Idaho Students Killing

icedcoffee

Thu, Jan 05 2023, 6:47 pm

jerusalem90 wrote:

He's charged with burglery. I wonder what he stole from the house. Something significant, or just a "souvenier"?

Burglary just means unlawfully entering a building with the intention of committing a crime.

The affidavit raises so many questions. Really crazy that the door dash delivery person just missed the killer by minutes. The timing is so eerily bizarre. It's very sad that they weren't all sleeping...must've been so terrifying to be awake. Very odd that the roommate heard something like
"it's ok, I'm going to help you." I wonder if that was the killer being creepy, or the boyfriend trying to comfort his girlfriend as she died?

I can imagine the other roommate not calling the police immediately. Either she was confused about the situation - it was the middle of the night, there wasn't screaming that would indicate exactly what was happening, and it seems like people came in and out of the house fairly often - or she was so paralyzed with fear and shock. I can definitely picture, in her terror, a 20 year old girl convincing herself that everything is fine and trying to block it all out.

gr82no

Thu, Jan 05 2023, 7:15 pm

icedcoffee wrote:

Thanks for the bolded.
What you said makes sense.
The affidavit revealed a lot of unknown but now there are different questions.
I’m sure the gag order is necessary but I can’t wait to hear more details. When is the fag order going to be lifted? By the trial?
I’m fascinated by this for some reason but sometimes it creeps me out how it all happened.

WhatFor

Thu, Jan 05 2023, 11:02 pm

jerusalem90 wrote:

That article just raises more questions!

He's charged with burglery. I wonder what he stole from the house. Something significant, or just a "souvenier"?

It says security cameras heard crying around 4 am. It seems like a dying stab victim would be screaming or whimpering, not exactly crying. Was it the murderer who was crying?

One of the survivors saw him walking toward her, but he walked past. Did he see her? Was he unaware the two survivors where there?

How did the surviving roommate hear so much, but not hear screaming? Was the murderer such an effective killer that he killed them before they could scream?

Why did he do it?

The burglary charge may be a strategy. In many states (I don't know about Idaho), there's a crime called felony murder in which, if you kill someone (accidentally or on purpose) during the commission of a felony, and I think even if someone is killed as a result of you committing the felony, you can be charged with murder. Murder, as opposed to manslaughter, usually requires intent and that means the prosecution must prove that the accused intended to kill the victim. With felony murder, you typically don't have to prove intent to kill the victim, just intent to commit the felony and that the victim died in the course of or as a result of the felony. I'm not sure if this plays into the strategy of the charge (and he's obviously also being charged with murder separately) and don't take this as gospel because I'm just talking from memory off the top of my head, but just putting this out there as a potential reason.

I seriously doubt the murderer was crying, he was probably enjoying lots of adrenaline, which is the reason sick people like him do this. A stab victim may be physically unable to scream, especially if their lung/throat was punctured, which could be likely in this case. The crying may be before they were incapacitated, sadly.

We don't know if he saw her, of course, but I also wondered about this. When they were still looking for the killer, I watched an interesting interview with Ann Burgess and other profilers who described the type of murderer who kills someone in their sleep. They were talking about how this kind of person is often socially awkward (ding ding ding) and doesn't want the victim to see them. They can feel like God when they have that kind of power, but they don't enjoy the confrontation, possibly because of the way they've been made to feel about themselves and know that people look at them like they're weird. We don't know if he was hightailing it out of there because the dog was barking, or if he literally didn't see her. We don't know the lighting situation, so were his pupils suddenly dilated if he came out into the light room (if he was coming from a dark room), we don't know if D's bedroom door was wide open or if she opened it a crack. Adrenaline can also make someone hyperfocus, so it could be he saw the door to the exit and was simply zoned in on that. (The fact that he left his sheath behind suggests he was in some state of hyperfocus.)

Another thought I just had was that until now, everyone thought D was on the first floor because that extra room on the middle floor was supposedly recently vacated (this is speculative but based on what many purportedly from the area believed). If he did prior recon on the house (which the affidavit suggests) it's possible that room had been empty so he didn't think to look there this time. She had also gone to sleep before he arrived according to the affidavit, so it could be her light was off and he didn't think to look there this time. This is all super speculative of course.

