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- [00:03]
Vanessa Richardson
Hi Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before.
- [00:47]
Carter Roy
This is crime house. College towns are supposed to be safe. They're places where young people make lifelong friends, explore their passions and prepare for the real world together. That's exactly what Moscow, Idaho was like. Students left their doors unlocked, parents didn't worry too much, and nothing bad ever really happened. Until it did. On a cold November night in 2022, 4 University of Idaho students were brutally murdered inside their off campus home on King. It was an act of senseless violence that thrust this small college town into the national spotlight and left the community wondering why. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios that comes out every Tuesday and Thursday. Crime House is made possible by you. Follow Murder True Crime Stories and subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts for ad free early access to each two part series. This is the first of two episodes on the 2022 Idaho College Murders. Today I'll introduce you to the four students at the heart of this Madison Mogan, Kaylee Goncalves, Zanna Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. On November 13, they came home from a night out. What happened next made headlines for all the wrong reasons and changed the city of Moscow, Idaho forever. Next time, I'll dig into the winding investigation. Authorities were tight lipped about potential suspects and motives. But behind closed doors, law enforcement was piecing together the puzzle and narrowing in on a dangerous killer. All that and more coming. Before the crime scene tape and the flashing lights appeared on King Road. There were four college students just trying to figure out who they were going to be. They laughed too loudly and stayed up too late. They had favorite coffee orders, inside jokes and weekend plans. This is where their story really begins. And this is how they should be remembered for Madison Mogan, or Maddie, as her friends called her the University of Idaho was an important stepping stone. She was raised in Coeur d', Alene, just 90 minutes north of the university. Her parents, Karen and Scott, said she was the kind of girl who made friends the second she walked into a room. She she was funny, bright, and endlessly loyal. When Maddie graduated high school in 2019, she moved to Moscow for college with plans to major in marketing. She was a little nervous, but excited to be on her own. Most of all, she was excited to join a sorority on campus. Maddy's first choice was Alpha Phi. Her second choice was PI Beta Phi. After a week of meeting all the girls in the different sorority houses, it was time for Maddie to learn where she'd spend the next four years. She ripped open her envelope and looked inside. It said PI Beta Phi, otherwise known as PI Phi. Maddie was disappointed. Alpha Phi was considered a top house on campus. PI Phi was not. But she didn't let her true emotions show. She ran to the PI Beta Phi house with her new sisters, all smiles. And when she was there, she threw herself into sorority life. She even used her marketing skills to help promote PI Phi on social media. She wanted them to be a top house, too. She was so good at it. The sorority asked her to manage their official Instagram account. It was impressive, but the rejection still stung. Especially because Maddy's best friend, Kaylee Gonzalves, had come to the University of Idaho and gone through the sorority recruitment process with her. But Kaylee had gotten into Alpha Phi. It was the first time since sixth grade that they'd ever done anything apart. For most of their lives, where you saw one, you saw the other. Kaylee had the bigger personality. She was a bit of a jokester, always recording funny videos of herself for social media. Maddie was quieter, but no less confident. Together, they balanced each other out perfectly. Their families joked that they were like sisters who just happened to have different last names. Real sisters, not sorority ones. But when they joined separate houses, Kaylee and Maddie had to make new friends on their own for the first time. But then Covid hit their sophomore year and everything changed. The girls moved back home to Northern Idaho, where they were both from. By the time they got back to campus, things felt different. They weren't as jazzed about sorority life as they used to be. They didn't like the rules and restrictions, and they didn't want to live in their sorority houses anymore. So the summer before senior year in 2022, they moved in together. By then, 21 year old, Kaylee was about to graduate a semester early. She'd just landed a job with an IT company in Texas. Maddie, also 21, was still finishing her degree in marketing, but she was incredibly proud of her best friend for already getting her foot in the door and she would soon follow in her footsteps and strike out on her own. According to Maddie's boyfriend, she wanted to explore the world. But Maddie knew that no matter what they did or how many miles were between them, nothing would ever separate her and Kaylee. And in the meantime, they were determined to have a great senior year, especially now that they lived off campus. Their house at 1122 King Road was a rental with five bedrooms. The entrance was on the ground floor which had two bedrooms. There was another bedroom in the basement below and two more upstairs. That's where Maddie and Kaylee lived. Kaylee also brought along her Goldendoodle Murphy, who she shared with her ex boyfriend. Besides that, there were three other girls who lived there. Bethany Funk was in the basement while Dylan Mortenson and Zanna Kernodle were on the ground floor. 