Moscow Murders: Update 3
The first 48 hours revisited, a campus under pressure, toxicology overlooked, rumors of another 911 call, "touch" DNA, a vanished photo, Emma Bailey's case dismissed,
“The First 48 Hours Will Tell You So Much”
Looking back, nothing that developed in this case ever added up. And I knew it. The only way we were going to get new information is if one of the surviving roommates was called to testify, so without that to count on my incentive started to fade. When the preliminary hearing was canceled, I began to pull away from tracking the story. Mostly because I did not innately buy it, but had no proof to support my skepticism.
Then a couple of trusted tips came in.
“You should be asking: who is Emma Bailey? How is she connected?”
“And: who is Quinn Kelly? How is he connected?”
These two names were enough to redirect my focus. I started digging again. The theory about a drug ring secretly at the center of this tragedy, found in a comment section on YouTube had 6 likes, but for me it read like a bombshell connecting the two names I was given, arguing that Bryan Kohberger was in fact a familiar face in this scene, and not a brooding stranger stalker prey in the shadows as he has been largely portrayed.
Suddenly, things started to shift into clearer focus, enough so that it seemed vital now to question everything. To wonder if maybe this wasn’t about an obsession over girls, or A GIRL, and maybe the other deaths were not the horrifying result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps there was more to this shocking 8-hour delay in calling 911 for help.
Because, the decided narrative as it stands now, requires that we deny basic intuition and logic, so the details presented thus far make sense. But the reality is, nothing in this case ever made sense. Not the motive, the timeline, police updates, or vicious manner of attack. When we take a big step back to examine the whole thing with fresh eyes, it’s the alternative theories uncovered that are filling too many gaps.
In this third update, drugs as an undisputed factor in this horrific crime become glaringly obvious. The extent of which might be up for debate but what's clear is that significant details in this story have either been hidden or withheld, so speculative theories, threaded by online investigators connecting the dots, feels closer to the truth than anything I've seen previously presented in media. And while some of the musings included in this roundup are reflective of typical small-town antics, where everyone knows everyone, politics get mingled, and scandal consistently swept under the rug, the question I’m posing here now is: when do small-town antics start looking more like Big crime coverups?
And why is no one in mainstream media chasing this angle when such compelling evidence is staring us in the face?
Points Examined
The first 48 hours revisited
Campus warnings retracted
‘Crime of Passion
No blood trail
Theories re: manipulated timelines
Rumors of another 911 call
Audio mentioned in the affidavit
Xana’s lock change
Moscow’s History of crime coverups & nonreports
A look at Emma Bailey’s Twitter account
Demetrius Robinson’s Criminal Past
EB’s and DR’s case dismissal
Toxicology results overlooked / unreleased
Bethany and Dylan’s actions after the murders
A campus under pressure
Touch DNA on sheath
Early tips from students ignored by local police
The vanished photo from King Rd taken right after police arrived
Steve Goncalves in recent interview: “Let’s make sure we have the right person”
Related comments, theories, speculation
Gag Order Pushback
The push to maintain a clean divide continues. As of last week, reporters got banned from reporting outside the county courthouse for the arraignment hearing.
Efforts to minimize the sensationalism surrounding this crime went into overdrive once they had a suspect in custody. The Latah County Judge issued the gag order back in January after Kohberger’s arrest. Two weeks later, she expanded it to restrict law enforcement, attorneys for the prosecution and defense, as well as attorneys for witnesses, victims, and the victims’ families from commenting about the case outside of court filings.
Attorneys for more than two dozen media outlets resubmitted filings on May 1st after the Idaho Supreme Court dismissed the complaint on “procedural grounds.” They are seeking an end to the nondissemination order, arguing that it suppresses First Amendment rights.
Following the Idaho Supreme Court’s guidance, intervenors now ask that the court vacate the gag order because it is “vague, overbroad, unduly restrictive and not narrowly drawn.”
The complaint, signed by Boise-based attorney Wendy Olson, argued “The gag order thus should be vacated.”
The Goncalves family attorney, Shanon Gray, echoed this in his statement, claiming the gag order is "facially overbroad and vague" and "unconstitutionally overbroad." Gray is requesting the court amend or clarify the existing gag order to make clear who the "parties" in the case are. Gray, is not directly involved in the case, rather the attorney for the victim's family, but the defense has argued that his status as an attorney limits his free speech protection.