In the interview I mentioned (before he was caught) when asked why he would keep someone alive, they suggested that if the motive of the killer was to feel like God, they sometimes do it as part of that - I decide who lives and who dies. I'm not sure if that would apply to actually leaving behind a witness though.

To the comment others are making about what he said, I see that everyone (here and elsewhere) seems to be taking that as though it's a fact that someone said this. From my perspective, this is what the roommate believes she heard, and maybe is what he said but not necessarily. She believed she was in a safe house, she heard what sounded like her roommate crying, she heard a male voice saying something that she interpreted to be "I'll help you". For all we know he said "I'll hurt you" or anything else. This was in a different room and I believe her door was closed at the time.

I actually want to go back and look at the affidavit again now to see the timeline from when she woke up until when she heard that. If she's halfway asleep, especially if she had been drinking or under the influence of anything, her brain might have been a bit foggy about what she was seeing and what was happening. Don't forget, by all accounts, this was a party house that very often had tons of people in it. There's been multiple police cam videos released of that house being the subject of noise complaints where the homeowners weren't even in the house (supposedly. In one of those videos D answered the door but never came back out, someone else did). So seeing someone in the house, hearing people in the house, none of this was necessarily super crazy.

WhatFor

Thu, Jan 05 2023, 11:16 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Listening to the court appearance now and one of the charges is violation of 18-4003. If you look at the statute, at section (d) it includes:

(d) Any murder committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate...burglary.... is murder of the first degree.

(I cut out the rest of the list). So it looks like they want to try every avenue to get him for murder in the first degree, would be my guess. First degree murder in Idaho can be punished by death.

https://codes.findlaw.com/id/t......html

ETA: I haven't watched this yet, but I tend to enjoy Emily Baker's analyses and here's her live reaction to the probable cause affidavit, if anyone is interested.

icedcoffee

Fri, Jan 06 2023, 5:45 am

WhatFor wrote:

From my perspective, this is what the roommate believes she heard, and maybe is what he said but not necessarily.

You're right, of course. I fixated on it because it was such a jarring detail but it could've been anything. Even simply "he can't help you" would make more sense.

Quote:

I actually want to go back and look at the affidavit again now to see the timeline from when she woke up until when she heard that.

Someone online put together this timeline:
-------------------------------------------------------------
3:29 AM to 4:04 AM - The white Elantra drives past the 1122 King Road house 3 times.

4:00 AM (approx) - Xana receives a DoorDash food order from a delivery driver.

4:04 AM (approx) - The White Elantra drives past the King Road house a 4th time, attempts to park, then goes down Queen road, beside the King Road house.

4:00 AM (approx) - Surviving roommate, DM, is in a bedroom on the 2nd floor and hears what she thinks is the sound of Kaylee playing with her dog in one of the bedrooms on the 3rd floor.

"a short time later" - DM hears a voice saying something like, "There's someone here". She thinks it is Kaylee. (Police say it could also have been Xana). DM opens her door and looks out but doesn't see anything.

4:12 AM - Xana is using TikTok on her phone.

DM hears crying. She thinks it is coming from Xana's room. She opens her door a second time and hears a male voice say something like, "It's ok. I'm going to help you."

4:17 AM - CCTV on a house next to Xana's room captures the sound of voices or a whimper followed by a thud and a dog barking numerous times.

DM hears crying and opens her door for the third time. She sees a strange man walking towards her. He is wearing black clothes and a mask covering his nose and mouth. He walks past her and exits the house through the sliding glass door. DM locks herself in her room.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Seeing it laid out like that, I find it even less surprising that the roommate didn't call the police immediately. She heard some whimpering and crying, ambiguous words, and saw a strange man, in a house where it wasn't unusual to have strangers coming and going. It seems like her body intuitively knew something was wrong on some level, but each individual aspect doesn't even sound too out of the ordinary. "There's someone here" could refer to the doordash driver for all we know.

