The Liedaho 4 Murders

# COMING TO A SMALL TOWN NEAR YOU

Four college students stabbed to death in their beds.

November 13, 2022. Moscow, Idaho. Population 26,000. A college town where people leave their doors unlocked.

The official story: Bryan Kohberger. PhD student in criminology at Washington State University, eight miles away. Lone stalker. Case closed.Yeah right.

No motive was ever established. Not publicly. Not in court. Not anywhere. A man pled guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and nobody — prosecution, defense, or judge — ever explained why. The most basic question in any homicide went unanswered. Not disputed. Just absent.

The defense attempted to present four alternate perpetrators. The judge sealed the names, redacted portions of the ruling, and dismissed the motion as “entirely irrelevant” with “not a scintilla of competent evidence.” No argument. No jury hearing. No public review. Blocked before anyone could look.

Then came the plea deal. Two and a half years of motions. The prosecution winning nearly every legal battle. The defense denied the right to present alternative theories. And suddenly — a deal. No trial. No cross-examination. No evidence tested under oath.

Here’s what’s on the public record.

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## THE PROSECUTOR

Bill Thompson has been Latah County prosecutor for over 30 years. He took the Kohberger plea deal.

In 1996, Thompson plea-bargained a double murder — two Chinese nationals stabbed to death in their Moscow apartment — down from first-degree with capital punishment to second-degree. The victims’ families called it a betrayal of the truth.

Two multiple-stabbing homicides in Moscow, Idaho. Same prosecutor. Same pattern. Death penalty on the table both times. Plea deal removes it both times. Case sealed. Move along.

Thompson’s office also filed a January 2023 motion explicitly asserting informant privilege — confirming an informant exists in the case while refusing to identify them. The informant would not be produced as a witness. Who are they protecting?

Thompson prosecuted the murder of Bret Mosman, husband of Molly McMichael. A man named Nathaniel Nisbet shot Mosman six times — twice in the back — at a trailer in Moscow. Nisbet had meth in his backpack and tested positive. Thompson plea-bargained that case from second-degree murder down to voluntary manslaughter. Two to fifteen years. For shooting an unarmed man six times.

Molly McMichael later surfaced as a key prosecution witness in the Idaho 4 investigation, telling three different officers unprompted that she was the DoorDash driver who delivered to the King Road house at 4 AM the night of the murders: “I’m the DoorDash driver. I saw Bryan there. I parked next to him.”

Thompson processed her husband’s murder. Thompson decided what justice looked like for his killer. And now she’s the person establishing the prosecution’s timeline for the Idaho 4 case. Same prosecutor. Same courthouse. Same leverage.

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## THE CORONER

Cathy Mabbutt has served as Latah County coroner since 2006. She’s a registered nurse. Not a medical doctor. Not a forensic pathologist. A nurse who got a law degree and ran for office. She determines cause of death for Latah County.

She also ran a defense practice and held a public defender contract. In the same county. At the same time.

The person ruling on how people died was simultaneously defending people accused of crimes — in a county of 40,000 where every case touches every other case.

Mabbutt responded to the King Road crime scene. She publicly stated that toxicology on the four victims was “not relevant.” Four college students are dead and the coroner decides their bloodwork doesn’t matter.

She defended James Curtis Leonard on assault charges — after ruling on a death Leonard was connected to.

She represented Tyson Farley on drug trafficking charges. The same Tyson Farley who was at large in Moscow the night of the murders with a no-bond warrant for his arrest after trafficking a pound of methamphetamine.

She defended Farley. She responded to the crime scene. She ruled toxicology irrelevant.

The county commissioners approved the dual arrangement. It was acknowledged on camera to Fox News.

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## THE DEFENSE ATTORNEY

Anne Taylor’s career map reads like a blueprint for someone designed to sit at every intersection of the system.

1998 — Juris Doctorate from the University of Idaho. The same school the victims attended.

1998 to 2003 — Five years in the Kootenai County Prosecutor’s Office. She started as a prosecutor. She knows how the state builds cases.

2004 to 2012 — Deputy Public Defender, same county. She switches sides. Same courthouse. Same judges. Same cops. Different chair.

2012 to 2017 — Private practice. Criminal defense. During this period, she begins representing Cara Northington on drug charges.

2017 — Hired as Chief Public Defender, Kootenai County. She becomes the gatekeeper for indigent defense in the county.

2017 to 2022 — Represents Cara Northington across four separate drug cases. Knows her world intimately.

