Tag Archives: students and student life

US

Indiana University student stabbing suspect says attack was motivated by race, records show

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CNN
 — 

The suspect in an unprovoked attack allegedly said she was motivated by race when she repeatedly stabbed the victim – a student of Asian descent at Indiana University – last week on a city bus, according to court documents and a student group.

In what appears to be the latest example of a swell in anti-Asian discrimination nationwide, Billie Davis, 56, who is White, has been charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery and battery by means of a deadly weapon in the January 11 attack in Bloomington, court records obtained by CNN affiliate WTHR show. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney.

Davis and the victim had been riding separately on the bus, and when the victim tried to exit, Davis got up from her nearby seat and allegedly stabbed the victim in the head with a folding knife, leaving puncture wounds, a probable cause affidavit says.

Davis later allegedly told investigators she used a knife to stab the victim because she was Chinese, saying “it would be one less person to blow up our country,” the affidavit says.

After the stabbing, Davis got off the bus, walked away and discarded the knife before authorities got to her, it states. The victim was rushed to a hospital, according to the documents; her condition isn’t known.

Surveillance footage from the bus showed no confrontation between Davis and the victim before the attack, the document states.

City and university officials have condemned the attack, which comes amid a rising tide of reported harassment and attacks against Asian Americans in the Covid-19 pandemic. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, reported hate crimes against Asians in 16 of the nation’s largest cities and counties rose 164% over the prior year, according to a study from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

The most prominent example may be the fatal 2021 shooting of eight people, mostly Asian women, at Atlanta-area spas in which prosecutors are pursuing hate crimes charges based on the victims’ sex and race. Last week in New York City, a man pleaded guilty to manslaughter as a hate crime and agreed to serve 22 years in prison in the April 2021 assault of a Chinese-American man, while another man pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and got 20 years in prison for striking a Chinese woman in 2021 with a rock.

Following last week’s bus attack, Bloomington’s mayor denounced hate-based violence, acknowledging a “racially motivated incident like this … can leave us feeling less safe.”

“We stand with the Asian community and all who feel threatened by this event,” John Hamilton said Saturday in a statement.

The attack reminded the city “that anti-Asian hate is real and can have painful impacts on individuals and our community,” said Indiana University’s vice president for diversity, equity, and multicultural affairs, James Wimbush.

“No one should face harassment or violence due to their background, ethnicity or heritage,” Wimbush said in a statement, adding, “To our Asian and Asian American friends, colleagues, students, and neighbors, we stand firmly with you.”

The Indiana University Asian Culture Center is “outraged and heartbroken by this unprovoked act of violence,” according to a statement that identified the victim as an 18-year-old Asian student. “We should not be fearing for our lives on public transportation. Taking the bus should not feel dangerous.”

“The fact that the perpetrator announced that race was the motivation for her attack sends a jolt through our Asian community,” the center said. “But it is becoming a familiar jolt.”



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Newport News shooting: Elementary student describes lockdown horror at Virginia school where police say a 6-year-old shot a teacher

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CNN
 — 

As police investigate the circumstances that led to a 6-year-old boy allegedly shooting and injuring a teacher at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, Friday, a student at the school described the harrowing moment the lockdown was called.

“We were doing math … an announcer came on she was like, ‘lockdown, I repeat lockdown,’” said fifth grader Novah Jones, who was located in a different classroom. “I was scared … it was like my first lockdown and I didn’t know what to do, so I just hid under my desk like everybody was.”

Novah told CNN in an interview with her and her mother that she first believed there was a man with a gun at the school.

“I was thinking that … a man was going to shoot us,” Novah said.

The teacher wounded in Friday’s shooting, whose injury was initially described as life-threatening, was listed in stable condition by Saturday, according to the Newport News Police Department.

Authorities and the Newport News public school district did not name the teacher, but her alma mater, James Madison University, identified her as Abby Zwerner.

The 6-year-old boy was taken into police custody, Police Chief Steve Drew said in a news conference, adding that “this was not an accidental shooting.”

There had been an altercation between the teacher and the student, who had the firearm, Drew said. A single round was fired and no other students were involved, he added.

Following the shooting, all students at the school were evacuated from their classrooms with their teachers and taken to the gymnasium, where they were with counselors and officers, Drew told CNN affiliate WTKR.

The shooting came just six days into the new year, with police swarming a campus that still had a “Happy New Year” sign outside.

