By Aya Elamroussi, CNN
researchers in the murders of four University of Idaho students are searching for at least one person they believe was inside a white sedan seen near the crime scene at the time of the deaths last month, police said Wednesday.
A 2011-2013 Hyundai Elantra was seen “in the immediate vicinity” of the off-campus house where students were stabbed to death in the early hours of November 13, Moscow police said in a statement Wednesday.
The information about the vehicle came from the thousands of tips Police have received information about the case, which has shocked the small college town of Moscow, Idaho.
“Investigators believe that the occupants of this vehicle may have critical information to share about this case,” the police statement said, noting that it had an unknown license plate.
the students —Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, were killed just days before the Thanksgiving school vacation. All were stabbed multiple times and were likely asleep when the attack began, a coroner said.
Nearly a month after the quadruple homicide, authorities have not named a suspect or located a weapon, which they believe to be a knife.
Still, the researchers maintain that they have made progress, but cannot share details, as that could compromise the investigation.
“We are continually making progress,” Idaho State Police spokesman Aaron Snell told CNN. “But this is a criminal investigation, and as we move forward, we can’t always provide that information.”
Researchers are working on more than 6,000 tips they have received in the course of the investigation so far. “We have quality data that we are working on,” Snell said.
Belongings of victims returned to families
On Wednesday, police began the process of returning some of the victims’ belongings to their families.
“It is time that we give back to them those things that really mean something to those families and hopefully help with some of their healing,” Moscow Police Chief James Fry said Tuesday in a statement. short video statement.
“I’m a parent, I understand the meaning behind some of those things,” Fry said.
Items removed from the house where the four students were killed “are no longer needed for the investigation,” police said.
As they work to find out who killed the students, the police have put together a timeline of what they were doing in the hours leading up to their deaths and what happened before the police were called.
The four had been enjoying a typical weekend night: Two were at a bar in central Moscow while the other two were at a frat house, investigators said. Everyone returned to the house at 2 am
Later in the morning, two surviving roommates “called friends at the residence because they believed one of the victims on the second floor had passed out and was not waking up,” police said in a statement.
Just before noon, a person called 911 from the house using the phone of one of the surviving roommates.
Two of the victims were found by responding officers on the second floor and two others were on the third floor. There were no signs of sexual assault, police said. Authorities also saw no signs of forced entry or damage.
The detectives don’t believe the surviving roommates were involved in the killings, police said.
The CNN Wire
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CNN’s Taylor Romine, Veronica Miracle and Stella Chan contributed to this report.
