Idaho house where 4 university students were killed will be torn down

By Mallika Kallingal and Veronica Miracle, CNN

The Idaho house where four college students were killed in November will be demolished as a “healing step,” the University of Idaho said in a statement Friday.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were each stabbed multiple times in the early morning hours of November 13 at the off-campus house in the small college town of Moscow.

The house, which is located near the university campus, was given to the school by the owner, the statement said.

The bloody crime scene left in the aftermath of the killings helped authorities navigate their hunt to find the suspect, court documents unsealed last month revealed.

The residence “contained a significant amount of blood from the victims including spatter and castoff (blood stain pattern resulting from blood drops released from an object due to its motion),” according to a probable cause document.

Its demolition “removes the physical structure where the crime that shook our community was committed” and “removes efforts to further sensationalize the crime scene,” the university said Friday.

It took investigators nearly two months to arrest and publicly name Bryan Kohberger, 28, as a suspect. Kohberger was a graduate student at Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology and lived in Pullman, Washington, at the time of his arrest. He now faces four counts of first-degree murder in the fatal stabbings.

Jodi Walker, a spokesperson for the school, said the university “hopes to demolish the house this semester.”

The university further revealed that planning is underway to create a memorial garden on campus for the slain students as a place of “remembrance” and “healing.” Designs for the garden will be contributed by the students.

In the meantime, scholarships have been established in the names of three of the four students and work is underway to finalize the fourth scholarship, according to the university.

Kohberger is scheduled to have a preliminary court hearing in June, when a judge is expected to determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial.

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