As officers rushed to the school, Novah texted her mother, telling her there was a lockdown. “I texted her ‘Mom, help.’”

After receiving the text, “I couldn’t breathe I was in shock,” her mother, Kasheba Jones, said.

Though she was able to return home safely, Novah said she had trouble sleeping that night, worried that “he still had the gun and he was going to come to my house.”

“I had like flashbacks,” Novah said.

Novah is one of numerous children to grapple with the trauma of a shooting at school. Shootings in US schools, while still rare when compared with other incidents of gun violence, have become far more common than they are in any other country. In 2022, there were at least 60 shootings at K-12 schools, according to a CNN analysis.

As the investigation continues, the elementary school will remain closed Monday and Tuesday to give the community “time to heal,” Principal Briana Foster Newton said in a statement.

Meanwhile, community members are grappling with the age of the suspect.

Novah said she’s struggling to understand how someone so young could have a gun or pull the trigger.

Her mother echoed those questions.

“First of all, where did he get a gun from and how did he know how to aim it and shoot it?” Jones said.

Investigators will look into how the child obtained the firearm, said Drew.

“It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6 year old 1st grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher; however, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today,” Newport News Mayor Phillip D. Jones said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Authorities are “working diligently to get an answer to the question we are all asking – how did this happen? We are also working to ensure the child receives the supports and services he needs as we continue to process what took place,” Jones said.

“We have been in contact with our commonwealth attorney and some other entities to help us best get services to this young man,” Drew said Friday.



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Bryan Kohberger: Suspect in the Idaho college student killings plans to waive extradition hearing, attorney says

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CNN
 — 

The suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho college students plans to waive his extradition hearing this week, his attorney said, to expedite his return to the Gem State, where he faces four counts of first-degree murder.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger is “shocked a little bit,” Jason LaBar, the chief public defender for Monroe County, Pennsylvania, told CNN Saturday, a day after the 28-year-old’s arrest in his home state on charges related to the fatal stabbings of Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20. He also faces a charge of felony burglary, according to Latah County, Idaho, Prosecutor Bill Thompson.

LaBar did not discuss the murder case with the suspect when they spoke for about an hour Friday evening, the attorney said, adding that he did not possess probable cause documents related to it and is only representing Kohberger in the issue of his extradition, which the attorney called a “formality.”

“It’s a procedural issue, and really all the Commonwealth here has to prove is that he resembles or is the person who the arrest warrant is out for and that he was in the area at the time of the crime,” LaBar said.

Waiving the extradition hearing set for Tuesday was “an easy decision obviously,” LaBar said, “since he doesn’t contest that he is Bryan Kohberger.”

In a statement, LaBar stressed his client is presumed innocent until proven guilty, saying, “Mr. Kohberger is eager to be exonerated of these charges and looks forward to resolving these matters as promptly as possible.”

The arrest of the suspect – a PhD student in Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, the school confirmed – comes nearly seven weeks after the victims were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home on November 13. Since then, investigators say they have conducted more than 300 interviews and scoured approximately 20,000 tips.

But authorities have yet to publicly confirm the suspect’s motive, or even if he knew the victims, whose deaths rattled the college community and the surrounding town of Moscow. The murder weapon has also not been located, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said Friday.

In the weeks since the killings, some community members have grown frustrated as investigators have yet to offer a thorough narrative of how the night unfolded. Authorities have released limited details, including the victims’ activities leading up to the attacks and people they have ruled out as suspects.

Fry told reporters Friday state law limits what information authorities can release before Kohberger makes an initial appearance in an Idaho court. The probable cause affidavit – which details the factual basis of Kohberger’s charges – is sealed until the suspect is physically in Latah County and has been served with the Idaho arrest warrant, Thompson said.

Investigators honed in on Kohberger as a suspect through DNA evidence and by confirming his ownership of a white Hyundai Elantra seen near the crime scene, according to two law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation. Authorities say he lived just minutes from the site of the stabbings.

He drove cross-country in a white Hyundai Elantra and arrived at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania around Christmas, according to a law enforcement source. Authorities began tracking him at some point during his trip east from Idaho.

An FBI surveillance team tracked him for four days before his arrest while law enforcement worked with prosecutors to develop enough probable cause to obtain a warrant, the two law enforcement sources said.

