MOSCOW, Idaho – University of Idaho freshman Lauryn Rainey expressed mixed emotions about returning to campus after winter break.
He was devastated that an arrest had been made in connection with the gruesome deaths of four of his classmates that had shocked his small-town campus community and drawn national attention.
But she still worries about her safety when classes start on Wednesday.
“They hope they’ve caught the guy, but there are still people out there who have the brains to do something like this,” said 19-year-old Rini. “Until it actually happens, it’s impossible to know who could do something like that.”
Door locks. Group walk. Wear pepper spray. It’s a ritual that most people usually do in big cities, but now it’s growing in the usually quiet college town. They are part of the new normal after the Nov. 13 massacre in Moscow.
Campus life is different here and at Washington State University, 10 miles away, in Pullman, where classes began Monday. The once-comfortable frontier colleges have been under investigation for murders and journalists around the world after four students were killed in their beds by a masked assailant.
“Communities as we know them will never go back to normal, and it’s a difficult situation for all of us,” said Sandra Kobiesa, a 23-year-old student from Washington state. “I don’t think Pullman and Moscow will ever be the same.”
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“It’s always so surreal”
Brian Kochberger, 28, the suspect in the students’ visit to two campuses this week, is scheduled to make his second appearance in an Idaho courtroom on Thursday. A former Washington State PhD student is accused of brutally stabbing University of Idaho students Ethan Chapin, 20, Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Hana Kernodle, 20, two months ago in a rented house near campus.
According to court documents, authorities used DNA samples and surveillance cameras, cellphone tracking software and rummaged through the trash at his family’s Pennsylvania home to arrest Kochberger. A status hearing is scheduled for Kochberger on Thursday.
“It still feels surreal to us,” said Blaine Eccles, dean of students at the University of Idaho. “We’re still dealing with the aftermath of the murder and dealing with it, but we’re going to be in a place where we’re less stressed and less anxious because some students have been arrested.
“They want to understand why it happened, they want to know what happens next and they want to know more about why these people were targeted,” Eccles said.
The campus will soon be sending out notices to its community about programs and other resources to help “strengthen” them, Eccles said. These include ongoing counseling and self-defense and harassment awareness workshops. Students receive “safety walks” around campus upon request, and Birdie offers personal security alarms to students who want them, Eccles said.
The school also hosts a “campus safety spotlight march” in the fall to highlight “hot spots” on campus and throughout the city, Eccles noted. According to school officials, campus security will be increased and police presence will increase on campus.
A vigilance workshop will also be held this semester with Moscow police and campus security to provide students with safety tips, including traveling in pairs and not wearing headphones while walking around campus. , Eccles added.
“A lot of this may seem common sense, but we can’t stress enough that we want our students to be environmentally aware,” Eccles said.
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“He was very close the whole time”
Meanwhile, in Washington state, a college student becomes a suspected killer and threatens Kobiesa. He is a doctoral student and, like the suspect Kochberger, is preparing his doctoral dissertation. The murders gave Kobiesa a grim perspective, as he lives two buildings from Kohberger’s apartment complex in Pullman.
“He was really close the whole time and I think people realized that WSU was really close to I,” Kobiesa said. “But it makes it 100 times more real to me because there were times when I saw him or interacted with him and I didn’t even know him.”
Students, faculty and the community at large may experience a range of emotions, including fear, anger, sadness and even despair, said Dr. Bertrina Olivia West Al-Mahdi, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta.
He said that while many people may feel comfortable returning to campus, some may continue to live in fear and experience a form of post-traumatic stress disorder (TSS) because the killings did not directly affect them, as even authorities said it was an isolated incident.
“However, I believe many students and faculty were injured due to the intensity of the incident,” West Al-Madi said. “I think it’s going to lead a lot of students and teachers to be very vigilant and feel safe in their environment.”
Kobiesa may be directly referring to what the Western Al-Madhi described.
“Pullman, I think Moscow is a pretty small town too, I don’t think I’ve ever locked my front door,” Kobiesa said. “If I’m in a store and someone stops to talk to me, I’m like, ‘Why?’ I think so. I never thought Pullman would be like this.”
Although Pullman and Moscow police assured students in the days after the killings that there was no danger in the community, 20-year-old Washington State junior Hayden Stinchfield said the two communities will never “get to a point where they’re completely comfortable.” “.
The community shouldn’t feel completely safe, and it’s good to have those feelings, West al-Mahdi said. The psychologist said the holidays may have given some a “recovery” and that the murders would not be on everyone’s minds until they were covered in university announcements and in the media.
“Obviously, as young adults of this time, many have moved on, but some may still be affected more than others,” West Al-Mahdi said.
“It was definitely a scary feeling.”
Among the injured was Finley Kennedy, 18, a University of Idaho freshman from Pendleton, Oregon. Kennedy fell in love with the stunning campus because it reminded him of home.
But that changes when Kennedy remembers the moment he found himself fatally stabbed four times, which eventually led him to pack up the next day and go home.
“A bunch of my friends got a text from school with the Shelter in Place deal. I got nothing,” Kennedy said. “It was definitely a terrible feeling, I didn’t leave my room, I was afraid to go down the hall to go to the toilet and I kept my door closed all day.”
Kennedy was frustrated by the lack of information. He and his parents didn’t get much out of the college in the days after the stabbing. His family felt insecure at the time, but note that the university is now “doing well”.
“I couldn’t see the life I was living until all of this happened,” Kennedy said. “So I decided to take this semester off and go to (community college).
Although Kennedy made the decision to transfer before the suspect’s arrest, media attention has drawn attention, and Kochberger is now in Moscow, where he is keeping his decision to transfer for one semester.
Kennedy hopes to return to Idaho this fall, but that will depend on the speed of the case, as well as his sanity.
“I want to go back,” Kennedy said.
“From tragedy comes solidarity”
While some students decided not to return, there was a flurry of contact in the area, said Sam Newton, a criminal defense attorney and professor who teaches criminal justice courses at the University of Idaho. .
“Sometimes out of tragedy comes solidarity, and I think that’s what’s happening here,” Newton said. “But there’s also this disturbing sense of loss.”
Newton, who has taught at the university for five years, said his classes deal with some of the legal aspects of murder, particularly the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
He said it would be “very hard to ignore what’s going on” in a courtroom in that city.
Eccles, Idaho’s dean of students, agrees. Eccles said the university did not seek additional information from authorities, believing it wanted to protect its investigation.
“We respected that,” Eccles said. “This tragedy and the lawsuits will be here for some time to come.
“Our job is to be there for our students and staff,” Eccles continued. “We are a small but strong community together.”
Eccles, who looked out his office window Tuesday to see several students cross the freeway, said he has a duty to the university’s students, but the four victims are never far from his thoughts.
“Losing one student is hard enough, but when you lose four, it can be overwhelming at times. We roll up our sleeves, go with our emotions and take the necessary steps to support each other,” Eccles admitted. “We will always remember Hana, Kaylee, Madison and Ethan in everything we do.”
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