Details about slain Idaho students released as victims’ parents push back against police

Parents and family members of 4 dead University of Idaho students have criticized police for not releasing enough information about the case.

Police have released some new, key details from their investigation into the killing of four University of Idaho students that has rocked the small town of Moscow, Idaho.

Since news of the deaths broke, Moscow police have been reticent to provide details in the case, despite assuring community members that the incident was a targeted attack that poses “no imminent threat to the community at large.”

Parents and family members of the four dead students pushed back on the police response, criticizing the lack of available information into the deaths and questioning if there truly is no broader community risk as the offender remains at large. As of Wednesday evening, police still do not have a suspect in custody following the Sunday homicides.

Authorities said they continue to believe the attack was targeted but walked back a previous statement that there was no threat to the public while speaking to reporters on Wednesday.

In a Wednesday press conference, Moscow Police Chief James Fry gave an incomplete timeline of the incident to reporters, admitting that a press conference should have been held a day or two earlier.

He said that the four victims, Ethan Chapin, 20; Xana Kernodle, 20; Madison Mogen, 21; and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, had been attending different events around the University of Idaho before returning home early Sunday morning. Chapin and Kernodle had been attending a party on campus while Mogen and Goncalves were at a nearby bar.

Chapin didn’t live in the house with the three other victims, but he was spending the night with his girlfriend, Kernodle, his mother, Stacy Chapin, told ABC News.

Police Chief Fry said that sometime early Sunday morning, the four students were “stabbed with a knife.” Fry added there was no sign of forced entry in the house and they have not yet located the murder weapon.