November 13, 2022 — Four students murdered. One of them is Cara’s daughter, Xana Kernodle.

December 30, 2022 — Kohberger arrested.

January 5, 2023 — Taylor withdraws from Cara Northington’s case. The same day, she appears as Bryan Kohberger’s lead defense attorney at his first court appearance.

The woman who spent five years defending the victim’s mother on drug charges was now defending the man accused of killing her daughter. Northington told NewsNation she was “heartbroken” and “betrayed.” She didn’t hear it from Taylor. She found out through a friend who saw it online.

Taylor is one of only 13 attorneys in all of Idaho certified to lead death penalty cases. The only one in North Idaho. Every capital case in the northern half of the state funnels through her. She told an Idaho Senate committee that her capacity IS the bottleneck — she controls how many capital cases prosecutors can even pursue.

July 2024 — Taylor leaves the Public Defender’s Office. Opens private practice. Anne Taylor Law, PLLC. Coeur d’Alene. Criminal defense with an on-site investigator.

July 2, 2025 — Kohberger pleads guilty. Case sealed.

No dirt. No disciplinary record. No scandal. Just a career positioned at the exact center of every intersection — prosecution and defense, drug cases and murder cases, Kootenai and Latah counties, public office and private practice. She doesn’t need to be dirty. She just needs to be indispensable.

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## THE VICTIM’S MOTHER

Cara Northington. Xana Kernodle’s mother. Four prior drug cases, all represented by Anne Taylor’s office.

November 13, 2022 — Her daughter is murdered.

November 19, 2022 — Six days later, Cara is arrested. Two felony counts. Possession of controlled substances. Schedule 1 and Schedule 2. Fifty thousand dollar bond. Arrested in Coeur d’Alene on November 21.

Six days after her daughter’s murder. Felony drug charges.

She confirmed in an interview with Crime Sleuthin that she was in Spokane at the time of the murders. Someone came and found her there before it hit the news.

Her attorney then dropped her to represent the accused killer. She found out from the internet.

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## TYSON FARLEY

This is the name the system doesn’t want you asking about.

August 31, 2022 — Less than eleven weeks before the murders. Moscow Police arrest Tyson Farley and Tanya Rhoads. Farley is found passed out in a car at the Dollar Tree. On him: a pound of methamphetamine, fentanyl pills, marijuana, and paraphernalia. That’s not a user amount. That’s distribution weight. In Moscow. Right there.

This wasn’t their first time. Going back to 2005, Moscow Police arrested Farley and Rhoads after a search warrant at a trailer revealed meth, paraphernalia, baggies, a scale, a handgun and four rounds of ammunition. Rhoads’ 11-year-old son was taken into protective custody. They’d been running together in Moscow for almost two decades.

September 23, 2022 — Judge Megan Marshall grants Farley furlough to visit a sick family member. Released on his own recognizance. On trafficking charges. For a pound of meth.

He never came back.

October 5, 2022 — Felony arrest warrant issued. No bond. Valid across Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Farley is a fugitive.

November 13, 2022 — Four students are murdered. Tyson Farley is at large in the community with a no-bond warrant.

November 23, 2022 — Farley arrested in Spokane. Extradited to Latah County on December 1.

August 2023 — Farley caught again with 300 fentanyl pills.

Sentenced to one year. Idaho DOC, Orofino. For a man who trafficked a pound of meth, absconded on furlough, was at large during a quadruple homicide, and got caught again with 300 fentanyl pills.

His public defender: Cathy Mabbutt. The coroner.

On Linda Lane surveillance footage from the night of the murders, the phrase

“I see you Farley” is audible three times at 1:32 AM. Credit to content creator Bubbly Waters for identifying this.

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## JUDGE MEGAN MARSHALL

She released Farley on furlough weeks before the murders.

She was the original judge assigned to the Kohberger case.

She signed the Amazon search warrant for the Ka-Bar knives.

She issued the non-dissemination order — creating a wall of secrecy around the entire investigation.

One judge. Connected to every critical juncture of both cases — Farley’s and Kohberger’s.

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## THE DRUG CORRIDOR

Moscow, Idaho sits in a federally designated High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The pipeline runs: cartels

(Sinaloa, Jalisco New Generation) to importers in Arizona, through Idaho on Highway 95 to Washington state.

The Aryan Knights (Idaho prison gang) and Aryan Family (Washington prison gang, roughly 200 members) distribute along this corridor.