20 year old Zanna was majoring in marketing and working part time at a local restaurant. She was also one of Maddie's sorority sisters in PI Phi. Her friends described her as funny, sharp and refreshingly herself. She was the group's de facto DJ and she didn't care much for appearances. She'd show up to a party in an oversized sweatshirt, hair and a messy bun, no makeup, and still steal the show. Unlike the other girls in the house, Zanna didn't have any specific plans for the future when she came to the University of Idaho. But things had been slowly shifting for her. She was dating a guy named Ethan Chapin. The 20 year old was majoring in recreation, sport and Tourism management. They'd met at a frat party the year before. It wasn't instant fireworks, but they ran in the same circles, were always hanging out together, and their connection just grew naturally. Zanna had just spent the summer with his family and now he was spending almost every night at the King Roadhouse with her. Zanna still wasn't sure what her future held, but she believed Ethan would be part of it. Ethan was a triplet, born just minutes apart from his brother Hunter and his sister Maisie. They had grown up in Mount Vernon in Washington State and had been incredibly close their entire lives. So when it came time for college, they all decided to go to the University of Idaho together. Ethan and Hunter joined Sigma Chi and that's actually how Ethan met Zanna at a party hosted by his frat. And while he and his brother were both tall, athletic and easygoing. Ethan stood out as the kind of guy who could make anyone feel welcome. His siblings said he was magnetic and a natural leader. When his parents, Jim and Stacey came to visit for Parents weekend in early November 2022, they were thrilled to see how well their kids had adjusted to college life. They tailgated at the football game, met their kids friends and spent time with Zanna. It was clear that she and Ethan were getting serious. As they left Moscow to drive back home, Stacy turned to Jim and said she felt proud, like they'd made it through the hardest part of raising their kids and now they were all thriving. But just one week later, all of that would change and four young lives full of promise and plans would come to a devastating end.
- [11:24]
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- [11:58]
Carter Roy
2022 was a Saturday in Moscow, Idaho. That evening the University of Idaho's football team played a home game. The students were out in full force, tailgating all day before the game. Even after the team lost, the party didn't stop that night. Music spilled from fraternity houses and the streets were live with clusters of students walking from one party to the next. At 1122 King Road, the three story rental home just off campus, five roommates got ready to go out and join the fun. 21 year old Kaylee Goncalves and 21 year old Maddy Mogan put on makeup in the mirror of their shared bathroom upstairs. The cramped space was no problem for the two best friends. Below them on the ground floor, 20 year old Zanner Kernodle got ready in her room. She was meeting up with her boyfriend, 20 year old Ethan Chapin. Later, he was currently with his sister at her sorority formal because she didn't have a date. Down the hall was Dylan Mortensen and below her in the basement bedroom was Bethany Funk. They were both Maddy's PI Phi sisters. Bethany was Maddy's little, a younger girl in the sorority who Maddy mentored. That night all five girls went out. In Moscow, Kaylee and Maddie headed to a local sports bar called the Corner Club. It was a longtime Moscow staple with neon lights and Affordable drinks. Once Zanna met up with Ethan, they went to a party at Sigma Chi, just a few blocks away. They danced the night away amongst friends. Dylan and Bethany went out separately. They were doing their own thing, but they said they would probably end up at the Sigma Chi party. After they'd gotten their fill of the corner club. Kaylee and Maddie wanted a late night snack, so they stopped by a popular food truck called the Grub Truck. For some reason, the Grub Truck live streamed their late night rush on Twitch, so anyone who came to order was caught on camera and anyone could tune in online and watch if they wanted to. Kaylee and Maddie showed up around 1.30am the live stream didn't capture their audio, but they were seen smiling and chatting with each other. Then at one point, a man in a hoodie appeared nearby. They chatted for a bit, then turned and walked away. A few seconds later, he followed in their direction. The exchange would become a point of contention later, but for now, Kaylee and Maddie called an Uber and went home. Meanwhile, Zanna and Ethan continued to party, but around 1:45am they decided to call it a night and head home. Dylan and Bethany, who also stopped by the party, got back to the house soon after. By about 2am all five roommates plus Ethan were back under the same roof. The lights inside the King Roadhouse flicked off one by one. Outside, the rest of the town was winding down normal, except for one thing. Around 3:30am A white Hyundai Elantra began appearing on security cameras from nearby homes. It drove past the King Road house once, then again and again. Over the next half hour, it circled the block several times before finally stopping near the home. Inside, Zanna was still awake, hungry after a night of drinking. She ordered doordash. The delivery Guy arrived around 4am handing off her order at the front door. She took it