Genetic genealogy techniques were used to connect Kohberger to unidentified DNA evidence, another source with knowledge of the case told CNN. The DNA was run through a public database to find potential family member matches, and subsequent investigative work by law enforcement led to his identification as the suspect, the source said.

LaBar confirmed Kohberger, accompanied by his father, had driven from Idaho to Pennsylvania to celebrate the holidays with his family. A white Hyundai Elantra was found at his parents’ home, LaBar said, where authorities apprehended Kohberger early Friday.

LaBar was unsure how quickly his client would be returned to Idaho following his intent to waive extradition at Tuesday’s hearing, saying it would be based on authorities. But LaBar expected Kohberger to be returned to Idaho within 72 hours of the proceeding.

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Bryan Kohberger Idaho student killings suspect: Authorities tracked the suspect as he drove cross-country to Pennsylvania, sources say

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CNN
 — 

Authorities carefully tracked the man charged in the killings of four Idaho college students as he drove across the country around Christmas and continued surveilling him for several days before finally arresting him Friday, sources tell CNN.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested in his home state of Pennsylvania and charged with four counts of murder in the first degree, as well as felony burglary in connection with the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students in November, according to Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson.

Still, investigators have not publicly confirmed the suspect’s motive or whether he knew the victims. The murder weapon has also not been located, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said Friday.

In the nearly seven weeks since the students were found stabbed to death in an off-campus home, investigators have conducted more than 300 interviews and scoured approximately 20,000 tips in their search for the suspect. News of the killings – and the long stretch of time without a suspect or significant developments – have rattled the University of Idaho community and the surrounding town of Moscow, which had not seen a murder in seven years.

Investigators honed in on Kohberger as the suspect through DNA evidence and by confirming his ownership of a white Hyundai Elantra seen near the crime scene, according to two law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.

Kohberger, who authorities say lived just minutes from the scene of the killings, is a PhD student in Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, the school confirmed.

He drove cross-country in a white Hyundai Elantra and arrived at his parents’ house in Pennsylvania around Christmas, according to a law enforcement source. Authorities were tracking him as he drove and were also surveilling his parents’ house, the source said.

An FBI surveillance team tracked him for four days before his arrest while law enforcement worked with prosecutors to develop enough probable cause to obtain a warrant, the two law enforcement sources said.

Genetic genealogy techniques were used to connect Kohberger to unidentified DNA evidence, another source with knowledge of the case tells CNN. The DNA was run through a public database to find potential family member matches, and subsequent investigative work by law enforcement led to him as the suspect, the source said.

Kohberger was arraigned Friday morning in Pennsylvania and is being held without bail, records show.

Kohberger intends to waive his extradition hearing to expedite his transport to Idaho, Monroe County Chief Public Defender Jason LaBar said in a statement to CNN on Saturday.

“Mr. Kohberger is eager to be exonerated of these charges and looks forward to resolving these matters as promptly as possible,” LaBar said.

LaBar later told CNN that the extradition hearing is a “formality proceeding.” He said all the Commonwealth needs to prove is that his client resembles or is the person on the arrest warrant and that he was in the area at the time of the crime.

LaBar said he spoke to Kohberger for around an hour Friday evening, discussing where he was at the time of the killings. “Knowing of course that it’s likely they have location data from his cell phone already putting him on the border of Washington and Idaho,” LaBar told CNN, “it was an easy decision obviously, since he doesn’t contest that he is Bryan Kohberger.”

Kohberger is “shocked a little bit,” LaBar said. “He’s doing OK. Obviously, he’s calm right now.”

LaBar added, “We don’t really know much about the case. I don’t have any affidavit or probable cause. I didn’t want to discuss the case with him because I’m merely his representation for this procedural issue as to whether or not he wants to be extradited back to Idaho.”

Even with a suspect charged, law enforcement’s work is far from over, prosecutors said.

“This is not the end of this investigation. In fact, this is a new beginning,” Thompson said Friday night.

Thompson urged people to continue submitting tips, asking anyone with information about the suspect “to come forward, call the tip line, report anything you know about him to help the investigators.”

Since the killings of the four students – Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Ethan Chapin, 20 some community members have grown frustrated as investigators have yet to offer a thorough narrative of how the night unfolded. Authorities have released limited details, including the victims’ activities leading up to the attacks and people they have ruled out as suspects.

