Moscow Police Capt. Roger Lanier sees the end of the investigation into the University of Idaho student murders coming — insisting that investigators will “eventually” find the killer, even after a month has passed.
Lanier said in a Facebook video police “receive a large number of useful tips” every day.
“These clues help us do everything from identifying specific people that we probably have a guess about, to furthering the theories that we’re working on,” he said.
“So the next thing is to continue to do what we’re doing, weed out the information that we feel is irrelevant to the investigation and get all the new information,” Lanier said.
He added that “eventually we’ll see it coming, we’ll eventually find out what happened and who did it.”
The captain also described the moment he received reports of a horrific crime at an off-campus home where 21-year-old Kayleigh Goncalves, 21-year-old Madison Mogen, 20-year-old Hana Kernodle and her 20-year-old boyfriend Ethan Chapin were killed.
“They called me home. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I needed a second,” he recalls. “I really had to think about what I had heard. The four murders in Moscow, Idaho, were very out of character.
When he arrived at the bloody scene on King’s Road, students were already standing outside crying.
“The scene was not chaos … but it was very, very sad,” Lanier said.
He said the quadruple homicide was the city’s first homicide in seven years and the first “major crime scene” many of his younger officers had seen.
“Emotionally, it was a very, very draining day,” Lanier said.
He said the Idaho State Police and the FBI quickly joined the complex investigation, which his department could not handle on its own.
“The team effort was great. It’s been very difficult at times, but there are a lot of people with a lot of experience. Someone always steps up and takes on a role that needs to be filled,” said the captain.
Lanier said the “most frustrating” part of their jobs was the rumors and rumors that led to death threats and hindered investigations.
“Not only are we monitoring these rumors and trying to quell them, but we also see that our advice is focused on rumors rather than published facts,” he said.
In a statement, police asked the public to “pay attention to the official facts” released by the department.
“Over the past four weeks, rumors and speculation have led members of the public to offer tips based on hearsay rather than official information on the case,” it said.
“Rumors and rumors have also affected the families, friends and fellow students of the victims. In some cases, this has led to harassment and threatening behavior towards potentially involved parties,” the statement said.
“Anyone who engages in threats or harassment, whether in person, online or otherwise, should understand that they may be subject to criminal prosecution,” he added.
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