THIS INTERVIEW IS NOT NEW. IT WAS DONE ABOUT 5 DAYS AFTER THE MURDERS, JUST HADN'T GOT AROUND TO FINISHING IT UNTIL NOW.
TRANSCRIPT OF
INTERVIEW WITH KAYLEE'S MOM, SISTER AND AUNT
21ST NOVEMBER.
Reporter - First off, the map that just came out from police, it gives a little bit of a timeline of where they may have been that night. Does that map mesh up with the timeline that you've been putting together?.
Sister - Yeah, I'd say it's very close. I'd say, if you have any closer details to kind of hone in, 1:45 could be very vague. Maybe it's closer to 1:50, let us know if you have anything concrete, because right now concrete is what we can go off of.
Reporter - In terms of the details, you said it's close. Does that frustrate you, that it's close?.
Sister - I do, but right now we're still trusting authorities that it's not going to be 20 minutes here, 15 minutes here, that's breaking this, but yeah, I implore everyone, if they know something different, bring it to the police because if they want to tighten up that timeline, we stand with that.
Reporter - It seems like there's just a very big gap when it comes to Ethan and Xana. Do you know where they might have been?.
Sister - I don't, unfortunately. I know nothing about that.
Mom - We have no idea where they were, but we do have a pretty tight timeline on Kaylee and Maddie and it is close to what they are posting, but it is a difference and that difference actually could be huge. I mean it could be, it could not be, but 1:45, 1:59, so there is... and we have corroborated with my phone records, Kaylee's phone records, the driver that was driving them around is pretty concrete.
Reporter - Yeah, so you have pulled video seeing the Uber driver dropping them off. You've checked your phone records, you know the time stamps, what time they got home?. It's not exactly what police are saying, right?.
Sister - Right.
Mom - It's not 1:45.
Sister - Kaylee and Maddie were picked up from their home at 1122 King around 10:15. It's about a 5 minute drive down, so they arrived to Corner Club aound 10:20, which is different than what was released, at 10. We know that Kaylee called for an Uber at 1:45, he arrived at 1:49, got in the car around 1:50. It's about 5-6 minutes drive. They arrived home at 1:56.
Reporter - Is it frustrating that your timeline is based on time stamps from videos and phone records and their timeline doesn't exactly match yours?.
Mom - I just feel like there's a reason they're just putting it out, the estimate. I don't know, because they do have that information from us and they've asked us where we have gotten that information and we have concrete backing. She (
sister) put it together.
Sister - It could be conflicting stories. We just don't know. This is the information that I stand behind.
Mom - I think that when they say 1:45, I think they're kind of referring to the whole group arriving approximately at 1:45. I believe that maybe Ethan and Xana, and I don't know, may have gotten home around that time and then the girls, obviously, 1:59ish, is shortly after. So, they're just kind of grouping.. the group arrived home around 1:45 ish, but they were not together and we don't know anything about Ethan and Xana. We do know about Kaylee and Maddie.
Reporter - And some of the time stamping afterwards - you know that your sister was making calls, right?. She was making calls as late as almost 2:00 o'clock. How do you know that?.
Sister - So, she was on my mom's cell plan.
Mom - We pulled my cell plan.
Sister - So, on Sunday I was able to pull those cell records.
Reporter - And you could see that she was calling somebody out?.
Mom and Sister - Yeah.
Reporter - Does it seem like they may have been involved or does it seem like....
Mom - No.
Sister - No, not at all. Kaylee had no shame in, kind of, power calling. So, it fits Kaylee.
Mom - And we know who she was calling and this person is... and this person was asleep, unfortunately, was not getting the calls and it was, I don't know, a few calls between... for half an hour she called him a couple of times and.. but no, it was not.. we do not believe she was calling him for help. We believe that she was just calling him to come over. If Kaylee was in eminent danger, her or Maddie, they would have called 911. They would not have been calling this person.
Reporter - And, that was around 2-2:30?.
Sister - Started around 2:15.
Mom - So, yes around that time we believe that the girls were just fine.
Reporter - So, from those phone records, it looks like the girls may have been alive around 2:30ish?.
Mom - 2:30 is what - the last call?.
Sister - Erm, no. The last call is shortly before 3:00 am.
Mom - That's right, shortly after 2:50 something.
Sister - 2:52, for both of them.
Reporter - It's now been five days and still no killer. Still no motive. How are you guys holding up?.
Sister - Yeah, I think it's different for everyone. They... obviously, you know, they were the same people to us, but they were different to all of us. To my mom, it was a daughter, to my aunt they were nieces, to me they were sisters and we all had different, very complex and amazing relationships with both of them. So, it's going to feel different.
Aunt - Empty.
