The four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in their off-campus home will receive posthumous degrees and certificates.
Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, will be honored May 13 at the university’s graduation ceremony, according to AP.
Mogen and Goncalves were months away from receiving their titles when they were brutally stabbed to death in the early hours of November 13, along with Chapin and Kernodle.
Both Mogen and Goncalves, seniors, will receive degrees in general studies and marketing. Kernodle, who was a junior, will receive a marketing certificate. Meanwhile, freshman Chapin will earn a recreation, sports and tourism management certificate.
The ceremony comes ahead of alleged murderer Bryan Kohberger’s preliminary hearing on June 26.
The four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in their off-campus home will receive posthumous degrees and certificates. Kaylee Goncalvez, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, were months away from receiving their titles. They will receive a degree in general studies and marketing.
Xana Kernodle (right), who was in her junior year, will receive a marketing certificate. Freshman Ethan Chapin (left), meanwhile, will receive a recreation, sports and tourism management certificate.
Kohberger’s connection to the students remains unclear as investigators dive into whether there was any contact between him and the three female victims that led to the murders.
Authorities have served multiple search warrants on social media companies, including TikTok and Google, dating back to January 2021.
Another search warrant was also issued for Facebook and Twitter with a start date for the search in June 2022.
The search warrant requested messages, records, files and logs from their accounts, as well as those that have been deleted. Information about who was followed, unfollowed and blocked by the victims will also be revealed.
Authorities have since made an offer to have the findings sealed until a future court date, but former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer has questioned whether Kohberger could have met his alleged victims at a much earlier date.
‘Did Bryan Kohberger somehow meet Kaylee or Maddie on a possible school visit early on?
‘What made Kohberger choose WSU? Did Kohberger have a connection to his victims sooner than we thought?
The criminal justice student attended Washington State University, which is less than a 10-minute drive from the University of Idaho.
Authorities have served multiple search warrants on social media companies, including TikTok and Google, dating back to January 2021, more than a year before the brutal murders.
Maddie Mogen (top) Kaylee Goncalves (second from left) Xana Kernodle (second from right) and Ethan Chapin (center), all students at the University of Idaho, were stabbed to death on November 13 in the sleepy college town of Moscow.
The university where he worked was just over eight miles from the crime scene.
Kohberger is accused of leaving Maddie and Kaylee with “devastating injuries” and having multiple images of one of his alleged female victims on her phone when police searched it.
However, they did not identify which of the girls was in the images, and the Moscow police have yet to reveal the motive for the brutal crime.
It is not clear if the images found on the device were photos Kohberger had taken himself or if they were downloaded from his social networks, and if they were taken before or after the quadruple murder.
Investigators have kept quiet about the potential motive for the killings, but revealed in an affidavit that he had visited the area of the house in Moscow “several times.”
Roommates Bethany Funke, 21, and Dylan Mortensen were home when the murders occurred.
Mortensen came face to face with the alleged killer and recounted seeing a “tall man” who was “dressed in black clothing and a mask,” according to the documents.
Funke’s account of the night of the murders has not been published.
Kohberger, 28, is accused of murdering Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle, 20, at their home on Kings Road in Moscow, Idaho, in November 2023.
This is the murder house where four students were stabbed to death. The house is now boarded up and is scheduled for demolition.
Meanwhile, the grieving families of the victims try to find a way to move forward amid the start of the trial.
Stacy and Jim Chapin, Ethan’s parents, spoke for the first time last month to announce that they have established a foundation in honor of their murdered son as they work to heal from his grief.
Ethan’s parents said his younger siblings, Maizie and Hunter, are now dealing with the loss of their older brother. The three brothers were triplets.
‘When you’re a triplet,’ Stacy said, ‘you’ve spent your whole life with other people.’
The Chapin family said Ethan’s younger brother Hunter now faces life without his ‘partner’.
Speaking to ABC, Stacy and Jim said they haven’t made a full recovery, but are finding new ways to remember and honor Ethan.
One way is Ethan’s Smile, a family-started foundation that offers scholarships for graduates from the Conway, Washington area and for students attending the University of Idaho.
They also created a mix of white and yellow tulip bulbs called ‘Ethan’s Smile’ on a farm their late son used to work on. The sales go to support the foundation.
The farm also currently sells a mix of tulip bulbs called ‘Forever Sisters’ in honor of Kernodle, Goncalves and Mogen.
