Former Idaho prosecutor who visited house where students were murdered reveals killer’s possible path

A former Idaho attorney general and lieutenant governor who has been inside the house where four University of Idaho students were killed on Nov. 13 says the suspect likely entered the house through a back door.

Police believe that the University of Idaho students, Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were all stabbed multiple times in their sleep during the early morning hours of Nov. 13 between 3 and 4 a.m. in a home on King Road in Moscow, Idaho.

Officials say the attacker used a “fixed-blade knife” in the incident that left the four students dead.

Dave Leroy, who previously served as the lieutenant governor of Idaho, attorney general and Ada County prosecuting attorney, told Fox News Digital that he was inside that house four years ago.

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Ethan Chapin, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Xana Kernodle, who were stabbed to death Nov. 13.
(Fox News)

Leroy said he was at the university during homecoming and was invited to the house, where his client’s son was living at the time.

Describing the layout of the house, Leroy said that updates have been done since he was there.

“There are two separate entries and this house lays against a hill,” Leroy said. “If a perpetrator went into the lower level off the parking lot, they would enter into a general living room area and a kitchen area with a couple of bedrooms and the back of a first floor. If the perpetrator entered into the second floor, they would have done so higher up the hill to almost a separate section of the house, which contains bedrooms and bathrooms on the second and third floor, where apparently, according to reports, most of the killings took place.”

Leroy also believes that based on information officials have previously given regarding the locations of the victims, the killer likely entered through the back of the house.

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Law enforcement vehicles on the scene of the Idaho quadruple murder.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

“That would be my speculation, but I certainly would defer to the police investigation on that,” he said. “It is, however, a logical conclusion derived from the fact that the homicides were committed on the upper floors and people were apparently left undisturbed in the lower floor.”

Investigators search a home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 14, 2022, after four University of Idaho students were killed there on Nov. 13.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

He said that it wouldn’t have been necessary for the attacker to go downstairs if the crimes were committed on the upper levels.

“If two people were in the lower level, it would not be necessary for the killer to go downstairs or to pass by their bedrooms when the crime was committed if they would access into and out of the upper floor against the higher up on the hill section of the house,” Leroy said.

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General views of the Moscow, Idaho, home taken on Nov. 16, 2002, where four students of the University of Idaho were murdered on Nov. 13.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

When officers arrived at the King Road residence around noon on Nov. 13, two of the victims were found on the second floor and the other two victims were found on the third floor, police say.

Steve Goncalves, the father of Kaylee, said during a vigil remembering the four victims that his daughter “died together in the same room, in the same bed” as Mogen.

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“It’s a shame and it hurts. But the beauty of the two always being together is something that will well, it comforts us. It lets us know that they were with their best friends in the whole world. It’s like a book,” Goncalves said.

Anyone with information about the incident is being asked to call Moscow police at 208-883-7054 or email [email protected].

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State police forensics look for clues in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 21, 2022. Four University of Idaho students who were slain on Nov. 13 in this house.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

Fox News’ Michael Ruiz, Paul Best, Stephanie Pagones, and Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.