BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Authorities investigating the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students as they slept in a house near campus are asking for outside surveillance video to help solve the week-old crime.
The Moscow Police Department late Saturday requested from businesses and residences in specific parts of the city any footage recorded between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Nov. 13, the day of the killings.
Police said they have received about 500 tips after the killings shook the Idaho Panhandle community of 25,000 residents. The leafy college town about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Spokane, Washington, last saw a homicide about five years ago.
Also on Saturday, police said a private driver who gave two of the women a ride home was not involved in the crime.
Police planned a news conference on Sunday afternoon to provide updates.
All four victims were members of fraternities and sororities: seniors Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; junior Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington. The women were roommates, and Chapin was dating Kernodle.
Police said Chapin and Kernodle were at Sigma Chi house on the University of Idaho camps and returned home around 1:45 a.m. on Nov. 13. Police said Mogen and Goncalves were at a bar called The Corner Club in downtown Moscow, left the bar and stopped at a food truck, and then also returned home at about 1:45 a.m.
Police on Saturday said Mogen and Goncalves made multiple calls to a male they didn’t identify, and that information is part of an ongoing investigation.
Additionally, police said a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt and seen in a video at the food truck near Mogen and Goncalves shortly before they returned home is not involved in the crime.
Police said two other roommates who were in the house on the night of the killings had returned home at about 1 a.m. and slept through the attack, waking later that day. Police said one of their phones was used to call 911 from inside the residence at 11:58 a.m.
Police have said those two roommates were not involved in the killings.
Police said the victims were found on the second and third floors of the six-bedroom home.
Police have said evidence leads them to believe the students were targeted, though they haven’t given details. Investigators say nothing appears to have been stolen from the victims or the home. Police have said there was no sign of forced entry, and first responders found a door open when they arrived.
Police also said online reports of the victims being tied and gagged are not accurate.
Police have seized the contents of three dumpsters to locate possible evidence, and detectives have asked local businesses if they recently sold a fixed-blade knife.
The Moscow Police Department said four detectives, five support staff and 24 patrol officers are working on the case.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has 22 investigators helping in Moscow, and 20 more agents assisting from outside the area.
The Idaho State Police has supplied 20 investigators, 15 troopers, and its mobile crime scene team.
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