Idaho Statesman editorial board: Should University of Idaho demolish the house where 4 students were killed?

Idaho Statesman editorial board

University of Idaho officials have several very good reasons to demolish the house where four students were killed.

Bryan Kohberger is accused of stabbing to death four University of Idaho students: seniors Kaylee Goncalves and Madison Mogen, both 21; and junior Xana Kernodle and freshman Ethan Chapin, both 20, on Nov. 13.

Kohberger, 28, a former graduate student at Washington State University, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. The state intends to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

His trial is scheduled to begin Oct. 2.

The owner of the house where it happened donated the house to the University of Idaho, which plans to demolish the house and turn the site into a memorial.

University of Idaho officials understandably want to demolish the house this summer, before students return to campus on Aug. 21. That’s a good reason alone. It certainly would help in the community’s healing to remove such a stark reminder of this horrible event.

Further, the University of Idaho carries the burden of keeping the house secure 24 hours a day, seven days a week, protecting it from ghastly murder scene lookie-loos.

Both the prosecution and the defense in Kohberger’s case agree that the house can be torn down.

Still, it seems unreasonable to destroy the crime scene before the trial. What if there’s still evidence that could be collected? What if either the defense or prosecution lawyers in Kohberger’s trial decide that it would be beneficial to have the jury visit the crime scene?

Jurors last year visited the crime scene in the infamous Alex Murdaugh double murder trial in South Carolina.

Jury visits are rare, according to an article in the New York Times, but they have been known to happen in several high-profile cases, such as the sentencing trial of the school shooter in Parkland, Florida; the trial of a Louisville, Kentucky, police officer who was charged over the fatal Breonna Taylor raid; and in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles.

Demolishing the house where the University of Idaho students were killed takes away that option. There’s no going back once the house is destroyed. It would be better to be safe now than sorry later on.

Most compelling for us is the desire of the victims’ families to keep the house standing.

According to an article by Idaho Statesman reporter Kevin Fixler, some of the victims’ families oppose tearing down the house before Kohberger’s trial.

“The home itself has enormous evidentiary value as well as being the largest, and one of the most important, pieces of evidence in the case,” Shanon Gray, attorney for the Goncalves family, wrote in an email to the Statesman. Gray said members of the Mogen and Kernodle families also oppose the destruction of the home until after the trial.

Gray also said the university is disregarding families’ requests.

“The university asked for the families’ opinions on the demolition and then proceeded to ignore those opinions and pursue their own self-interests,” Gray wrote.

According to Gray, a University of Idaho lawyer gave family members one day to provide a legal argument for preserving the house.

We sympathize with University of Idaho officials’ desire to level the house and put this as far behind them as they can as the new semester begins, and we believe they’re genuine in feeling that leaving the house standing impedes the community’s healing.

However, there’s something terribly callous about demanding a legal rationale from the families for stalling the demolition. That kind of response impedes the families’ healing.

In this case, the families’ needs outweigh the university’s desire to move on and erase the reminders.