4 people found dead at home in Idaho; neighbor arrested

A 31-year-old man detained at the scene of a shooting in northern Idaho that left four people dead on Sunday has been booked into jail on probable cause for murder and is a neighbor of the victims, state police said. The incident marked the second quadruple murder in the northern part of the state since November.

In a news release late Monday afternoon, Idaho State Police said they were still investigating the shooting deaths in the small city of Kellogg, about 36 miles east of Coeur d’Alene, after working through the night.

“This is a tragic situation that will affect the Kellogg community. Detectives continue working to establish a timeline and what led to the shooting,” Lieutenant Paul Berger, a detective with the Idaho State Police, said in the news release.  “As this case will go through the judicial process, we are ensuring every angle is covered with a thorough investigation.”

“Investigators are releasing that the suspect is the neighbor of the victims,” the news release said. “However, neither the relationships between the parties nor the suspect’s motive will be confirmed by law enforcement until after the initial court appearance when records become available through the courts.”

The bodies of the four victims are in the custody of the Shoshone County Coroner’s Office, according to the news release. The detained suspect was being held at the Shoshone County Jail.

Neighbors were grappling with what happened.

“We were in the backyard on my patio doing a weekly family dinner,” neighbor Christy Woolum told CBS affiliate KREM-TV. “I think all we heard were sirens.” 

Crime scene tape on Monday blocked off parts of an apartment complex in Kellogg, KXLY-TV reported. The shooting occurred at multi-dwelling units behind the Mountain View Congregational Church on Sunday, The Shoshone News-Press reported on the newspaper’s Facebook page.

Around 7:20 p.m. on Sunday, the Shoshone County dispatch center received a 911 call indicating that multiple people had been killed inside a residence in Kellogg, state police said Sunday night in a news release. Law enforcement officers found four people dead when they arrived and detained a 31-year-old male believed to be connected with the deaths, according to the release.

The Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office, which said in a Facebook post that it responded to the scene with the Kellogg Police Department, said the four people died of gunshot wounds.

The Kellogg Police Department did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking additional information.

This marks the second quadruple murder in northern sIdaho in seven months. Bryan Kohberger, 28, was charged with four counts of murder in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students who were found dead on Nov. 13 at a home in Moscow, Idaho. 

The mass shooting was part of a spate of gun violence over the weekend that killed and wounded people across the U.S., including at least 60 shot in the Chicago area alone.

Looking at CDC data, a report this month by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found 2021 set a record for the most deaths ever: 48,830 gun-related deaths. Of those, 20,958 were homicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Josh Horwitz, the center’s co-director, said states and the federal government need to redouble their efforts to stop gun violence.

“We know that there’s a correlation between amounts and levels of guns in the community and gun deaths,” Horwtiz told CBS News.