Below is US Marshalls leaving King Rd after snooping around inside they would not identify themselves . The guy wearing the cowboy hat was identified from Google maps photos protecting the parents . Why they were here and what they were looking for who knows? US Marshalls have no reason to do that it is out of the scope of what US Marshalls do! Notice every single one of them shifts away from the camera as they get closer to it. That’s not casual walking. That’s camera awareness. These are people who know exactly where the lens is and are deliberately avoiding a clean shot of their faces.

Regular people don’t do that. You walk out of a house, you walk to your car. You don’t angle your body away from a person with a phone camera unless you know it’s there and you don’t want to be identified — which lines up perfectly with the fact that they refused to identify themselves when confronted.

In January 2022, US Marshals searching for a fugitive at a suspect’s residence in the area found a handgun and trafficking amounts of fentanyl. That suspect was charged, released on pretrial conditions, then caught again in April 2022 with over 700 more fentanyl pills. Charged. Released. Right back to work.

September 2022 — A man from Arizona caught on Highway 93 through Idaho with 3.25 pounds of fentanyl, 3.15 pounds of meth, and a loaded 9mm. Heading to Washington to distribute. That’s the pipeline corridor. Two months before four students die.

The Quad Cities Drug Task Force covers Latah County, Whitman County, Nez Perce — the Moscow-Pullman corridor exactly. Federal indictments document the operation. This isn’t speculation. This is the infrastructure.

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## EMMA BAILEY

Emma Bailey, 22, of Moscow, Idaho. Arrested March 21, 2023, along with Demetrius Robinson (36, Tacoma) for delivering cocaine laced with fentanyl to Caden Young — a University of Idaho junior and former fraternity president. Young overdosed and died.

When police found Bailey and Robinson, they had loose white powder, several hundred dollars in small bills, small baggies, bottles of white powder vitamins, and empty capsules for self-loading. That’s a packaging operation.

Bailey was from Moscow. The victim was a University of Idaho student. Another dead student connected to drugs running through the same campus.

Charges were dropped five days before trial. Dismissed without prejudice.

## MICHAEL BURROWS

Extensive criminal history. Significant prison time. Arrested March 2024 with Tanya Rhoads — Farley’s partner — in Julietta, Idaho. Pound and a half of meth plus cocaine, pills, and marijuana. $100,000 bond.

Burrows owns property in Coeur d’Alene and Julietta. He was a neighbor of Maddie Mogen’s stepmom Corey Hatrock for 17 years — confirmed addresses several hundred feet apart on East Boyd Avenue and North 16th Street in Coeur d’Alene. 1998 to 2019 and 2002 to present.

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## MOSCOW PD

35 officers. For a town of 26,000 plus a 12,000-student university that doesn’t have its own police department. The University of Idaho contracts Moscow PD for campus law enforcement.

Moscow PD is not in compliance with the Brady List — the nationwide database tracking police misconduct, complaints, decertification, and do-not-call status. Not in compliance with the Brady doctrine. Not in compliance with Idaho’s own Public Records Act.

Their old station was too small to store evidence properly. They didn’t get a new station until January 2022 — ten months before the murders. Evidence was stored across multiple locations around town.

Chief James Fry — 30 years Moscow PD, 8 as chief. Oversaw the Idaho 4 investigation. Retired May 2024. Ran for Latah County Sheriff. Lost. Got hired as police in Richland, Washington. Crossed the state line.

His wife Julie Fry —

elected Latah County Clerk in November 2022. The same month as the murders. The County Clerk handles elections, records, and court administration. The police chief’s wife running the county’s administrative infrastructure while her husband runs the murder investigation.

Captain Anthony Dahlinger replaced Fry as chief. Where was he before Moscow PD? Latah County Sheriff’s Office. Same revolving door.

When a September 2023 active shooter event occurred near campus, five agencies from two states responded: Latah County SWAT, Idaho State Police, Pullman Police, Washington State University Police, Nez Perce County Sheriff’s Office. Officers rotate between these departments. Accountability stays in whatever jurisdiction they left.

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## KAYLEE GONCALVES

Kaylee sustained injuries to her face so severe she was reportedly unrecognizable. The other three victims were stabbed. Kaylee was destroyed. Her injuries included blunt force trauma and asphyxiation that the other victims did not have. That’s a different energy. That’s personal. Or it’s a message.

