Ep. 1: The House on a Hill

0:02It's a golden November day in Moscow, Idaho. a college town surrounded by rolling wheat fields. The University of Idaho football team, the Vandals, is playing its last home game of the season. The marching band plays the fight song. I-D-A-H-O, Idaho, Idaho, go, go, go! And thousands of people crowd into the Kibbe Dome to watch them take on UC Davis. Local broadcaster SWX televised this high-stakes game. Very emotional day. Both teams needing this victory for the postseason. There's a lot riding on the line. Moscow is a town of about 11 ,000 people, but it doubles in size when school's in session.

0:47It has that mountain town vibe with a lot of people who love the outdoors. There's tailgating outside the stadium. Downtown, people are wearing black and gold Vandal gear. The university campus, really, the whole town of Moscow is abuzz. The Vandals haven't lost a home game all season. Bouncing outside. Larrison broke a tackle. He's gone. Touchdown UC Davis. That didn't take long at all for the Aggies to come in here and put one up early. The Vandals put up a decent fight, but they lost 44-26. It was a blow, for sure, at a place as football crazy as the U of I. But students weren't going to let the loss ruin a perfectly good Saturday night.

1:36We have a saying here in Moscow, win or lose, there's always boos. We're very dedicated to our reputation to celebrate whether or not we win the game. Greek life is big at the University of Idaho. Almost a quarter of the students are members of a sorority or a fraternity. And this weekend in November was a particularly big weekend for Greek life. Rush was happening, there were formals and major parties. The next day, Sunday, you have to imagine, students were getting a slow start to their morning. By early afternoon, some students were just waking up, others getting their coffee, people in the community out running errands.

2:23And then, just after 2 p.m., thousands of phones started pinging and vibrating all at once. A vandal alert. An emergency message from the university flashing across their screens. It said Moscow police were investigating a homicide on King Road near campus. It said they had no suspect and asked that people stay away from the area and shelter in place. I was kind of still waking up, and some people texted me, and then I was like, what are you talking about? And we were like, okay, it's one person, it's an accident. I thought maybe somebody drank too much or something along those lines. He said, oh my gosh, there's been a homicide on King Road.

3:07What happened? King Road is a purely residential street, running up a hill behind campus. Toward the top of the hill, yellow police tape now wrapped around a gray house, a well-known three-story home. Most, if not all, the students know this house. It's a major party house on a major party street close to Frat Row. They could see the commotion. Outside my window, I saw the first police officer drive to the house. I was like, what's going on? And I see him run out and grab the medical bag I know they have in the police officer cars. And then that's when I knew something was going on. So I actually pulled over at the top of the hill and I could see over the neighborhood.

3:51I saw multiple cop cars. It just really looked like something was going down. Almost immediately, speculation started to swirl. Students texting each other, texting friends who live in the King Road house. And they started posting about what happened using a social media platform called Yik Yak. At first, people thought maybe it was just an accident, something related to the parties the night before. But then, a really disturbing story started to spread. People saying that four students were dead, that a man in black had come in and killed them. And I never in a million years would have believed that at the time.

4:37Throughout Sunday afternoon, Moscow waited for more information from police or the university. At 2.46, a second vandal alert told students and staff the shelter-in-place had been lifted, and police didn't believe there was an active threat. But at 5.21, a third vandal alert announced Moscow police were investigating the deaths of four people near campus. I want to be reading from my notes today because I want the information you received to be extremely accurate. We know you have questions, and so do we. Three days later, police held their first news conference about what happened. Officers discovered the bodies inside the residence on King Road.

5:22The four were stabbed with a knife, but no weapon has been located at this time. Once we learned it was a quadruple homicide, that's when I figured the nation was just going to descend on our tiny town. And the nation did descend. The FBI was on the case. Reporters flew in from across the country, some from around the world. And Internet sleuths started trying to solve the mystery. The newest evidence coming out shows me so much and my conspiracy theories are running. His only alibi is that his roommate said he was sleeping. I don't believe that for a second. This guy now looks even more suspect.

6:06It just seems that they're looking at everybody except the actual killers.

6:13Everyone wanted to know who had targeted the victims. Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin. And why? It was the story people were talking about. And I was the first network reporter on the ground. The hunt is on for a suspected killer following the horrifying homicides of four University of Idaho students at an off-campus apartment. That's me. I'm Kana Whitworth. a correspondent with ABC News, and I began covering this case the day after the murders were discovered. It was frustrating how little information the authorities were putting out in the first few weeks. How could this happen?