"Mr. Gray has special access to information via his clients," Kohberger's attorney, Anne Taylor, wrote. "Dissemination of information forbidden by the Court’s order would be deemed authoritative as a result of this access and Mr. Gray’s status as an attorney, and therefore would endanger the jury’s impartiality."
An upcoming hearing in June will decide on both gag orders.
Shanon Gray addresses frustrations from the family’s perspective
Re: The 911 Call “A Significant Case Detail” Withheld
Typically, the 911 one call is a telling detail in homicide. Usually that audio is released to the public.
Not in this case.
WHY?
Bill Thompson: “it’s an essential part of the case” / “Roommates may have critical information”
Rumors of a Second 3am 911 call revealed by Kim ‘WSU Mom’
Xana’s Lock Change
Xana’s mom revealed in a phone interview with NewsNation months ago that Xana’s father worked on the locks at the King Rd. before her death. She said Jeff Kernodle visited the house a week before Xana’s death to fix her lock. It is unclear whether it was the lock on the bedroom door or one of the house’s external doors.
Banfield also reported that a former tenant told Fox News that his bedroom at the house had a coded lock on the door, as did allegedly every bedroom in the house.
What might have caused Xana to be concerned enough to call her dad over to ensure her bedroom door locked properly a week before the killings?
Revisiting the First 48 Hours
In this tight-knit college town, the unthinkable was revealed that November morning. Four college students were discovered brutally slain in an off-campus home on the outskirts of Greek Row, where campus housing is packed tightly into crammed quarters just below the sorority houses that line the upper strip. News of the violent killings in a small town shook the entire community and gripped the attention of the nation.
Media scrambled to make sense of a motive.
In the hours following, sirens could be heard in scattered forces all around town. Communication from law enforcement locked up immediately. A wide shot photo of several distraught students draped in gray blankets gathered alongside officers in front of the house, taken after the officers walked the crime scene, was posted on local news sites, breaking news of this horror. Detailed updates went replaced by frantic gossip and shifting speculation. First, it was one death, then two, then four. A shelter-in-place warning was sent out but quickly lifted without concise follow-up. Initially, a fentanyl overdose was the assumed killer - a theory finally dissolved in text threads between students on Snapchat once they started learning what friends who had walked through the house earlier that morning had witnessed before police arrived.
After the house was marked a crime scene, the community became increasingly frustrated over the lack of communication from the Moscow police dept. in the days and weeks following the murders. Confusion fueled fear. Growing concerns from the town tainted the holiday season. Law enforcement was quick to call it a “targeted attack,” but could not offer any assurance that Moscow was safe from potential risk. Everyone headed into Thanksgiving break in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Many fled. When students were given the option to go home a week early, the streets turned into a ghost town while media descended on this remote corner of Idaho, eager to snag a shot of the house on King Rd where blood was starting to ooze out of a low corner of the exterior.
Local law enforcement did not hold their first press conference until days after news of the murders broke.
"We have investigators who have been on the job for 20, even 30, years, and they say they have never seen anything like this. Blood was everywhere" - Moscow Officer told Daily Mail
As the crime scene was being sealed off, the University sent out Vandal Alerts warning students of a possible risk on campus, only to recall them minutes later. With four students brutally slain, most classes remained in session.
Police Captain, Anthony Dahlinger, assured the Idaho Statesman that the quadruple homicide was likely an "isolated, targeted attack.”
"There is no imminent threat to the community at large," he said, attempting to calm 24,000 confused residents."
The first Vandal Alert went out shortly after 1pm. What did they learn in that 10-20 min span that caused them to retract the warning & assure students that everything was fine?
Timeline Recap
1:45 a.m. — After spending several hours at a fraternity party, two of the victims — Xana Kernodle and her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin — return to the off-campus house Ms. Kernodle shared with several roommates, including the other two victims.
1:56 a.m. — The other victims — Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen — arrive back at the house after spending time at a bar and grabbing food at a food truck.
2:47 a.m. — A phone belonging to the suspect, Bryan Kohberger, stops connecting to the cellphone network in Pullman, Wash., where he lives, a short drive from the University of Idaho campus in Moscow.