Mom - Kaylee just left home, she just left on Friday.. she left on Friday morning to go to a Pi Phi party and she had just bought a brand new Range Rover and she just.. she contemplated all day long, back and forth, whether she should go home because she just really wanted to show it to Maddie and some other friends and whatnot. And, she's just like 'mom, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to the Pi Phi party and I'm gonna.. Maddie's gotta see my new ride' and I'm like 'for sure', like I mean, it was nice, it was really nice. She'd just bought it that day, all her own, and I talked to the girls on... she had a fun time on Friday night, both of the girls, and then both of the girls texted me on Saturday.
Reporter - So, you were talking to her Saturday, Saturday afternoon?
Mom - Yes, Saturday afternoon. They sent me pictures of themselves and Kaylee called me around 2:30ish on Saturday afternoon and then I started.. I was texting Kaylee, just randomly, on Sunday and right about those.. when I look back at my times I was texting Kaylee, the police were swarming.
Reporter - So, you were trying to get a hold of her on Sunday morning?.
Mom - Yeah, just random, just randomly talking, just 'Hey, what's going on'?. 'How'd you guys do last night'. We talked a lot and she was supposed to be home on Tuesday. She said she'd be home on Tuesday.
Reporter - We were talking a little bit earlier. Whoever did this is still out there.
Mom - Yes.
Reporter - Do you have a message for them?.
Mom - Turn yourself in. Stop, stop all this. Let us mourn our children and we can't when we know this person is out there. You know who did it. You know who you are. Just end it. The guilt is gotta be just overwhelming. It's gotta be sickening. Stop hiding. Stop running. Just turn yourself in. Just turn yourself in so we can move on, we can bury our girls. We could have a celebration of life for them and continue to mourn and try the best to heal. Start the healing process, but we can't with this person just running around out there. This person's dangerous and we fear that this person will do this again.
Aunt - Now that he's done it once, he can definitely do it again.
Mom - We have no idea why, none. There's no reason why anyone should have been targeted, for any reason.
Aunt - These were young, beautiful children. They were starting their lives and they were successful and they were go getters and they were strong. There's absolutely no reason for jealousy or anything, for someone to take four children's lives like this. Turn yourself in. You owe it to these mothers of these children, these fathers, these families. You're wrong. Turn yourself in.
Reporter - You said something that I've never even thought of, which is, it's almost a worst nightmare, which is, how do you bury your daughter knowing that they could possibly come...
Mom - Yeah, it's going to be... the services for these girls will be huge, public, and to think that this person is sitting there at the church, just.. I can't.
Reporter - You're worried that the killer might show up to their service?.
Mom - Absolutely. Their candlelight vigils, all of that. Makes me sick that this person could be there, standing right behind us, waving a little candle. It's sickening, absolutely sickening. We're sick, we're just sick. We just want it to end.
Aunt - It's a living nightmare.
Reporter - In terms of what police have been able to communicate to you. Have they been more forthcoming?. Are they communicating with you enough?.
Sister - I think it's an ongoing investigation. I think at the end of the day, I'm not an investigator. Do I want more information?, absolutely, but, Do I know that they have it?, or, Do I know that they can give it to me?, No. So, of course I'm frustrated, but I can't necessarily point that finger direct.
Reporter - Based on what you've seen so far, are you confident in their investigation?.
Sister - I have to be. Right now, I have to be.
Aunt - We're counting on it.
Sister - And I think that it's easy to sit back and say 'oh, I would have done this, oh, I would have done that', but I don't know what they walked into. I don't know what they've done. Are there definitely some things that I've heard that I wish I hadn't heard about the investigation so far?, absolutely, but right now I can't.. I am frustrated that I don't have more information, but I don't know if they have information that they can give me.
Mom - We don't know. We don't know. My husband is in contact with them everyday, the FBI, Moscow, Idaho State Police, and everyday he just says 'nothing, babe', and I'm like 'nothing?', and he's like 'nothing'. I don't know if that's because they have nothing or because they're protecting the investigation. So, you know, it's hard to be mad at them if we know they're just protecting the investigation, but it would be nice if they said 'we have something, we have a little lead, or we have an idea'. It just gives you a little bit of hope, you know.
Sister - It is very hopeless right now, I guess, being left without that information.
Reporter - Yeah, because you can't grieve, you can't feel safe.
Mom - If Kaylee and Maddie were down there right now in this situation with somebody else, they would be home. I would have told them and I would have been 'you girls need to get home, NOW, like yesterday, now'. So, to families.. I think it's Thanksgiving weekend coming up and most kids are coming home, but there is no way, and there's no way that I would send them back until this person is found. This person... it's an isolated, targeted, you know, incident until it's not. Until this person.. this person was angry. This was not just 'oh, he got drunk at a party and shot up at a party, which I'm not putting anything down to.. you know, people have lost loved ones that way, but this was a very...