Fry told reporters Friday state law limits what information authorities can release before Kohberger makes an initial appearance in Idaho court. The probable cause affidavit – which details the factual basis of Kohberger’s charges – is sealed until the suspect is physically in Latah County, Idaho, and has been served with the Idaho arrest warrant, Thompson said.

Kohberger is a resident of Pullman, Washington, a city just about nine miles from the site of the killings, authorities said. His apartment and office on the Washington State University’s Pullman campus were searched by law enforcement Friday morning, the university confirmed in a statement.

In June 2022, he finished graduate studies at DeSales University, where he also was an undergraduate, according to a statement on the school’s website. He also got an associate degree from Northampton Community College in 2018, the college confirmed to CNN.

LaBar called Kohberger “very intelligent.”

The attorney said he spoke with Kohberger’s family Friday night for 15 to 20 minutes.

“They’re also very shocked,” he said. “Out of character for Bryan… The FBI, local police, Idaho State Troopers were at their house at approximately 3 a. m. yesterday knocking on the door and announcing themselves to enter, out of real shock and awe to them.”

In a Reddit post removed after Kohberger’s arrest was announced, a student investigator named Bryan Kohberger who was associated with a DeSales University study sought participation in a research project “to understand how emotions and psychological traits influence decision-making when committing a crime.”

“In particular, this study seeks to understand the story behind your most recent criminal offense, with an emphasis on your thoughts and feelings throughout your experience,” the post said.

CNN reached one of the principal investigators of the study, a professor at DeSales University, but they declined to comment on the matter. The university has not responded to requests for comment.

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World

Taliban use water cannon on women protesting education order in Afghanistan

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CNN
 — 

A group of women took to the streets in the city of Herat in Afghanistan on Saturday, protesting against a Taliban order this week suspending all female students from attending university in the country.

Video footage circulating on social media showed Taliban officials using a water cannon to disperse the female protesters.

Girls could be seen running from the water cannon and chanting “cowards” at officials.

The Taliban’s announcement this week that it was suspending university education for female students was its latest step in an ongoing clampdown on the freedoms of Afghan women.

The move came despite the group promising when it returned to power last year that it would honor women’s rights.

It follows a similar move in March this year that barred girls from returning to secondary schools.

Male students in universities across the country have responded to the latest education ban by boycotting their exams in protest.

“Education is the duty of men and women,” read a statement from the Mirwais Nika Institute of Higher Education in Kandahar issued Saturday. “It is the fundamental right and secret of the country’s development and self-reliance.”

Students had first asked Taliban officials to reverse the ban but “no positive response” was given, the school said – adding that “dissatisfaction and unhappiness” fueled the boycott.

One university official told CNN that the students’ decision to boycott their admissions exams would lead to classes being put on hold.

The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 in a lightning takeover following the withdrawal of US troops, having previously ruled the country from 1996 until 2001 – when the US-led invasion forced the group from power.

Under its previous period of rule the group was notorious for its treatment of women as second-class citizens.

After seizing power last year, the group made numerous promises that it would protect the rights of women and girls.

But activists say the Taliban have reneged on their word and are steadily chipping away at women’s freedoms once again.

On Saturday, the group ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country to stop female employees from attending work. Non-compliance would result in the revoking of NGO licenses, an official ministry notice read.

A spokesman told CNN the move was due to the non-observation of Islamic dress rules and other laws and regulations of the Islamic Emirate.

Afghan women can no longer work in most sectors.

Their travel rights have also been severely restricted and access to public spaces significantly curtailed. Women are also required to fully cover themselves in public – including their faces.

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World

Afghanistan’s female students voice devastation after being banned from universities

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Kabul, Afghanistan
CNN
 — 

The 21-year-old student had been studying hard for weeks as she prepared for the final exams of her first year of university. She was almost done, with just two exams left, when she heard the news: the Taliban government was suspending university education for all female students in Afghanistan.

“I did not stop and kept studying for the exam,” she told CNN on Wednesday. “I went to the university in the morning anyway.”

But it was no use. She arrived to find armed Taliban guards at the gates of her campus in Kabul, the Afghan capital, turning away every female student who tried to enter.

“It was a terrible scene,” she said. “Most of the girls, including myself, were crying and asking them to let us go in … If you lose all your rights and you can’t do anything about it, how would you feel?”

CNN is not naming the student for safety reasons.

The Taliban’s decision on Tuesday was just the latest step in its brutal crackdown on the freedoms of Afghan women, following its takeover of the country in August 2021.