7:00And we knew nothing. No suspect description. No timeline. How did four people get brutally murdered and nobody released any information? I kept thinking, there should be a manhunt right now. There was something about this story that drew me in. The idyllic location, the students carefree and trusting in a place that should have been safe. I could relate to these students. Moscow really reminds me of where I went to college in Fort Collins, Colorado. When I went away to Colorado State University, I remember my dad telling me, this is the freest you'll ever be. And I felt that. So I tried to imagine something like this happening on my campus.

7:55I looked at the photos of these four students, smiling with their friends. And like many people, you either thought, that could have been me. Or that could have been my kid. I found myself wondering, did the victims even know they were in danger? This story also grabbed me because, from the start, it was chilling and strange. Four students methodically stabbed in their beds while two other roommates were home. Someone had gone into their bedrooms, one by one to do this, and then slipped into the night. I've spent the last seven months trying to understand what happened that night. In this series, I'll walk you through what I've learned about the victims, the investigation, and the suspect that police arrested six weeks after the murders, who to this day maintains his innocence.

8:57I'll cover new developments in this case as they unfold over the summer. We'll also look at why the story captured so much attention. What happens when your community becomes the latest true crime storyline? This is The King Road Killings, Episode 1, The House on a Hill.

9:24The King Road House is in a neighborhood with lots of off-campus student housing. There are three large apartment buildings and lots of rental houses. It's the kind of neighborhood that always looks like it's the morning after a party, And I mean that in the best way. There are couches in front yards and Christmas lights wrapped around tree trunks that stay up all year long. 1122 King Road really stands out. It's big and boxy. There's no particular architectural style. It has vinyl siding and it's built into a hill. I'm in Moscow right now. Yeah. On my first trip to Idaho, I sat in my rental car right in front of that King Road house, and I did a Zoom call with Olivia Gonzalves, the older sister of Kaylee, one of the victims.

10:15So if you look, you can see there's the house behind me. You can see the front door has a Christmas wreath on it. I know. Olivia lives in California, but she knows the house well. The front entrance from the parking lot puts you on the first floor. with a bedroom to your right and left, separated by a stairwell that takes you to the second floor. The second floor also has two bedrooms and a kitchen, with a sliding glass door that opens to a patio. The third floor has two bedrooms and a balcony that overlooks a parking lot. One of those bedrooms on the top floor was Kaylee's. Yeah, that balcony from the back is Kaylee's bedroom.

10:59Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah, she has a sign up, a neon sign that says Good Vibes. And you can see her bed and her Good Vibes neon light that she had above her bed.

11:16It really seemed like Good Vibes was the unofficial motto of the house. It was a popular house. The property manager told me all the rooms would be spoken for for years in advance. People would pass their rooms on to their friends. They would call the property manager and ask, can I leave my bed for my sorority sister who's going to take my room next year? It was just that kind of house. In November of 2022, Kaylee Gonsalves, Madison Mogan, Zanna Kernodal, and two other roommates were living at that King Road house. One picture of the roommates you see a lot is a picture of them in jeans and sweats.

11:58It looks like it could have been pulled from a Gap catalog. It's really sweet. You see Maddie sitting on Kaylee's shoulders. The two girls have long, blonde hair, wearing crop tops. Zanna has her arms around her boyfriend, Ethan. He has tousled hair and his signature mustache. Zanna's a petite brunette, and she's wearing a big Idaho sweatshirt. Their two other roommates are also in that picture. Kaylee posted it just a few hours before their deaths.

12:37I spoke with two of their friends who spent a lot of time at that house, Katie and Ava. We're only going to use their first names to protect their privacy, but they told me that Kaylee's room was impeccable and that she loved decorating, always going for that Pinterest aesthetic. She had fake succulents and fake little vines hanging. Cute pictures of her and her friends. She'd tape up little, like, inspiration stuff. She would make picture boards. Kaylee had lined up a job in IT and was planning on moving to Texas after graduating. But her friends say she could do anything that she put her mind to.

13:17She's like, I think I could be in the FBI. So she sits down in her chair and she goes, okay. I want you to listen to me practice my lines, okay? And so she goes, Kaylee Gonsalves, FBI. And she goes, how do I sound? And me and my other roommate were like, that was phenomenal. It was like hilarious, but also like would show her ambition. Like she wasn't kidding, even if like she actually didn't go into that. Like she was serious. Kaylee was set to graduate in December. So she was spending as much time as possible with her family near Coeur d 'Alene before her move to Texas. Olivia told me that Kaylee had been home for a couple of weeks.

