The Idaho Four Murders - ATC International

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime International with Meshel Laurie. One of the biggest crime stories in recent memory is the 2022 murder of four college students in the small town of Moscow, Idaho. Ethan Chapin was 20, Xana Kernodle was also 20, Kaylee Goncalves 21, and Madison Mogen also 21 They became known as the Idaho Four.
For their friends and families, their violent deaths were literally unbelievable. They didn't seem to have an enemy between them. In December of 2022, six weeks after the murders, criminology student Bryan Kohberger was arrested and charged. Last year, he pled guilty to all four murders. But to this day, no one knows how he chose the victims, whether or not he'd ever met any of them, which one was his actual target, or how he seemed to know the layout of the house.
Kaylee Goncalves' family have always been very vocal. Recently, they've channeled their anguish into setting up a foundation in Kaylee's honor called Murder Has a Name, and it has a very practical mission. Kaylee's mother Kristi Goncalves and Foundation Board member Tracie Brocco joined me recently on what would have been Kaylee's 25th birthday to talk about the case and the foundation. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.

**Kristi Goncalves** (1:40)
Well, today, we all went about our normal day.
People had to work and so in the past, we've taken it off and stayed together, but this year, it just didn't work out that way. So I was here by myself for the most of the day, and I was just able to really just reflect on Kaylee's birthday, and, you know, think about her, and not that I don't always think about her, but really think about what we're really missing, you know?
It's hard not to notice it every day, but then, you know, you sit here and think, you know, what would she be doing here? You know, four years, well, it's her fourth birthday that she has not been here. So what would she be doing now? Where would she be? Would she be married? You know, and I thought, you know, I don't think that she would have kids. Not sure she'd be married. I think that she would be like knee deep into her job, really just trying to climb that ladder, that corporate ladder, just to get as high as she could before. You know, she had goals, you know, so she was very goal-orientated. So I think that that's what she would be doing, you know, right now. So.

**Meshel Laurie** (3:05)
And we'll get to what you are doing right now, which is huge. And joining us also is Tracie Brocco. Tracie, you are part of this Murder Has a Name project.
Can you tell us how you met the family? Are you an old friend or how has this worked out?

**Tracie Brocco** (3:24)
I am not an old friend, although it does seem like I am at this point.
I just got interested in the case like everyone else did. And I just wanted to start reaching out to Kristi just with notes, just to let her know that somebody was thinking about her. And over time, I would say it was probably a year that I was sending cards and just gifts just thinking about Kaylee and the family. And she just texted me back one day and said, you know, can we talk? And I thought, yeah, absolutely. And I basically just said to her, can we, would you think about starting a foundation for her? I mean, I just, I didn't want her remembered for that awful day in Idaho. She was worth more than that.
Her family's worth more than that. And she deserved more than that.

**Meshel Laurie** (4:09)
That is the challenge, isn't it? That is the challenge in a situation like yours, is that you have certainly spent a lot of time and energy bringing attention to the case. And in your own way, Kristi, the family has.
But at the same time, you don't want that to be the only memory we have of Kaylee or the other kids.

**Kristi Goncalves** (4:30)
No. And it's hard to avoid. It's hard to change that narrative to something else.
You know, they just, they've got this, you know, they're dubbed the Idaho Four, and it's hard to unattach that from them. You know, his name is attached to them. You know, the murders.
And unfortunately, I don't think that we'll ever be able to unattach that. But, you know, we do our best to, you know, make it an initiative to not talk about what happened to Kaylee, although the foundation is, that is the reason why their foundation is where we're at and where we're doing what we're doing. But it is for Kaylee's legacy, you know, it is to remember her for the person that she was, you know, not the victim that she unfortunately was and having her life taken in such a horrible manner.