Aunt - Very violent targeted attack.
Reporter - And hearing yesterday - hearing the coroner say that one person may have been killed in their sleep. Is that something that you had heard?.
Sister - Yeah and that's hard, you know, but I guess, for us, that kind of just indicates premeditation, which we've been fighting since the beginning, away from this term. You know 'crime of passion'. I think that comes with a certain connotation that can lead to empathy, and we don't agree with that.
Reporter - So, when you hear them say that someone was killed in their sleep, you think premeditation?.
Sister - Absolutely. I think it's impossible not to.
Mom - And not one, four. I mean I don't know if all four of them were... we don't really have the details, but regardless, four people were stabbed to death.
Reporter - And, premeditation.. I mean, like you said, it's very different..
Sister - I'm not saying, you know, weeks lead up. I'm not saying months, lead up. You know, it literally could have been 20 minutes. I don't know, but to...
Mom - Somebody went in there with an intent to kill.
Sister - You know, this wasn't a fight that the girls had said something and offhand this occurred. They must have, you know, walked in on vulnerable sleeping kids.
Aunt - A coward.
Sister - And, for what it's worth I want to run as far from the term of 'crime of passion' as possible, because I think it's weak and I think it allows him to hide and I think it gets him an out that he doesn't deserve.
Mom - He walked in and got mad and angry. They were all there together and something occurred and he got mad and wielded his weapon or whatever. No, this person snuck, somehow, into the house, whether is was an unlocked door or an unlocked window, but he was not invited and he came in with a weapon.
Aunt - To do intentional harm.
Mom - With an intention to kill. Not just one, not two, not three, but four. One after another, after another, after another.
Reporter - And, again that little detail about the... it shows like there's vulnerability, right?. There is the idea that there may have been defensive wounds, but at least one person didn't see it coming?.
Sister - Right.
Aunt - As far as we know.
Sister - As far as we know. According to what the coroner said.
Reporter - In terms of somebody getting into the house - they keep saying no sign of forced entry. Do you think that this was somebody that was known to them?.
Sister - I think that that's kind of an impossible question. It was a very popular house.
Mom - As a mother, I feel like they know em. I do, I've always felt that way. Nobody's told me that anyway, I just.. I mean, this is a college town, it's a small town. I feel that, I feel the girls knew this person.
Aunt - But, we don't know that.
Mom - Well, we don't. We absolutely don't know that. I just feel it in my heart that they knew the person and I've always felt that way. I don't know why, but I've always said 'they knew em, they knew em'. I just don't feel like this was some rando just driving through Moscow, happened to stop by their house.
Sister - I will say, they did have a keypad on their front door and it was a very popular house. So, I know for a fact that people who weren't necessarily roommates of the house did have that code. So, no sign of forced entry doesn't necessarily mean that they were invited in. That's all it means.
Reporter - And the people that survived were on the first floor?.
Sister - To our knowledge.
Reporter - And then, if they come in through the keypad - Is it possible to bypass a room on the first floor and go up to the second floor and third floor?.
Sister - Yes there is, correct. There's also a door in the back that just leads directly to the middle.
Reporter - I don't want to put you guys through anymore. I think we're good.
Another reporter - We know it's been tough to get answers from police for everybody. Just what have police told you guys about the investigation.. what's going on?.
Sister - Yeah, I think to answer that question. We know exactly what the public knows. We really don't have any further details and, unfortunately, if we did, I wouldn't give them to you guys.
Mom - But, honest to god, we don't.. we don't.
Aunt - The public needs to know that there's someone out there that's finally killed four people, and that no matter who died first or second or last, they're gone, and we need to get this person, now, before it's too late for anybody else to suffer for what we are suffering for, for the rest of our lives. He took their lives, but he took them from us. That will never change. We will never let Kaylee and Maddie's memory, ever, disappear, but that's all we have left and that's not enough. Period, done, there's your answer.
Sister - There is no other information.
Mom - And, unfortunately, you guys will probably hear it first anyways.
Aunt - Right?. That's pretty true.
Mom - Things leak out there all the time and we're like 'did you see this?, did you see this?, did you see this?', and like 'nope'. I call my husband, he's like 'I haven't heard that'.
Sister - The reporters and stuff that have reached out to me ahead of breaking news stories, you know, even if it's only 20 mins. heads up, it's nice to be able to process that information as a family first before reading it online. To everyone who has done that, I just wanted to say, thank you. I know that if it bleeds, it leads. I get this industry, I'm not stupid, but thank you to those who have done so, respectfully and with empathy in their hearts.
Reporter - Thank you guys.
@layer
abcnews.go.com
