The four University of Idaho students found slaughtered in an off-campus house Sunday were stabbed to death while in bed — and it’s “likely” they were asleep when attacked, the coroner has revealed.
Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt gave shocking new details on a Thursday night appearance on NewsNation’s “Banfield” as the killer or killers remain on the loose and the “large knife” used in butchering the four college students has yet to be recovered by cops.
“It was late at night or early in the morning so it seems likely maybe they were sleeping,” Mabbutt told host Ashleigh Banfield.
The coroner wouldn’t say if the four victims were found in separate areas, but confirmed the bodies were found in beds.
“There were multiple stab wounds on them and most of them had just one that was the lethal stab wound. The fatal ones were to the chest area, the upper body area,” Mabbutt said.
“It was a pretty large knife so it’s really hard to call them puncture wounds. They were definitely stabbings and it has to be somebody that’s pretty angry in order to stab four people to death,” she added to Banfield.
Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt revealed new details about the horrific stabbings on NewsNation’s “Banfield.” NewsNation
Victims Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21 were stabbed multiple times in a house on King Road in Moscow, Idaho, on Sunday.
Mabbutt had previously called the rampage “personal” and said it was possible that some of the wounds on the bodies were defensive. There were no signs of sexual assault to any of the students killed, she said.
Authorities have been trying to piece together the four’s final hours as they say they were murdered sometime overnight Saturday or early Sunday.
Here’s the latest coverage on the brutal killings of four college friends:
- Why Bryan Kohberger’s guilty plea means he may get the last laugh — and torment his victims further
- Byran Kohberger’s former criminology professor fears her serial-killer courses inspired him
- Prosecutors offered Bryan Kohberger a plea deal despite a mountain of damning evidence — here’s what they had
- Deluded Bryan Kohberger fans known as ‘probergers’ insist he’s innocent – despite guilty plea deal: ‘Reeks of a coverup’
- Families of slaughtered Idaho students vow to fight Bryan Kohberger plea deal: ‘Idaho has failed’
Kernodle’s father said in an interview with Arizona Family that the autopsy, performed on Wednesday, showed his daughter fought her killer to the end and had defensive marks on her.
“Bruises, torn by the knife,” Jeffrey Kernodle told the publication. “She’s a tough kid. Whatever she wanted to do, she could do it.”
Kernodle had been in a relationship with Chapin and the pair had been living together in the house with the other two victims and two others.
Her father added that the door to the property where the murders took place “locks with a number code … so they either knew that or went around and maybe found the slider door open.”
Law enforcement authorities called the bloody crime the “worst they’ve ever seen,” as the community remained shaken over the slaughter. Authorities last dealt with a murder in the college town, which houses over 10,000 students, in 2015.