2:53 a.m. — Surveillance footage shows a white sedan, consistent with a white Hyundai Elantra registered to Kohberger, traveling toward the highway between Pullman and Moscow.
3:29 a.m. — Surveillance video shows what police say is a white Hyundai Elantra in the Moscow neighborhood that includes the victims’ house, where the crime later occurred. The vehicle makes three passes by the house.
4 a.m. — One of the victims, Xana Kernodle, receives a DoorDash delivery at the home, according to investigators. At about the same time, another occupant of the house is awakened by what she thinks is an upstairs roommate playing with her dog, according to her statement to the police.
4:04 a.m. — Video shows the Elantra returning to the area for a fourth time, at one point doing a three-point turn in the roadway near the house.
4:12 a.m. — Kernodle uses the TikTok app on her phone, her phone records suggest. The downstairs roommate is also awake: Sometime shortly after 4 a.m., she tells investigators, she hears what sounds like crying coming from Kernodle’s room. When she opens her door, she hears a male voice telling someone something to the effect of, “It’s OK, I’m going to help you.”
4:17 a.m. — A security camera from a nearby residence picks up distorted audio of what sounds like a whimper and a loud thud. A dog can be heard barking numerous times. At some point — and exactly when is unclear — the roommate opens her bedroom door again, according to the account she gave investigators, and sees a man with “bushy eyebrows,” clad in black clothing and a mask. The man walks past her toward a sliding-glass door on the second floor. She goes back into her room and locks the door, and it is unclear what she does during the next several hours.
4:20 a.m. — The white Elantra is seen leaving the neighborhood “at a high rate of speed.”
4:48 a.m. — Kohberger’s phone reconnects to cell networks south of Moscow, near Blaine, Idaho.
5:30 a.m. — After traveling in the area south of Moscow, Kohberger’s phone is detected back in Pullman.
9:12 a.m. — Kohberger’s phone returns to Moscow and connects to the cellular network near the scene of the murders. It stays there until 9:21 a.m. before returning to the area of his home in Pullman.
11:58 a.m. — A 911 call reports an unconscious person at the scene of the killings, triggering a response from law enforcement.
“Crime of Passion”
Right off the bat the message was: targeted attack / no threat to the public. “Crime of passion” was the repeated phrase. Media picked it up and started concocting a story around it — a stalker, incel, social misfit, educated psychopath with an appetite for murder. Obsession with one of the girls, the most obvious motive.
Art Bettge, the mayor of Moscow, said "something” had occurred that resulted in these deaths. "This is an ongoing investigation... The Moscow Police Department gives our heartfelt condolences to family members, friends, and the Moscow community,” the statement read.
Initially, the deaths were rumored to be the result of a passion killing or perhaps a burglary gone wrong. Authorities assured the town there was no “perceivable danger to the broader public” but declined to give any details on how the victims died or whether a suspect was still at large.
Moving forward, developing new details came only through brief press statements from Moscow PD. Communication remained strictly under LE control.
“From the beginning, they created distance to control the narrative and direct where the story was going,” a source told me.
“The early, overall assessment was a crime of passion.”
“With a crime of this magnitude, it’s very difficult to work through,” Mr. Bettge said, adding that the police needed time and town patience to piece together what had transpired.
He said he could not share any information about how the four victims had been killed without authorization from the police.
LE Ignored Communication With Families, Tips From Students
Communication from Moscow police remained scarce in the hours and days after the murders. The victim’s parents revealed in interviews later that they were often the last informed on new developments.
Communication was strained even when local police were asking the press and public for help.
Xana’s mother expressed her frustration with the police investigation during her interview with Banfield, noting that she was getting more information and updates from the news than from law officials.
Sources also claim that despite a public push from Moscow LE, tips that poured into the tip hotline (established early on) went largely unchecked and overlooked by local LE. A student who reached out anonymously, with a compelling story about the behavior and possible location of one of the roommates days before the murders, said they “just didn’t seem interested,” — even though the tip provided unique evidence of fear in the house predating the killings.
Evidence of Ring Camera Audio Is Referenced In The Affidavit
Pg. 4 / proof that audio of the attack picked up by a neighbor’s ring cam exists”
“D.M. stated she originally went to sleep in her bedroom on the southeast side of the second floor. D.M. stated she was awoken at approximately 4:00 a.m. by what she stated sounded like Goncalves playing with her dog in one of the upstairs bedrooms, which were located on the third floor.
