CNN
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House in Idaho where four colleges students were killed will be demolished in November as a “curative step,” the University of Idaho said in a statement Friday.
Kaylee Gonsalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, 20-year-old Ethan Chapin, were stabbed multiple times in the early morning of November 13 at an off-campus home in the small college town of Moscow.
The house, which is located near the university campus, was handed over to the school by the owner, the report said.
The bloody crime scene left behind by the murders helped authorities find the suspect, court documents unsealed last month showed.
According to the probable cause document, the apartment building “had a significant amount of blood from the victims, including splashes and debris (a blood stain resulting from droplets of blood released from the item due to its movement).”
Its demolition “removes the physical structure where the crime that rocked our community was committed” and “eliminates efforts to make the crime scene even more sensational,” the university said Friday.
It took nearly two months for investigators to arrest and publicly name 28-year-old Brian Kochberger as a suspect. Kochberger was a graduate student in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University and lived in Pullman, Washington at the time of his arrest. He now faces four counts of first-degree murder with fatal stab wounds.
Jody Walker, a spokesperson for the school, said the university “looks to demolish the house this semester.”
The university also said it plans to create an on-campus memorial garden for the murdered students as a place of “remembrance” and “healing.” Projects for the garden will be provided by the students.
In the meantime, scholarships have been established in the names of three of the four students, and work is underway to finalize a fourth scholarship, according to the university.
Koberger is due to hold a pre-trial hearing in June, when a judge is expected to determine if there is enough evidence to start a trial.