Footage shows mystery group near Idaho house at same time as murders

A group of people were spotted walking near the home where four University of Idaho students were slain in their sleep. As the brutal murders have captured the nation’s attention, internet sleuths are now pointing to new details from a police stop that occurred near the Moscow off-campus home of the victims.

Just minutes before police said the students were killed, plainclothes officers had made an unrelated stop in the area of three students for suspected underage drinking. The officers’ bodycam captured the incident, and in the background of the video, several people can be seen moving quickly past police on Taylor Avenue, two houses down from the scene of the crime.

True crime vlogger Olivia Vitale, who highlighted the now viral video, said it was imperative that police track down the potential witnesses who may shine new details on the case. ‘Between the people with law enforcement and the people in the background of the bodycam footage, that is about half a dozen people,’ Vitale told Fox News. ‘The importance is they may have witnessed something unbeknownst to them.’ 

The video comes as the Moscow Police Department called on people to provide tips as no arrest has been made in a month, while also warning to crackdown on internet sleuths who are spreading misinformation. 

Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21 (all pictured), were students at the University of Idaho. They were brutally attacked between 3am and 4am — and a month later, the killer has yet to be caught. The fact that little remains to be known about the case has led to a flurry of speculations surrounding the case, with internet sleuths continuing to alert police to potential evidence.  

While officials have previously said that there is nothing of value in the bodycam videos of that night’s stop, it remains unclear if police questioned the people seen walking hurriedly in the background. The Moscow Police Department did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.

The police stop is clocked between 2:50 am to 3:12 am on November 13. Officials believe the murders took place between 3 am to 4 am. Pat Diaz, a former Miami-Dade homicide detective, agreed that the development could provide new information for local police. ‘If they haven’t yet, they need to locate them ASAP,’ Diaz said of the people in the bodycam video. ‘That is a great lead. Someone knows something.’

The latest tip comes as former Moscow Police Captain Paul Kwaitkowski (pictured), 64, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview the killings were most likely a targeted attack. The retired Moscow police captain who spent 20 years investigating every local homicide in the Idaho claimed the perpetrator responsible for the murders knew at least one of the victims and may have been seeking vengeance. ‘Somewhere along the line, something bad happened, something that [expletive] someone off enough to go after these people.’ Kwaitkowski comments came amid police’s uncertainty about whether or not the victims were targeted. 

Officials said the initially believed the attack was not targeted, but weeks later recanted their statement in one of many contradictions that have left the public and the families of the victims frustrated over the investigation. Kaylee’s father Steven Goncalves (pictured) has publicly aired his anger over the bungled police investigation into the gruesome murder of his daughter, who was last week revealed to have suffered ‘significantly more brutal’ injuries than her three friends. The bereaved dad shared new details of those injuries, revealing Kaylee had sustained ‘big open gouges’ and that the knife slashed open her liver and lungs, Fox News reported.  

Goncalves said his daughter’s (pictured right) wounds ‘definitely did not match’ those of Mogen (pictured left), who was found in the same bed as Kaylee, after asking coroner Cathy Mabbutt how many times the victims were stabbed. ‘She says, “sir, I don’t think stabs is the right word, it was like tears, like this was a strong weapon, not like a stab,”‘ he told the news outlet. ‘She said these were big open gouges. She said it was quick. These weren’t something where you were going to be able to call 911. They were not going to slowly bleed out.’  

Based on the victims’ wounds, Goncalves said, the coroner’s office suspects the killer was likely a ‘strong individual’ however investigators have not determined the person’s gender. He, however, believes it is most likely the work of a ‘sadistic male.’ ‘It was a hell of a battle going on down there from what the coroner told us,’ he added. ‘I got outraged by them not just coming out and saying this was a woman or a man because they should know by the amount of strength it took to deliver the injuries. They’re just being cowards. There are girls walking around the street right now that deserve to know. They should be looking out for a sadistic male,’ he added. 

Like his former colleagues, Kwaitkowski says he does not know who was the intended target and suspects all four victims could have been the focus of the attack. ‘I don’t know who the target was,’ he said. ‘Maybe there was only one target, and the other three were collateral damage. ‘Why they were targeted, nobody knows yet — that involves deciphering all the digital data that they’re going to have to go through. You have 20 people looking at tens of thousands of pieces of information. That will lead them to something. But it’s going to take time,’ he explained. Pictured: Moscow Police Chief James Fry is seen assisting to remove the victims’ personal property from their King Street home.

On Monday, Idaho cops revealed they have bagged the hands of the four victims to try and find additional clues into the slaying. Authorities say the victims’ hands may contain evidence such as skin or hair under the fingernails if they tried to fight back against the unknown murderer who broke into their off-campus house in the early morning hours of November 13 and stabbed them to death. Goncalves, Mogen, Kernodle and Chapin may have even touched their assailants’ DNA if they made physical contact during the attack, forensic experts told FOX News Digital on Monday. 

Although details of the crime scene remain scant, there is no suggestion the victims’ hands had been removed from their arms, as Latah County Coroner Cathy Mebbutt (pictured) says the hands were sealed with bags before the bodies were moved. Investigators told FOX that once they can determine whether any of the students’ hands has even the slightest of remnants of their assailants’ DNA they could search through national and state databases to find a match — though they said the process could take weeks. As Idaho State Police Forensics Laboratory Systems Director Matthew Gamette explained: ‘DNA can be found in any kind of cellular material.’ 

He said investigators are trying to determine whether ‘someone’s hand touched a surface or handled a surface, or whether they’ve left blood, saliva — any kind of bodily fluids’ and then identify areas where there might be tissue or touch DNA. ‘And then we would be trying to develop DNA profiles from those surfaces, in the case of latent prints,’ Gamette said. ‘We might be working a room or a car or something of that nature to be able to develop latent prints or fingerprints from a person that are visible to the naked eye,’ he said. ‘And then we would be looking to either compare those to known individuals, or we would be looking to put them in a database to see if we can identify someone.’ 

While Goncalves’ father slammed police over the ongoing investigation, her mother, Kristi, said she is looking to fundraise to help bring her daughter’s killer to justice. ‘Our family would like to fundraise in hopes to offer a reward, and possibly hire a private investigator if that becomes necessary,’ the grieving mom told Fox News Digital. The family is using both GoFundMe and GiveSendGo to raise money for a reward and a private investigator.

Similar campaigns created in honor of Kernodle, Chapin, and Mogen have raised more than $160,000 cumulatively. While speaking with Fox News Digital, Kristi also said that in addition to raising money for the private investigator and reward, the family will also use a portion of any funds raised to pay for their daughter’s funeral services. ‘The money raised will go directly to getting us answers as well as helping to pay for Kaylee’s final arrangements and her celebration of life on Dec. 30,’ she said.

As of Monday, the GiveSendGo fundraiser organized by a family friend had reached just over $5,000 of its $20,000. ‘Kaylee’s family deserves to know the truth about that dreadful night. They stress that this absolutely cannot become a cold case, so we need everyone who is on board with this, to donate here, in order to make sure this does not happen,’ the GiveSendGo campaign’s description reads.

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