Though the insurgent group has repeatedly claimed that it would protect the rights of girls and women, it has in fact done the opposite, stripping away the hard-won freedoms they have fought tirelessly for over the last two decades.

Some of its most striking restrictions have been around education, with girls barred from returning to secondary schools in March. The move devastated many students and their families, who described to CNN their dashed dreams of becoming doctors, teachers or engineers.

To the Kabul student, the loss of her education was an even bigger shock than the bomb attacks and violence she has previously witnessed.

“I always thought that we could overcome our sorrow and fear by getting educated,” she said. “However, this (time) is different. It is just unacceptable and unbelievable.”

The news was met with widespread condemnation and dismay, with many world leaders – and prominent Afghan figures – urging the Taliban to reverse its decision.

In a statement on Twitter, former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani – who fled Kabul when the Taliban seized power – called the group illegitimate rulers holding “the entire population hostage.”

“The current problem of women’s education and work in the country is very serious, sad, and the most obvious and cruel example of gender apartheid in the 21st century,” Ghani wrote. “I have said it again and again that if one girl becomes literate, she changes five future generations, and if one girl remains illiterate, she causes the destruction of five future generations.”

He praised those in Afghanistan protesting the Taliban’s decision, calling them “pioneers.”

Another former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, also expressed “deep regret” over the suspension. The country’s “development, population, and self-sufficiency depend on the education and training of every child, girl, and boy of this land,” he wrote.

Other foreign officials and leaders issued similar statements, including the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, and US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karen Decker.

The foreign ministries of France, Germany, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia criticized the decision as well.

“Preventing half of the population from contributing meaningfully to society and the economy will have a devastating impact on the whole country,” said the UN mission in Afghanistan in a statement.

“Education is a basic human right,” it added. “Excluding women and girls from secondary and tertiary education not only denies them this right, it denies Afghan society as a whole the benefit of the contributions that women and girls have to offer. It denies all of Afghanistan a future.”

Female students in Afghanistan say their futures now lie in limbo, with no clarity on what will become of their education.

“I am still hopeful that things would get back to normal, but I don’t know how long it will take,” said the Kabul student. “Now many girls, including me, are just thinking (about) what is next, what can we do to get out of this situation.”

“I am not quitting,” she added, saying she would consider going “somewhere else” if Afghanistan continued banning female students.

Another 21-year-old, Maryam, is intimately familiar with the dangers of pursuing education as a woman. As a high school student, she’d been in the vicinity of an attack on Kabul University several years ago, and remembers being evacuated “while bullets were flying over our heads.”

Then in September, she barely survived a suicide attack at the Kaaj education center in Kabul, which killed at least 25 people, most of whom are believed to be young women. The attack sparked public outrage and horror, with dozens of women taking to the streets of Kabul afterward in protest.

Maryam, who is being identified by one name for her security, missed the blast by just seconds. When she ran back into her classroom, she was met with the scattered bodies of her friends.

Each brush with death cemented her determination not only to pursue her own ambitions – but the “dreams of all those best friends of mine who died before my eyes,” she said.

Though she was accepted into a bachelors program weeks after the September bombing, she decided to defer her university plans for a year, instead returning to rebuild the destroyed education center from scratch. She wanted to encourage other girls to continue their educations, she said.

Now, those dreams have been shattered by Tuesday’s announcement.

“I am just lost. I don’t know what to do and what to say,” she told CNN. “Since last night, I have been imagining every friend of mine who lost their lives in the Kaaj attack. What was their sacrifice for?”

“We need to get education; we have given a lot of sacrifice for it. It is our only hope for a better future.”

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US

Kenny DeLand Jr., formerly missing American college student, on flight back to US

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CNN
 — 

American college student Kenny DeLand Jr. has been reunited with his mother in Lyon, France, and is on his way back to the US, according to a French diplomatic official.

DeLand Jr., who was reported missing more than two weeks ago in France, told relatives on Friday that he was safe in Spain, his family said.

The student voluntarily went to Spain after meeting some people who suggested he visit there, Florence Hermite, the French Justice Attaché in the US, told CNN. French officials worked in close coordination with the FBI in Paris to track DeLand down, according to Hermite.

“We are happy it unfolded well before Christmas,” she said, adding that as of Saturday evening the student was on a flight from France back to the US

The family has not said precisely what he has told them or explained where he has been for the past two weeks.