13:59She was helping her mom decorate for Christmas. She'd also bought her dream car. Olivia pointed it out to me while we were on that Zoom call. And that silver car, that's the Range Rover my sister bought on Friday. She bought that car on Friday? Mm-hmm. She was really excited. She had had it for a day. Yeah. She drove down to show it to Maddie. She wanted to show the car to her best friend. Madison Mogan. Everyone calls her Maddie. She had the other bedroom on the top floor of the King Road house. She'd been Kaylee's best friend since sixth grade. The girls met at a college prep school, and they did everything together.

14:55They got their driver's licenses together. They went to prom together. Now, they were 21 years old, on the dean's list, and about to graduate. Friends described them as ride or die. But they were more like sisters than best friends. Here's Katie and Ava again. Like, I would go to Kaylee's house a couple times, and I wouldn't even know, like, Maddie's there, because she's hanging out with Kaylee's sisters. I'm like, oh my gosh. Hey, Maddie. I had no idea you were here too. She was a part of their family, 100%, and vice versa. Kaylee, too. She was over a lot. I mean, she came over every single day.

15:34That's Kaylee's younger sister, Autumn. She says that Maddie always vacationed with the family, that she was at all of their birthday parties and was in every single photo when they moved into their new house. I have this one video of her. We had puppies, and she's got a puppy, and she's dancing around in our pool holding this little itty-bitty puppy, and she's putting it on her shoulders, and she's dancing around in the pool. And that was a really good day with her. Maddie loved pink. She had these bright pink cowboy boots. They had become iconic. When she wasn't wearing them, she would stick them in her bedroom window for the world to see.

16:16It was heartbreaking. Because you could see them in her window for days after she was murdered. Police hadn't closed the blinds yet. Everything in her room was pink, too. She would always point out small pink things. A pink rug. I love it. That would be her. Maddie was majoring in marketing. She worked off campus at the Mad Greek. a food and pizza joint on Main Street downtown. She had been working jobs since she was a kid. Her dad said when she was 12, her mom managed a motel and didn't have any housekeeping staff for the summer. So Maddie and her friends pitched in and cleaned motel rooms all summer to help her mom.

17:05On the second floor, right below Kaylee and Maddie, there were two more bedrooms. Zanna Kernodle had one of them. Zanna was a junior, and she was famous for borrowing people's sweatshirts and forgetting to return them. Her friends joked that her bedroom closet was full of other people's clothes. Often when a party at the house got a little too rowdy, it was Zanna who went out to talk to the police. Body cam footage captured a conversation with Zanna earlier that semester. What's your name? Zanna. Zanna, do you live here? Yes. This is the second noise complaint we've had here tonight, within two hours.

17:42I'm sorry about that. So this time it was the blonde gal and the guy on the back porch playing music. I sincerely apologize about that. Okay. I'm just going to bed. Okay. Why is she the one they sent out the door to talk to the police officers? Because she's the one they... Because she's the sweetest one. The sweetest one. They were probably like, Zanna, you got it, sister. This is on you. Zanna was also in love. Her boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, was a first year studying sports management and recreation. They were both 20 years old. Friends say Ethan was always over at the King Roadhouse, even before he and Zanna started dating.

18:24He was also a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Reid Offsthune was the chapter's president. When I learned that they were dating, I was like, oh, that's awesome. Because I was like, those two are perfect for each other. They're both just real charismatic, real funny, real goofy, always putting a smile on other people's faces. So, yeah, when I heard they started dating, I was like, that's a perfect fit. Ethan was 6 '4", but a teddy bear. He'd recently grown this mustache. Ethan's mom told me that she would send him 50 bucks every month to go get a haircut, maybe lose the mustache. But Ethan liked it.

19:02Ethan and his mom had a particularly close relationship. And that's kind of unique because one of the biggest things to know about Ethan is that he's a triplet. All three of them attended the University of Idaho together. His brother Hunter was in the same fraternity and his sister Maisie in a sorority nearby. Ethan was born first. And Reed says he really played that big brother role. They would kind of go to him if they were going through something or needed help or like some advice on something. It wasn't Hunter and Maisie going to each other. It was to Ethan.

