University of Idaho victims’ families ask judge to permanently block crime scene images

An Idaho judge has expanded a temporary injunction regarding the release of additional crime scene images but delayed her decision on a motion from relatives of the University of Idaho students killed in a home invasion attack who asked the court to permanently block the release of even redacted photos of videos showing the victims’ remains and bedrooms in the home.

Karen Laramie, the mother of 21-year-old Madison Mogen, asked the court for an injunction earlier this month, following the guilty plea and sentencing of murderer Bryan Kohberger. The parents of 20-year-old Ethan Chapin and his sister each wrote letters to the judge in support of the move.

Attorneys for the city of Moscow argue that while they personally may support not releasing the images, they are “middlemen” under the law, which offers only narrow exceptions for privacy.

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Police have already released redacted bodycam video and photos of the interior of 1122 King Road, where those two were killed alongside Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, on Nov. 13, 2022. Laramie wants the redactions to remain in place and to block the release of additional images taken inside her daughter’s bedroom, where both Mogen and Goncalves were brutally killed in a knife attack.

Judge Megan Marshall asked why the city redacted portions of these photos before Laramie ever approached the court if they didn’t view the unredacted release as an invasion of privacy. Attorneys struggled to answer. 

Leander James, who represents Mogen’s mother, said it was because the city acknowledged there was a privacy stake beforehand.

James argued that the release of more bedroom images, even if redacted, would violate the privacy of the victims and their families.

“We assure you that seeing a redacted photo is just as traumatizing because our son is still in the picture, clear or not,” Stacy Chapin wrote to the court in support of Mogen’s motion. “They are heartbreaking and continue to reopen a wound that has yet to heal.”

City lawyers said they did not disagree that the release of even redacted photos could distress the families, but they cited state public records law.

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Marshall said she would take the arguments under advisement and issued an expanded version of her temporary injunction, pending her final decision. It now protects all victims’ families, not just Mogen’s.

Mogen was a senior, majoring in marketing, and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Kernodle, a junior, was also majoring in marketing, a member of the same sorority and Chapin’s girlfriend.

Mogen’s best friend, Goncalves, was a senior, a member of the Alpha Phi sorority and majoring in general studies.

Chapin, a junior, was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He was majoring in recreation, sport and tourism management.

Kohberger, 30, pleaded guilty in July and received four consecutive sentences of life without parole – plus another 10 years. The plea deal spared him from facing the potential death penalty if convicted at trial, and forced him to waive his rights to appeal or seek a sentence reduction.

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His first month in prison has reportedly been a rocky one – with him complaining to guards about harassment from other inmates, prison food and the conditions of J Block at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution, where he is being held in protective custody due to his high profile and the potential target on his back.

Kohberger was studying for a Ph.D. in criminal justice and criminology at Washington State University in Pullman at the time of the murders. That’s a 10-mile drive from Moscow, Idaho, where the victims were pursuing undergraduate degrees.

Police said they could prove Kohberger had targeted and stalked the house, but they didn’t know whether one or more students had been targeted specifically by the killer, who refused to speak when given the opportunity to at his sentencing.