That doordash delivery is really throwing me off. Did the killer not see that at least one person was awake to pick up a delivery? Was he surprised to find that they weren't all sleeping?

Also just to respond to the comment that it's almost the perfect crime -- it actually seems like it was really sloppy. Other than leaving behind half the murder weapon with DNA on it, he made so many rookie mistakes. He took his own car, which was easily traced and can be seen canvassing the area many times before the murder. He took his own phone with him, which tracked all his movements. He went back the next morning in the same car with his phone! Not sure how a phd-level criminology student makes such obvious mistakes. It sounds like law enforcement had him on their radar within just a few mere days though they did not reveal that to the public.

jerusalem90

Sat, Jan 07 2023, 8:18 am

I've got a few more thoughts/questions.

1. Maybe 2 or more of the murdered roommates were collateral damage, I.e., maybe the murderer wanted to kill one girl on the 3rd floor but mistakenly thought she was sleeping on the second floor and stabbed that girl. Then he had to stab the boyfriend because he was there. Once he realized he hadn't accomplished his goal, he continued on to the 3rd floor... something like that.

2. It made more sense to me when I thought the surviving roommates were in a soundproof room. It's weird to me that that roommate heard voices talking but no screaming. So no one screamed? If no one screamed, he must have been a very effective killer. Makes me wonder if he worked in a butcher's shop or something similar...

3. Is it known yet how the suspect is pleading? I would *assume* that he will either plead guilty to get the death penalty off the table, or will plead insanity. If he pleads guilty, I'm sure one stipulation will be that he has to give all of the details. If he pleads insanity, he may say he was confused and doesn't know/remember.

4. I wonder if the suspect's father was involved in any way. Even if not involved in the planning or committing of the actual crime, but if in the aftermath he suspected his son and tried to help him hide.

byisrael

Sat, Jan 07 2023, 1:13 pm

jerusalem90 wrote:

Just as an answer for 2- I saw that the suspect was getting a PHD in Criminal Justice. He may have had access to information on how to become a silent murderer, without having the victim scream....

WhatFor

Sun, Jan 08 2023, 8:03 am

DrMom wrote:

I don't think it's so weird that the surviving roommate didn't call the police. If you share a house with a bunch of college students, you could very well be used to strangers coming and going at odd hours. Many students hook up, keep odd hours, etc.

I find it really odd that he left the knife sheath behind at the scene of the crime. Seems very sloppy.

As for cellphone tracking: I understand that on the night of the murder, his cell was off or and hour or so before and after the murder, but that cellphone records show that he had been in that neighborhood 4-5 times before since Jan'22.

I agree that the sheath thing seemed sloppy. I watched that Emily Baker video and she said - she was purely speculating and she was clear about this - that she hoped that it landed there because one of the girls fought back.

The affidavit says it was found on the bed to the right of Maddie. When I think about it, it would seem like a stupid place to deliberately place a sheath when about to stab someone in that bed. The murderer seemed pretty careful about covering his tracks and not leaving DNA evidence, so placing a sheath on a bed where a victim is about to bleed is either really bad judgment or not deliberate. I wonder if it fell out of his pocket? Could he have been wearing it and it came off or maybe a victim grabbed it? I was also initially wondering how he didn't realize it was missing when he went to replace the knife in the sheath once he was done, but also on thinking about this further, if he didn't want to have the victims' DNA in his possession, and if he potentially planned on keeping the knife, he may have had a plan for transporting the knife out which didn't include replacing it in the sheath until he got rid of the blood on it. It's possible he was already long gone before he noticed the sheath was missing.

The affidavit (link below) actually says he was in the area of the home at least twelve times prior to the day of the murders, and all of those times except one was very late in the evening or early in the morning. Unless he actually knows somebody that lives there, that's super creepy.

https://coi.isc.idaho.gov/docs.....e.pdf

gr82no

Sun, Jan 08 2023, 8:31 am

jerusalem90 wrote:

No 3- he pleads not guilty and he did not plead insanity