A senior at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, DeLand Jr. had been studying at the University of Grenoble Alpes, his family said.

His parents in recent days said they had not heard from him since November 27.

His fellow students reported him missing on November 29, prompting an investigation.

Earlier Friday, his father, Ken DeLand Sr., was on a call with CNN when he suddenly hung up – and then later messaged CNN to report he had just spoken with his son.

“It seems surreal, the whole situation,” the father added. “And now it’s finally, last chapter.”

DeLand Sr. said his son did not disclose many details about what he has been up to for the past weeks but said he was in Spain and asked his father to stop contacting news outlets.

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US

Kenny DeLand Jr.: Missing college student is alive, his father says.

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Paris
CNN
 — 

Kenny DeLand Jr., the American student who was reported missing more than two weeks ago in Grenoble, France, is alive, his father Ken DeLand Sr. told CNN on Friday.

DeLand Jr. is in Spain, French Prosecutor Eric Vaillant told CNN, adding only that the young man had spoken Friday with his parents.

DeLand Jr.’s father had been in the middle of a call with CNN when he suddenly hung up. He later messaged CNN to report “good news” – and said he’d just spoken with his son.

“He is alive – that’s all I can say,” he told CNN.

Deland Sr. did not elaborate on what his son told him and did not explain where his son has been for the past two weeks.

A senior at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, DeLand Jr. had been studying at the University of Grenoble Alpes, according to his family. His parents in recent days said they had not heard from him since November 27.

His fellow students reported him missing on November 29, prompting Vaillant to launch an investigation, the Grenoble prosecutor had said.

The woman who had hosted DeLand in France thought he may have left voluntarily, she told CNN before he was found – echoing a theory Vaillant put forward this week.

But the young man’s parents didn’t believe that was the case, and his father as recently as Wednesday decried what he called a response from authorities that was not sufficiently urgent.

Interpol on Thursday issued a Yellow Notice for DeLand, saying he went missing on November 27. Such notices are issued to help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify anyone who cannot identify themselves, according to Interpol.

DeLand had been scheduled to return to the US on Saturday, his father said before he was found, adding that although the student liked to go hiking, he would always keep in touch.

“For him to not reach out, with no correspondence, this is very uncharacteristic of my son,” DeLand Sr. told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Wednesday. “This is what creates all the worry that any parent could ever feel.”

“As time goes by, it makes you worry even more.”

When Vaillant announced Monday he was investigating DeLand Jr.’s disappearance, he said the student seemed “to have left Grenoble voluntarily.”

“The young man reportedly told several people that he had arrived in France underprepared and was having difficulty making friends,” Vaillant said Monday.

The student had been seen on December 3 in a store in the town of Montélimar, roughly a 90-mile drive southwest of Grenoble, Vaillant said.

And Deland had mentioned he wanted to go to Marseille, a city along the Mediterranean some 190 miles south of Grenoble, before returning to the US, Vaillant said.

Of all the students DeLand’s host mother had welcomed, he seemed to have the most trouble fitting in, the woman told CNN this week on the condition of anonymity out of concern for her privacy.

When the host mother hadn’t heard from DeLand, she inundated him with messages trying to figure out where he was, but he did not reply, she said. Learning that he’d been seen December 3 was reassuring, she said, because she felt it confirmed her suspicions he may have left and cut off communications voluntarily.

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Idaho college murders: Authorities say they’ve received thousands of tips in the case

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CNN
 — 

Authorities investigating the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death last month say they have received thousands of tips from the public.

In a Saturday update, the Moscow Police Department said it has received more than 2,640 emails to a tip web address, more than 2,770 phone tips and more than 1,000 submissions to an FBI link.

Investigators have collected more than 110 pieces of physical evidence and roughly 4,000 crime scene photos.

But the case remains unsolved. Police have not located the murder weapon nor identified a suspect.

“To assist with the ongoing investigation, any odd or out-of-the-ordinary events that took place should be reported,” Moscow police said Saturday. “Your information, whether you believe it is significant or not, might be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders.”

Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernolde’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were likely stabbed multiple times in their sleep just days before Thanksgiving break, police said.

Their horrific deaths have since rattled Moscow, a college town of some 25,000 people which hasn’t recorded a single murder since 2015, and the nation.

In an attempt to clear up false information that’s been spreading about the case, Moscow police this week debunked several theories.

