The parents of the University of Idaho student who was killed along with three others, who recently moved from the house where the killing took place in November, said they wanted to show close friends their new car and attend a party nearby. said he returned there to
Kristi and Steve Goncalves told Dateline their daughter, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was graduating from college early and was planning to get a job at an IT company in Austin, Texas.
Kaylee Goncalves had just moved out of the house she shared with her longtime best friend, 21-year-old Madison “Maddie” Mogen.
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Christy Gonsalves said: “These girls have been best friends since sixth grade.
The two lived together and were “true, ultimate best friends,” she said. “Maddy was a huge part of our lives.”
Cary Gonsalves, who had just purchased a new Range Rover, returned to Moscow, Idaho to show Maddie and told her parents that she wanted to attend a party nearby.
“That was the last time I saw Kaley,” her mother said.
On November 13, Kaley, Morgen and two others were stabbed to death inside a house in a largely rural university community in Moscow.
Ethan Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, and Xana Carnold, 20, of Avondale, Arizona, were also killed in the attack.
Police arrested suspect Brian Christopher Coberger, 28, about seven weeks after the murder. He faces four counts of first-degree murder and felony robbery.
Authorities linked Coberger to case via man’s DNA A knife scabbard was left at the scene and traces of Coberger’s car and his cell phone were tracked.
A native of Pennsylvania, Koberger was a doctoral student in criminal justice and criminology at nearby Washington State University.
Police have not disclosed a motive for the killings, nor have they stated whether or how Coberger may have known the victim.
One of Koberger’s former criminal justice classmates at DeSales University said he was shocked to hear the news of Koberger’s arrest.
“It was definitely a shock,” classmate Madison told Dateline.
Madison declined to give her last name for fear of harassment, but said she remembered Koberger’s detailed responses during a criminology course they took together in 2018.
“Any time he raised his hand, he definitely answered the question himself, but still provided every possible detail that could help further his case,” she said. “It’s always like, ‘Oh, Brian’s answering this question. This takes up the whole class.'”
She also felt that Koberger would “watch” her and her friends.
“He was staring at us. He definitely had very prominent eyes,” she said. He didn’t want to talk to us.”
Hayden Stinchfield, a third-year student in WSU’s criminal justice program, has Coberger as his teaching assistant.
“He wasn’t a very approachable person,” Stinchfield told Dateline, adding that Coberger was a tough grader at first.
But that suddenly changed.
“At some point, he started giving everyone a 100,” he said. “By the end of the semester, no one had thought about the small deductions from earlier.”
In retrospect, Stinchfield said he believes Kohberger’s change in rating habits “aligns fairly well” with the timing of the killings.
Steve and Christy Goncalves wondered and hoped that by robbing the sheath of the knife that was eventually used to tie Coberger to the murder, they might have helped their daughter resolve her own death. I feel some comfort in
Christy Goncalves said, “I hope she pulled it away from him, maybe with some difficulty.
“It’s kind of a checkmate moment,” added Steve Goncalves.
The two said they wanted a conviction and the death penalty.
“Many times he chose to take people’s lives. It has to be explained,” said Steve Goncalves.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com