Goncalves say something to the effect of "there's someone here." A review of records obtained from a forensic download of Kernodle's phone showed this could also have been Kernodle as her cellular phone indicated she was likely awake and using the TikTok app at approximately 4:12a.m.
D.M. stated she looked out of her bedroom but did not see anything when she heard the comment about someone being in the house. D.M. stated she opened her door a second time when she heard what she thought was crying coming from Kernodle's room. D.M. then said she heard a male voice say something to the effect of "it's ok, I'm going to help you."
At approximately 4:17 a.m., a security camera located at 1112 King Road, a residence immediately to the northwest of 1122 King Road, picked up distorted audio of what sounded like voices or a whimper followed by a loud thud. A dog can also be heard barking numerous times starting at 4:17 a.m. The security camera is less than fifty feet from the west wall of Kernodle's bedroom.”
Eerie TikTok audio that Moscow PD was quick to dismiss as fake, even issuing a statement to dismiss its legitimacy once it started to gain traction online.
Debate Over 911 Delay
Any questions about the delay in a call for help was met with severe backlash. Asking “why” meant judging a victim likely paralyzed by trauma.
Or not.
One expert told the New York Post that the 8-hour delay likely made “no difference” in lives lost.
“The four were dead when the guy left, and they weren’t crying for help, they weren’t moving or trying to get out,” said Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner of New York City, adding, “They weren’t in a condition where an ambulance could save their life, on the basis of what we know now. People are concerned about [the delay in calling for help], but it isn’t a concern from a forensic point of view. Nothing was interfered with by that delay,” Baden stated.
But evidenced in forensics shared later suggested that roommates on the lower level likely “bled out.” Meaning those 7-8 hours could have been crucial in possibly preventing two deaths.
Dylan & Bethany / Actions After The Murders
Both girls headed home then disappeared completely. Bethany lawyered up immediately. Dylan followed shortly after. Sources say no one from the Moscow campus sorority circle has heard from either of the girls since.
The radio silence among students who partied with this circle is another major mystery in this case. The extent to which they retracted and shut up about their connections following the murders is a baffling response for kids this age who tend to be addicted to social media and true crime content.
Why is everyone so scared to speak about what they know?
“Everyone is covering for everyone.” - University Source
In recent legal developments BK's defense team filed a motion to subpoena Bethany Funke, claiming she had vital information that may be "exculpatory to the defendant."
"Funke would be an exculpatory witness only if she provided evidence of another perpetrator, or if she contradicted other prosecution evidence," The President of West Coast Trial Lawyers told Newsweek.
*Exculpatory • \ek-SKUL-puh-tor-ee\ • adjective. : tending or serving to clear from alleged fault or guilt. Examples: The DNA found at the crime scene proved to be exculpatory; it did not match that of the defendant, and so he was acquitted.
In response, Bethany’s team filed a motion to dismiss the subpoena demanding she appear at the preliminary hearing (previously scheduled for June.)
Lawyers for Bethany filed another court document in April, agreeing to sit down for an interview with the defense in Nevada, where she currently resides.
The probable cause affidavit apparently includes information Bethany told police when they arrived to the home on King Rd. The affidavit states that police reviewed forensic downloads from her phone to determine that the homicides occurred "between 4:00 a.m. and 4:25 am."
While Dylan’s account of what happened on the night of the murders was later included in a search warrant for Kohberger’s property, Bethany’s recollections have never been made public.
A legal expert told Newsweek that Dylan’s testimony will be "very important," but noted that "the defense will annihilate her or try to," in regard to when she called the police in comparison to when she initially saw the man walking through their home.
The experts quoted in the article warn that Kohberger's defense team should not seek to "attack" the two surviving roommates during their testimonies and instead "should try to distance them from any evidence linking the defendant to the murders."
Question being: what if what these two girls know IS what distances BK from the murders?
Bethany Funke, known as BF in Kohberger’s arrest warrant, reached a deal with the defense to conduct an interview ahead of the hearing rather than appearing in court.
B & D’s matching memorial tattoos posted on VSCO