“There is speculation, without factual backing, stoking community fears and spreading false facts,” the Moscow Police Department said in a news release Friday.

None of the victims in the quadruple homicide were tied and gagged, refuting online reports. A report of a “skinned” dog weeks before the killings is not connected to the case, according to police, and deceased animals left on a resident’s property elsewhere were determined to be wildlife activity.

Additionally, police noted the students’ killings are not related to two other stabbing incidents in neighboring states Washington and Oregon – in 1999 and 2021, respectively – which may “share similarities,” but “there does not appear to be any evidence to support the cases are related,” according to the release.

Police also reassured the public that a September incident which involved an argument between a group of people walking on the University of Idaho bike path and a cyclist, who displayed a folding knife, is not connected to the students’ killings.

“The individual involved turned himself in, and charges were referred to the Moscow City Attorney’s Office,” police said.

And although police have said they don’t know who carried out the killings, they have released information eliminating some people as suspects, most recently a person listed on the lease of the residence where the killings happened, police said Friday.

“They have spoken to this individual and confirmed they moved out prior to the start of the school year and was not present at the time of the incident. Detectives do not believe this person has any involvement in the murders,” Moscow police said.

Police also ruled out the two surviving roommates who were in house at the time of the killings and other people inside the house when the 911 call was made. The person who made the 911 call alerting authorities to the home after the killings has not been identified.

Goncalves and Mogen, two of the victims, were driven home by someone after the pair purchased food from a truck hours before they were killed – authorities have ruled out the driver as a suspect.

Additionally, a man seen in surveillance video from a food truck visited by Goncalves and Mogen, and another man the pair called “numerous times” in the hours before their deaths, were also ruled out as suspects by police.

It remains unclear how close authorities are to releasing information about a potential suspect or suspects. “Only vetted information that does not hinder the investigation will be released to the public,” Moscow police noted Friday.

But some details released by authorities since the start of the investigation have required further clarification.

This week, Moscow police noted and backtracked comments from the Latah County prosecutor that said, “the suspect(s) specifically looked at this residence” and “that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly targeted.”

Moscow police called that a “miscommunication,” and added: “Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted.”

On Thursday, Moscow police attempted to clarify the key conflicting information, once and for all.

“We remain consistent in our belief that this was a targeted attack, but investigators have not concluded if the target was the residence or if it was the occupants,” police said.

Authorities have also needed to clarify other information, including initially saying on November 15 that detectives believed the attacks were “isolated” and “targeted” and that the community was not under imminent threat. The following day, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said police were not definitive in concluding the public was not at risk.

Detectives have received testing and analysis of the crime scene evidence from Idaho State Police Forensic Services, and they will continue to receive the results of additional tests, according to police.

“To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.

Detectives also collected the contents of three dumpsters on the street where the house is located and seized five nearby vehicles to be processed for evidence, according to police.

As for the murder weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses regarding knife purchases in the days leading up to the killings.

Multiple agencies and law enforcement personnel are investigating the homicides. More than 30 employees including detectives, patrol officers and support staff from the Moscow Police Department are working on the case, police said Friday in the news release.

The FBI has devoted 22 investigators in Moscow, 20 agents through the country and two investigators from the agency’s Behavior Analysis Unit, police said.

Plus, there are 20 Idaho State Police investigators assigned to Moscow, and an additional 15 uniformed troopers are patrolling the community. Forensic services and a mobile crime scene team from the state police are also working the case.

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US

Idaho student killings: Moscow police say a sixth person on the lease isn’t involved in the murders

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CNN
 — 

The Moscow Police Department said on Friday that they don’t believe a sixth person listed on the lease at the residence, where four University of Idaho students were killed last month, was involved in their deaths.

“They have spoken to this individual and confirmed they moved out prior to the start of the school year and was not present at the time of the incident. Detectives do not believe this person has any involvement in the murders,” police said in a statement.

The victims Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernolde’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20 were found stabbed to death on November 13 in an off-campus house in the college town.

Police initially said Chapin lived at the house, but have since said he was only visiting.

Detectives have said three of the victims – Goncalves, Kernodle and Mogen – lived at the house with their two surviving roommates, who police have not named. Investigators announced a sixth person was listed on the lease as a resident in a Thursday update.

On Friday, police also addressed concerns about an incident that took place at Taylor Avenue and Band Field on November 13, at 3:01 a.m. Police said the incident was an alcohol offense which was addressed by an on-scene officer.

