The house where four University of Idaho students were murdered last year is no more. Crews in Moscow, Idaho, began work overnight and demolished the structure in two hours, reports ABC News. The owner of the rental home near the campus donated it to the university earlier this year, per the AP. It had previously been boarded up and blocked off by a security fence after students Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen, and Kaylee Goncalves were fatally stabbed there in November 2022.
School officials view the demolition as a key step toward finding closure, said university spokesperson Jodi Walker. "That is an area that is dense with students, and many students have to look at it and live with it every day and have expressed to us how much it will help with the healing process to have that house removed," she said. The site will be planted with grass at some point after the demolition, Walker said. She said there are no other plans for it as of now, but the university may revisit that in the future.
Some of the victims' families have opposed the demolition, calling for the house to be preserved until after the man accused of the slayings has been tried. Bryan Kohberger, a former criminology graduate student at Washington State University in neighboring Pullman, Washington, has been charged with four counts of murder. Prosecutors, who hope to try Kohberger next summer, had said they don't anticipate needing the house any further, as they were already able to gather measurements necessary for creating illustrative exhibits for a jury.
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