Blood evidence at the scene raises its own questions. A stain on the beer pong table tested as 100% Kaylee’s blood — on the first floor, while she was murdered on the third. Stain 48 on a door was found at approximately four feet one inch — consistent with carry height. No drip trails documented between floors. Blood from Unknown Male B was found on the stairway handrail. Blood from Unknown Male D was found on gloves outside the house. When questioned, lead detective Payne said police didn’t pursue Unknown Male B because “we had already received Mr. Kohberger’s name.”

Two unidentified males’ blood at the crime scene. Never explored. Never explained.

Nobody in an official capacity has addressed the disparity in Kaylee’s injuries or the unresolved DNA.

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## STEVE GONCALVES

Kaylee’s father. The loudest voice demanding answers since day one. Questioned the investigation publicly. Challenged the prosecution. Refused to be quiet.

He’s also a self-identified “Hexican” — a member of the HEX cryptocurrency community. He wore a HEX branded hat on Fox News while being interviewed about his murdered daughter. December 2022.

HEX, created by Richard Heart, has faced SEC scrutiny and accusations of being a Ponzi scheme. Heart fled the US and is wanted by Interpol. The crypto community is tight-knit and operates in a gray zone between legitimate investment and financial extraction.

Whether this is relevant to the murders is a question nobody asked in a courtroom. Because there was no courtroom.

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## THE HOUSE

The house at 1122 King Road is gone.

Demolished at sunrise. December 28, 2023. The University of Idaho made the decision. Germer Construction performed the demolition.

The crime scene — the physical location where four people were murdered and where blood evidence, structural forensics, and spatial relationships between rooms could have been tested, measured, and presented to a jury — was reduced to rubble before any of that happened.

Germer Construction’s CEO Larry has been connected to Tyson Farley through social media associations. He’s also been photographed with University of Idaho football coach Jason Eck. Credit to content creator Veritas Equius for identifying these connections.

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## THE SURVIVING ROOMMATES

Two roommates were in the house during the murders. Both survived. Both were unharmed.

Phone records show Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke exchanged panicked text messages when they couldn’t reach their housemates around the time investigators believe the killings occurred — between 4 and 4:30 AM. Mortensen told police she heard crying, a thud, and an unidentified male voice saying “it’s okay, I’m going to help you.”

Supposedly neither left the house. Neither called 911.

The 911 call came nearly eight hours later.

Court documents revealed Mortensen was on Instagram for over two hours that morning. Also on Snapchat and Indeed. Funke told detectives they didn’t call because Mortensen thought she “may have been mistaken” and they were “still drunk and groggy.”

Eight hours. In a house where four people had just been stabbed to death.Yeah right.

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## THE STRUCTURE

None of this requires a conspiracy. It requires incentives.

The prosecutor protects his record. The coroner protects her dual practice. The attorney protects her career. The university protects its reputation. The town protects its economy. The drug infrastructure protects its revenue stream. Nobody has to coordinate. They just follow their incentives and the system takes care of itself.

That’s how control works in a small town. Not through grand plans. Through a closed network where the same people wear different hats, rotate between positions, and share a mutual interest in not looking too closely at anything that threatens the arrangement.

Bill Thompson has been in that courthouse for 30 years. Cathy Mabbutt has been coroner since 2006. Anne Taylor holds the only death penalty certification in the region. Judge Marshall touches every case. Moscow PD has 35 officers crossing jurisdictions with five agencies across two states. And a federal drug corridor runs straight through the middle of campus.

Four kids are dead. A man is in prison with no motive established. The crime scene is demolished. The alternate perpetrators were sealed. The unknown DNA was never pursued. The drug connection was never explored in court. The informant was never identified. And the prosecutor who has been plea-dealing murders for three decades shook hands and closed the file.

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Moscow isn’t special. Moscow is just the one that made the news.

This is the template. Same structure. Same incentives. Same outcomes. Different zip code. The prosecutor who’s been there too long. The coroner with too many roles. The defense attorney at every intersection. The drug money nobody talks about. The evidence that gets lost or demolished. The plea deal that makes the questions go away.

Look around your town. Who’s the prosecutor? How long have they been there? Who’s the coroner? What else do they do? Where does the money come from that nobody discusses?

You already know what you’re going to find.

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*When every door that could reveal the truth gets closed before anyone walks through it — the question isn’t what happened. The question is who benefits from you never finding out.*

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**Sources and credits:** Court documents, Latah County records, Kootenai County records, Idaho DOC records, federal indictment filings, NewsNation, Newsweek, Fox News, Idaho Statesman, Moscow-Pullman Daily News. Independent research credits: Pahvariety, True Crime Design, Bubbly Waters, Veritas Equius, Crime Sleuthin.