“This call is not related to the murder investigations,” police said.

Nearly three weeks since the college students were found stabbed to death, dozens of local, state and federal investigators have yet to identify a suspect or find the murder weapon.

Meanwhile, police and prosecutors have made irregular statements about the nature of the killings. On November 15, Moscow police said in a news release they “believe this was an isolated, targeted attack” that presented “no imminent threat to the community at large.” Police Chief James Fry backtracked on the threat statement at a news conference the next day, saying police could not be sure there was no risk to the public.

Then, on Wednesday, the Moscow police said that the prosecutor in Idaho’s Latah County erroneously had said this week that “the suspect(s) specifically looked at this residence,” and “that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly targeted.”

The police statement said the prosecutor’s comments were a “miscommunication,” adding, “Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted.”

That was a different tone from earlier remarks by police indicating investigators believed the attack was targeted.

On Thursday, Moscow police tried to clear up the issue:

“We remain consistent in our belief that this was a targeted attack, but investigators have not concluded if the target was the residence or if it was the occupants,” police said in a news release.

Despite the uncertainty blanketing the campus over the lack of a suspect, students gathered Wednesday night for a vigil in honor of the slain victims.

Blaine Eckles, the university’s dean of students, encouraged the crowd to “tell the fun stories, remember them in the good times and do not let their lives be defined by how they died, but instead remember them for the joy they spread and the fun times they shared while they lived.”

As detectives scour the city for information, here’s where the investigation stands.

On the night of the killings, Goncalves and Mogen were at a bar in downtown Moscow, and Chapin and Kernodle were seen at a fraternity party. Two surviving roommates had also gone out in Moscow that night, but returned to the house by 1 a.m., police said, noting they did not wake up until later that morning. Investigators do not believe they were involved in the deaths.

By 2 a.m., all four victims had returned to the home, according to police. Detectives earlier said Goncalves and Mogen returned to the home by 1:45 a.m., but they updated the timeline last week, saying digital evidence showed the pair returned at 1:56 a.m. after visiting a food truck and being driven home by a “private party.”

The next morning, the two surviving roommates in the home “summoned friends to the residence because they believed one of the second-floor victims had passed out and was not waking up,” police said in a release. Somebody called 911 from the house at 11:58 a.m. using one of the surviving roommates’ phones.

“The call reported an unconscious person,” Moscow Police Capt. Roger Lanier said last week. “During that call, the dispatcher spoke to multiple people who were on scene.”

When police arrived, they found two victims on the second floor and two victims on the third floor. There was no sign of forced entry or damage, police said.

The victims were likely asleep when the attacks began, according to the Latah County coroner. Each victim was stabbed multiple times, the coroner said, and some had defensive wounds.

Extensive evidence has been collected over the course of the investigation, including 113 pieces of physical evidence, about 4,000 photos of the crime scene and several 3-D scans of the home, Moscow police said on Thursday.

Detectives have received testing and analysis of the crime scene evidence from Idaho State Police Forensic Services, and they will continue to receive the results of additional tests, according to police.

“To protect the investigation’s integrity, specific results will not be released,” police said.

Detectives also collected the contents of three dumpsters on the street where the house is located and seized five nearby vehicles to be processed for evidence, according to police.

In an effort to locate the weapon – believed to be a fixed-blade knife – detectives contacted local businesses to see if a similar knife had been purchased recently.

Investigators are also relying on a trove of public tips, photos and videos of the night the students died, including more than 260 digital media submissions that people have submitted through an FBI form, police said. Authorities have processed more than 1,000 tips and conducted at least 150 interviews in an effort to advance the case.

But even with the piles of evidence at their fingertips, authorities are asking for the public to submit any surveillance video or tips about unusual behavior in the relevant areas, even if it appears there is no movement or content in them.

In the absence of significant advances in the case, rumors have spun around the case regarding the victims, potential suspects and unusual happenings in the area. Police have attempted to tamp down on misinformation by addressing a few of the issues directly.

Investigators say they believe the following people were not involved in the killings:

• Two surviving roommates.

• Other people in the house when 911 was called.

• The person who drove Goncalves and Mogen home.

• A man seen in surveillance video from a food truck visited by Goncalves and Mogen.

• A man Goncalves and Mogen called “numerous times” in the hours before their death.

Police also dismissed online reports that the victims were tied and gagged as inaccurate.

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