The Nov. 13 discovery of four dead University of Idaho students shocked the community of Moscow, Idaho. But on TikTok, the murders jump-started the app’s true crime engine: a web of amateur sleuths who quickly went to work absorbing, spreading, and dissecting all available information.
It was six weeks before police arrested suspect Bryan Kohberger, a Washington State University criminology graduate student, leaving a vacuum of information. In the absence of any updates from police, some extreme TikTok accounts went as far publicly naming individuals as murderers without cause. And this week, as officials release more evidence, that machine has turned its blame on one of the students who survived that devastating night.
More from Rolling Stone
What we know about the night of the crime is this: Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were found stabbed to death in their off-campus home, after two of their roommates called 911 about an unconscious person. Following the 11:58 am call, police swarmed the scene. No motive or murder weapon were found, and officials gave few case updates during their six-week investigation.
But when an affidavit was unsealed last week revealing new details about the night of the murders, the true crime community was shocked to hear that one of the roommates saw the suspect in the house in the early hours of Nov.13, even though police were called seven hours later. Though the document was redacted in...
The Justice Department has fired back at the Southern Poverty Law Center after it filed an injunction against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for saying the group didn’t share information from...