone was worried that he was unconsciousness due to not responding to calls or knocks. Moo

Locked doors, if true, would help preserve the crime scene.

 

[Lalalacasbah]

I don't think killer is ex-military, I think the age demographic is too young to be ex-military.

I think he is a wannabe military guy or got kicked out or didn't make it into either military or police training or something. Possible hunter yes, but I'm leaning more towards the military/tactical wannabe. All MOO JMO

 

[elmomom]

I need to say that I am desperately confused about Moscow PD's latest info release that one of the surviving roommates found of their roommates "passed out and not waking up" and they called their friends over? Did they just not see all the blood?

Sorry I am a little behind and catching up and reading everything now.. These threads are at a lightning pace

Lots of speculation that the roommate didn’t actually “see” an unconscious (dead) victim. Door could have been locked by the killer, or perhaps she just tried to get a response by calling and texting and yelling and could hear the phone ringing in the bedroom upstairs but did not get any response. they Roommate may have then decided to call for someone to help “rouse” the individual and that person decided that it was something to call 911 about.
All I do know is that nothing, not the people, not the time of the call, not the circumstances of what we know and don’t know have anything at all to do with the actual murder. They have all been explicitly cleared by LE. Fini. And everyone is fixated on this, when it boils down to a bunch of bird brained children running around trying to make sense of something that is entirely not normal. And everyone is fixated on carrying on and trying to explain something and an event that is entirely inexplicable.

 

[KingJames]

While I agree that it's not the ex, I don't necessarily agree with the stalker premise. A stalker would surely know his victim lives with a lot of other students through real life and online surveillance which would make the house actually the least convenient choice for a move against her.

In the study Behavioral Characteristics of Stalkers Who Kill (Brooks, University of Oklahoma, 2021) it was found that there was approximately a 4.8% chance of collateral victims in stalking cases sampled.

Essentially, a stalker feels the need to exercise control over their victims which makes a full house a problematic location for them. Therefore he must carefully pick the time and the place to avoid disruptions and remove as many of the variables as possible such as potential screaming roommates alerting neighbors and the police. The number of people and the absence of a sexual assault, in my mind, point away from a stalker.

MOO

This was probably the guys first kill. Maybe he was just watching them, noticed that they all went to sleep, and saw that the door was open so he went to kitchen and grabbed a knife. The multiple stab wounds indicate this guy had no experience and was just frantically stabbing. Something made him snap that day and one thing evolved to another. There was some kind of rage that led the person to do it with a house full of people. A triggering event.

 

[ZaddyMatty]

As far as suspects go I am not sure which way I lean. A random person who just happened to enter this house and commit these murders seems unlikely. The stalker theory is a possibility, but the distance between staking and murder ,not to mention multiple murders, is a pretty big leap. Another possibility is a scorned ex, but that is usually a very specific person crime. This seemed like a vendetta against multiple members of this house. If this was meant for a specific person, then why kill the others? I feel there is more to this story as far as a possible motive. It is possible that more than one person in this house was targeted.

Wouldn't knowledge of such beef between the perp and victims have come out by now? I feel like any sort of "well there was some drama between X and the victim(s).

 

[North_Idaho_Nony]

Question/clarification about floor plan Otto shared with respect to third floor & understanding it, please.

I know a young women who was in the house some time back (year or two ago) & her recollection is the flight of stairs from second to third floor makes a 360 degree turn: bathroom & door to one bedroom are on that 3rd floor. To get up to the other 3rd floor bedroom with the slider & deck, you have to turn & go up a couple/few more steps.

Does that mesh with the floor plans Otto posted? Or might her recollection be inaccurate?

 

[DizzyB]

Thaks, Otto. With the half wall the stairs are clearly visible. So now I wonder if maybe the killings did not go as well as the killer had planned, or hoped--or maybe it was darker and more difficult to navigate on the first floor--and the perp felt like it was time to leave.

That half wall makes me re-think some stuff. I was imagining a door at the top of the stairs that could have been locked or blocked, and that’s why no one discovered the victims. Not a lot of blood in the kitchen or living room?

 

[thisiseku]

I really really really really hope that if a person walked into their home and found their roomates dead, that their first reaction would not be to call friends. Obligatory just my opinion

well that's what the roommates did at noon

 

[Peppery]

Cannot get over the fact that the dog wasn’t killed or hurt (assuming it was in Ks room), especially if it may have been barking throughout the killing spree.

Animal lover? Or as someone mentioned before - did they know the dog??

I’m wondering if the dog wasn’t in one of the survivors rooms if they were home earlier and they thought there was a party upstairs. Mainly to keep him from running away.

 

[momrids6]

I want to know whose jacket Maddie was wearing in the video? Way too big for her.

 

[Dutch77]

I've only posted here once or twice so bear with me as someone who's read a lot of Agatha Christie recently, I'm personally thinking a lot more about the psychology of the case, not necessarily who did it.

To me, when I look at it, the single most mind-boggling thing is that there were ZERO 911 calls from the house. If you think about it, for one murderer to take on 4 people, even asleep, is a huge task considering that all it takes is for 2 people to call the police (one to distract the murderer, one to make the call) or even 1 if the murderer doesn't get to the victim fast enough. Given that, IMO, the murderer HAD to know the layout of the house. I don't just mean Zillow, I mean the killer had to know the layout of every room, how the furniture was laid out. Think about it. This thing happened in the dead of night and if the murderer turns on lights, that will likely alert people way before the murderer wants to. And even then, all it takes is a stray backpack full of college books to send the murderer flying and possibly wake someone up. And, here's the important part, this is a party house, yes, but also, I would imagine, a house where girls don't just invite random people into their bedrooms, especially on the 3rd floor. So given the picture of complete darkness as the murderer is going through the house, the murderer has to know where the beds are located in the rooms, where everything is located as well as possible. That's not a random stranger, that spells targeting, which is what LE was reporting at the start.
Now, there are reports of defensive wounds but still no 911 call, which means that the people fighting back were only doing so one at a time. Otherwise, a second person definitely would have made a 911 call even if all they can do is leave the phone on the line, that would have brought the cops in minutes.
For lack of a better word, this feels like someone who has practice; I won't be surprised to find this person might have military experience or background or training of some kind and quite possibly also might have used night vision goggles. The dog, assuming it was in the house, is also a tip-off. Dogs in general are unpredictable and I would guess the murderer is probably someone the dog knows. Sure, some dogs might go run and hide, but not all dogs will, even all the time. The murderer KNOWS the dog will not alert anyone.

perp could have had on night vision goggles. Even if it was someone that know the layout, there could have a pair of shoes on the floor.

it just seems planned and performed by someone with skill to be able to incapacitate 2 sets of victims

 

[thisiseku]

The timestamp on the twitch video might be off by 10 minutes.

twitch timestamps are not off, twitch stream delays are 3-7 sec. i was checking out a grubtruck stream just couple of days ago and they were responding to chat messages in seconds