back to her room on the ground floor where Ethan was already asleep and began scrolling through TikTok. She didn't hear when, minutes later, the sliding glass door in the kitchen opened and a masked figure stepped inside. The intruder moved quietly through the house. He went right to the stairs, heading to the second floor where Maddie and Kaylee were cuddled together in Maddie's bed. Meanwhile, on the ground floor, Dylan stirred. When she heard a sound. She thought it must have been Kaylee playing with her dog upstairs. But then she heard something else. Kaylee's voice saying softly, there's someone here. Dylan cracked open her bedroom door, listening. She didn't see anyone, so she closed it again, assuming she'd Imagined it. She couldn't have known that just above her, the intruder had unsheathed a knife and was stabbing Maddie and Kaylee to death. Back in her room, Dylan heard more strange noises. Then a man's voice. Say, it's okay. I'm going to help you. Dylan. Open. Opened her door again, just a crack. Still, she didn't see anything. She was thoroughly freaked out at that point, especially when she heard crying. She thought it might be Zanna. And then there was a thud. After that, Kaylee's dog, Murphy, started barking upstairs. So Dylan looked out her door a third time. That was when she saw him. A masked man dressed in black, walking toward her. The only distinguishing feature she noticed was his bushy eyebrows and his height, roughly 5:10. She froze in panic, but it seemed like the intruder hadn't noticed her. He walked right past her room, down the hallway toward the sliding glass door in the the kitchen. Dylan couldn't make sense of it. What was going on. She went back into her bedroom, locked her door, and grabbed her phone. She started texting her roommates. Nothing from Kaylee or Maddie or Zanna or Ethan. The only person who responded was Bethany, who was in the basement bedroom. Dylan told her she'd seen someone in a ski mask and that she was terrified. Bethany said she hadn't heard anything, but told Dylan to run to her room. So Dylan did. She and Bethany huddled together for the next few hours. Later that morning, Bethany and Dylan still hadn't heard back from any of their roommates. So Dylan reached out to some friends for help. Hunter Johnson and his girlfriend, Emily Alant. Dylan said something weird had happened during the night and she was scared. She asked if they could come check out the house. Apparently, this wasn't the first time Dylan had called her friends in a panic. But in the past, it had been for small things, like a strange noise that ended up just being a pan falling off a shelf. So even though Dylan sounded frightened, Hunter and Emily weren't super alarmed. Still, they agreed to come by. Hunter arrived at the house first, just ahead of Emily and a few other friends who had come with them. Dylan and Bethany met them outside and waited while Hunter went in. He headed straight to Zanna's room. What he saw made him sick to his stomach. Zanna and Ethan lay lifeless with what appeared to be stab wounds. He searched for a pulse, but felt nothing. Hunter was in shock, but he still wanted to protect his friends. So he turned back and told the others that someone needed to call 911 because there was an unconscious person. In the house, he didn't say what he already knew to be true. Zanna and Ethan were dead. In the early morning hours of November 13, 2022, a masked intruder walked into the King road house where five University of Idaho students lived. One of those students, 19 year old Dylan Mortenson, saw him leave the residence. Earlier, she'd heard strange sounds. A loud thump, crying, a man's voice telling someone it would all be okay. Dylan was terrified. She ran downstairs to another roommate, Bethany Funk, who lived in the basement and spent the rest of the morning sleeping beside her. Hours later, they worked up the courage to call a friend, Hunter Johnson, and some others to come over. As soon as he stepped inside, Hunter realized the King Road house was a crime scene. He told friends to call 911. By then, it was 11:58am nearly eight hours after the murders. Now it's easy in hindsight to wonder why Dylan and Bethany didn't call sooner. But remember, they were just college kids, barely 20 years old, a little drunk. And they lived in a town where nothing bad ever really happened. Even in their worst nightmares, they couldn't have imagined the truth. Within minutes of receiving the call, officers from the Moscow Police Department arrived. They were followed by the Idaho State Police forensic team. Inside, they discovered four bodies. But outside, no one told the group of friends waiting in the driveway what had really happened. As far as the friends knew, only Zanna and Ethan had been targeted. After the officers realized the scope of the violence, they called for backup. Corporal Brett Payne from the Moscow Police Department was brought in to help secure and process the scene. Officer Smith, one of the first responders, walked him through the house. They started on the second floor in Zanna's bedroom. Zanna lay on the floor with what appeared to be stab wounds. Ethan was nearby with similar injuries. Both were dead. Then Payne followed Smith upstairs to the third floor, where Kaylee's dog, Murphy, was unharmed. But the horror was in the next room, Maddie's bedroom. Kaylee and Maddie were in bed together, with visible stab wounds. Next to them, Corporal Payne noticed something that would soon become key evidence. A tan leather knife sheath embossed with a Marine Corps insignia. Outside, police taped off the scene. The friends gathered on the sidewalk