TRANSCRIPT.
CAPTAIN GIVES BRIEF UPDATE
12TH DECEMBER.
Captain - Good morning, my name's Roger Lanier. I'm the Captain with the Moscow Police Department. I'm in charge of the Operations Division. And today is Dec. 12th, Monday. I want to give you an update on the King Rd. homicide investigations, at least the information that we have to this point. Over the weekend, investigators still continued to sort through numerous tips, calls and online tips in regard to this investigation.
There's been a lot of questions about the white car that we've been interested in. We're looking for that car because we believe, through our investigation, that that car was in the area during the time of the murders and we also believe that the occupant or occupants may have seen something. They may not know they've seen something. So, we specifically want to talk to them and we want to know who they are and what they might know or might be able to contribute to the investigation.
Over the weekend, investigators have sorted through and prioritised numerous tips. Some are tips that came in earlier and we've been working on. Other tips are new and are relevant. It's overwhelming sometimes with the amount of information that comes in on these tip lines. So, our analysts have spent hours sorting through and trying to come up with the most relevant tips first for the investigators to follow up on. They have re-interviewed some of the folks we've interviewed earlier in this investigation to clarify information. Sometimes when new information comes forward, the people that we've spoken to beforehand may have new insight on that. So, it does often seem like we're backtracking but we're really just trying to get the most important details and the best timeline that we can come up with.
We have literally an army of analysts who have been sorting through videos that have been submitted through the fbi.gov.moscow upload site. Those videos are from all over town, gas stations and specifically the area around King Rd. We've been trying to use those videos to garner new information. As you can imagine, there's hours and hours and hours of videos, so it does take a lot of time.
I want to talk a minute about safety. There's been a lot of speculation about what is the safety to the public right now or the risk to the public right now. I would just like to add that we should always be vigilant. Certainly we should be vigilant now, but we should make that a way of life for us. We should always be walking with our head up, sticking to lighted paths and walking in groups, if we can. In addition, letting people know when you've arrived home if you have not made prior arrangements. This is not an indication of a specific elevated risk, but something that we should be vigilant with just in our daily lives.
I want let everybody know that we are still 100% committed to solving this crime. There's a lot of information to sort through and the information keeps coming in and not all of the information is relevant. But you don't know if a tip is valid until you take the time to examine that tip and see how it relates to other information that you might have. We have teams in Moscow, Salt Lake City and in Virginia, as well as other locations across the country and we're prepared to do interviews and follow up on information at any point, anywhere. The ISP and FBI investigators along with the Moscow Police Department investigators, includes dozens of analysts, tip line operators and others. And they're working around the clock, seven days a week, to sort through the volumes of information. MPD has detectives, support personnel and a communications team to try to keep everything together, but it is still a daunting task. The FBI, their investigators, are ready at a moments notice at any place in the country to go conduct an interview should the tips and leads take us there. And, the Idaho State Police has, besides working on the investigation, had several uniformed troopers in the area to help with safety concerns around the city and on the University of Idaho campus.
Just a quick reminder. Please stick to official news releases for information. Tracking down rumours and quelling rumours about specific individuals or specific events that may or may not have happened is a huge distraction for investigators and oftentimes is the result of social media propagation and it is very, very frustrating to investigators and hard to stay on track.
Finally I just want to add that we do have a lot of information and we are specifically keeping that information safe. We're not releasing specific details because we do not want to compromise this investigation. It's what we must do. We owe that to the families and we owe that to the victims. We want more than just an arrest. We want a conviction. We owe that justice to Xana, Kaylee, Madison and Ethan.
And finally, I would just like remind anybody with information - you can call the tip line at 208-883-7180 and that is directly to the tip line office in the FBI. There's been some frustration about having to wade through the tip line, but remember this is not the only investigation in the country. So, please be patient. We want that information. Anything could break this open for us and then also the e-mail tip line is
tipline@CI.moscow.ID.US. Thank you for your continued patience in this investigation.
nypost.com
www.medicalnewstoday.com
