CNN –
Authorities investigating the murders of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death last month say they have received thousands of tips from the public.
In an update Saturday, the Moscow Police Department said it has received more than 2,640 emails to a tip web address, more than 2,770 phone tips and more than 1,000 submissions to an FBI link.
Investigators have collected more than 110 pieces of physical evidence and about 4,000 crime scene photographs.
But the case remains unsolved. Police have not located the murder weapon or identified any suspects.
“To help with the ongoing investigation, any strange or unusual events that have taken place should be reported,” Moscow police said on Saturday. “Your information, whether you think it’s significant or not, could be the piece of the puzzle that helps investigators solve these murders.”
Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernolde’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20, were likely stabbed multiple times in their sleep just days before the Thanksgiving holiday, police said.
Their gruesome deaths have shaken Moscow, a university town of about 25,000 people that has not recorded a murder since 2015, and the nation.
In an attempt to clear up the false information that has spread about the case, Moscow police this week debunked several theories.
“There are speculations, unsupported by facts, fueling community fears and spreading false facts,” the Moscow Police Department said in a press release on Friday.
None of the victims in the quadruple homicide were bound and gagged, refuting online reports. A report of a “skinned” dog weeks before the killings is unrelated to the case, and dead animals left on a resident’s property elsewhere were determined to be wildlife activity, police said.
Police also noted that the student murders are unrelated to two other stabbing incidents in neighboring Washington and Oregon states in 1999 and 2021, respectively, which may “share similarities” but “do not appear that there is any evidence to support the cases are related,” according to the statement.
Police also assured the public that a September incident involving an argument between a group of people walking along the University of Idaho bike path and a bicyclist, who was displaying a folding knife, is not connected to the killings of the students
“The individual involved turned himself in and the charges were transferred to the Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office,” police said.
And while police have said they don’t know who committed the murders, they have released information that eliminates some people as suspects, most recently a person listed on the lease for the residence where the murders occurred, police said Friday.
“They have spoken with this individual and confirmed that they moved out prior to the start of the school year and were not present at the time of the incident. Detectives do not believe this individual has any involvement in the murders,” say the Moscow police.
Police also ruled out the two surviving roommates who were in the home at the time of the murders and other people inside the home when the 911 call was made. The person who was call 911 alerting the authorities of the house after the murders.
Goncalves and Mogen, two of the victims, were driven home by someone after the couple bought food from a truck hours before they were killed; authorities have ruled out the driver as a suspect.
In addition, police also ruled out as suspects a man seen on surveillance video of a food truck visited by Goncalves and Mogen, and another man the couple named “numerous times” in the hours before their death.
It remains unclear how close authorities are to releasing information about a potential suspect or suspects. “Only revised information that does not hinder the investigation will be released to the public,” Moscow police said Friday.
But some details released by the authorities since the start of the investigation have required further clarification.
This week, Moscow police noted and backtracked on comments by the Latah County District Attorney that “the suspects specifically looked at this residence” and “that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly the ‘goal”.
Moscow police called this a “miscommunication” and added: “Detectives currently do not know whether the residence or its occupants were specifically targeted.”
On Thursday, Moscow police sought to clear up key conflicting information once and for all.
“We remain consistent in our belief that this was a targeted attack, but investigators have not concluded whether the target was the residence or the occupants,” police said.
Authorities have also had to clarify other information, including the initial statement on Nov. 15 that detectives believed the attacks were “isolated” and “targeted” and that the community was not under imminent threat. The next day, Moscow Police Chief James Fry said police were not definitive in concluding that the public was not at risk.
Detectives have received evidence and analysis of crime scene evidence from the Idaho State Police Forensic Services and will continue to receive the results of additional evidence, police said.
“To protect the integrity of the investigation, specific results will not be released,” police said.
Detectives also collected the contents of three dumpsters on the street where the house is located and seized five nearby vehicles for processing as evidence, according to police.
As for the murder weapon, believed to be a fixed-blade knife, detectives contacted local businesses to buy knives in the days leading up to the murders.
Multiple agencies and law enforcement personnel are investigating the homicides. More than 30 employees, including detectives, patrol officers and support staff from the Moscow Police Department, are working on the case, police said in the press release Friday.
The FBI has dedicated 22 investigators to Moscow, 20 agents nationwide and two investigators from the agency’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, police said.
In addition, there are 20 Idaho State Police investigators assigned to Moscow and 15 other uniformed troopers are patrolling the community. Forensic services and a state police mobile crime scene team are also working on the case.