began to realize that something truly terrible had happened. Then at 1:04pm the University of Idaho sent out a campus alert that there was an ongoing homicide investigation on King Road. It warned other students to stay away and shelter in place. Then, not long after that, a second alert followed. This time it confirmed that four people were dead. The group Outside the King Road house, struggled to process what they were reading. No one from law enforcement had told them anything. And now they were learning from a university text message that four of their friends had been murdered in the same house some of them had slept in that night. It didn't feel real. The friends got in touch with Ethan's siblings, Hunter and Maisie, and told them the news. The two surviving triplets were the ones who had to call their parents and tell them that Ethan was gone. Their mom had been grocery shopping when they called, and she couldn't understand what they were telling her at first. But she knew one thing. Whatever had happened, she and her husband needed to get to the campus right away. They needed to be there for their kids. So they started the six hour drive to Moscow. Meanwhile, the news reached Zanna's sister, who was studying at Washington State University, 10 miles away. She called their father. She didn't tell him the details over the phone. She just told him to come to Moscow. In northern Idaho, Kaylee and Maddie's families were both starting to get concerning messages from the girl's friends. But no one could get a hold of either Kaylee or Maddie. So Kaylee's parents called Maddie's mom to see if she knew what was going on. She said she was already on her way to the campus. She promised to bring both girls home when she found them. The confusion lasted until late afternoon when police finally confirmed the worst for the families. All four of their kids had been killed and no one knew why. As the families tried to process everything, Corporal Payne began interviewing anyone who might help fill in the blanks. Rumors were spreading among students that drugs had been involved, maybe even a cartel, or that there was some love triangle that had gone wrong. But the police weren't inclined to believe any of that just yet. They needed to get the facts straight first. Corporal Payne spoke to Kaylee's ex boyfriend, Jack Ducor, who said he was Murphy's co owner. But he didn't have much else to add. Payne also talked to the surviving roommates. Dylan told him about the masked man she'd seen. She described him as wearing all Black, standing around 5:10, and having an athletic build. She also added that he had bushy eyebrows. It wasn't a lot to go on, but it was something. Bethany, the other surviving roommate, said she hadn't heard or seen anything that night. All she knew was what Dylan had told her. Meanwhile, forensic investigators processed the crime scene inside the King Road house. They had found the knife sheath in Maddie's room, which seemed to be left behind by the killer. They sent it off for further testing. They also found a partially visible shoe print outside of Dylan's bedroom door. It had a pattern of repeated diamond shape shapes similar to what you'd find on the sole of a vans type shoe. The print was directly in the path Dylan had described the intruder taking as he left the house, so it seemed likely it was his footprint. They were solid clues, but they needed to find a suspect first. So detectives began combing through nearby surveillance footage from neighborhood ring cameras. That's when they found something chilling. A video of a white Hyundai Elantra circling the King Road street multiple times in the early morning hours of November 13th. Then at around 4:20am the same car was seen speeding away from the area. It was the best lead they had. If they could find the vehicle, they could find the driver. Then maybe they would find their killer. The horror inside the King Road house was unlike anything Moscow, Idaho had ever seen. Four college students, bright, beloved and full of life, were gone in one night. And for seemingly no reason at all, the college town went from a place of safety to a city on edge. Students were locking their doors, worried that the killer might come for them next. Now, with only a vague vehicle description and a shaky eyewitness account, police were under immense pressure to find whoever had done this. When word of the murder spread, the Internet exploded with theories. Everyone wanted answers, even people who had no connection to the case. But as detectives began piecing together the evidence themselves, one thing was this attack was not random. And eventually the clues would lead them to someone they never expected. An unassuming graduate student living just 10 miles away. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the Idaho college murders and all the people it affected. True Crime Stories is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free and instead of having to wait for each episode of a two part series, you'll get access to both at once. We'll be back on Thursday. True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzofsky, Molly Quinlan, Artwick, Sarah Camp, Alex Burns, Hania Said, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.
- [31:31]
Vanessa Richardson
Looking for your next listen. Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson and I have exciting news. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is leveling up starting the week of January 12th. You'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays, we look at a corresponding crime. Follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.