19:44There were two other roommates in that King Road house, but they've been through a lot. They don't want to talk about it, so we haven't been naming them. The house at 1122 King Road had a lot of visitors. It was a social hub. The doors always open kind of place. At the same time, friends Katie and Ava say the people who came over to the King Road house for parties were not random. If there were like parties, I think it was usually like their friends and people invited. Yeah. It was always friends of Ethan that would go over, friends of Zanna. Yeah. Friends of Kaylee and Maddie. There was never anybody who shouldn't have been there.

20:27Yeah. And people don't just walk in. Yeah. To a party. Because we know everybody. Right. And in this place where everybody knows everybody, that's what makes what happens next so unexpected, so shattering. After the break, we retrace the final hours of Kaylee, Maddie, Zanna, and Ethan. Who were they with? Was there anything out of the ordinary? And did they know they were in danger?

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22:17It's kind of remarkable how many cameras, social media feeds, and eyes were on them as they went about their daily lives. On Saturday afternoon, November 12th, we know that Kaylee and Maddie went to that last home game of the season. Kaylee's sister says after the game, they went home and took a nap. At 10 p.m., the two girls headed to Main Street to their favorite bar, the Corner Club. Everyone calls it the club. The atmosphere that's usually there after game day, it's very crowded. Julie Scott's a local. She's a retired journalism professor at the University of Idaho. And for almost two decades, she worked as a producer and reporter for our ABC affiliate in Washington State.

23:03I've gotten to know her. We talk often now. She also has a son at the University of Idaho. And she knows the Corner Club. So one of the most popular bars in the state, and actually in the nation, I think it was rated like top 25 of sports bars. So that's why many students and community members gather after the football game. They like to go talk about the game. They like to watch other sporting events. Kaylee and Maddie were at the Corner Club for a few hours. Video footage shows them drinking and hanging out with friends. Everyone I talked with said that Kaylee and Maddie knew all the bartenders at the corner club.

23:42They went there often, and they loved it.

23:49At around 1.30 in the morning, they leave the corner club. They're with a guy. And we know this because there's security camera footage showing the three of them walking down the street. The guy is a friend. Turns out to be nothing suspicious. In this video, you can see Maddie wearing somebody else's coat. It's way too big for her, and she's loving it. It's a little silly. The sleeves are going down over her hands as she's walking, and she's just so happy. Then you can actually hear Maddie say, I told Adam everything. And that sounds ominous, but Adam was a bartender at the club, and he was never a suspect.

24:30It's a fragment that turns out to be meaningless. Their next stop is the grub truck. Julie describes this mainstay of late-night party life in Moscow. It's a big yellow-orange truck. It's open late. It doesn't open until 10 o 'clock at night, which is when most of the restaurants in town close. It's very popular. It's social. People are talking, waiting for their food. And what's interesting about the Grub Truck is its live social media feed streaming from the truck. It's a Twitch feed, so people online can just watch their friends ordering food. I think about the Twitch feed as reality TV. It's a way to see what others are doing and maybe to interact and maybe see who's out and about.

25:19I think it's that generation, it's their reality TV, the Twitch feed. And when you play back the Twitch feed that night, you can see Kaylee and Maddie. Welcome back. They walk up to the truck. The person in the truck says, welcome back. And they order a$10 carbonara. Carbonara. No, she's okay. You want the water? Yeah, they go. While they wait for their food, the two are laughing. Kaylee's taking video of Maddie. You can tell they're feeling pretty good. Absolutely. If they were aware of an audience at all that night, they couldn't have known how vast that audience would soon become. That grub truck video is hard to look back at because that is the last time we see or hear Maddie and Kaylee alive.

26:12Giggling and laughing, we watch them get into a rideshare car and drive off into the darkness.

26:31What we know about Ethan and Zanna's night is Ethan first went with his siblings, Hunter and Maisie, to Maisie's sorority formal for a couple of hours. His friend, Peter Elgorriaga, was there too. Ethan and I were both at the Betty's Ball that night, where you get dressed up nice in your suits, girls getting dressed, do their makeup and all that. when we left that dance, we went back to Sigma Chi, which is a fraternity that he and I belong to, to meet up with Zanna at the party we were having there. It's just a short walk from Sigma Chi to the King Roadhouse, and authorities say that Ethan and Zanna got back around 1.45 in the morning on Sunday, about the same time that Kaylee and Maddie got home in their rideshare.