Mass homicides rarely happen in Idaho. Why 4 deaths sent Moscow shock waves
Shocking incidents like Sunday’s, when four University of Idaho students were found dead in a Moscow apartment, are exceedingly rare in Idaho.
Moscow police on Tuesday characterized the deaths as murder and said the attacks had used an “edged weapon.” Authorities have not located a weapon, and no suspects were in custody, police said.
Most Idaho events with several deaths or large injury numbers have involved natural disasters or accidents, such as the February 2021 helicopter crash near Lucky Peak Lake that killed three Idaho Air National Guard pilots and a seven-car crash in 2021 state Highway 51 near Mountain Home, in which the city of Kuna’s economic development director, Lisa Holland, died. Holland’s sister and son also died in the accident.
But violence is rarely the cause of such incidents in Idaho.
It’s especially uncommon in Moscow, a roughly 26,000-population college town in North Idaho. In 2015, a gunman killed three and injured one in three locations across the city. In 2011, a University of Idaho professor killed a graduate student he had been dating, then killed himself. There hasn’t been a murder associated with the school since.
Latah County, where Moscow is the largest city, last year ranked 34th out of 44 Idaho counties for rates of crimes against persons, according to Idaho State Police crime data. Latah had a victimization rate of about five per 1,000 people. Twin Falls County had the highest rate, with 19 per 1,000 people.
“I don’t want Moscow to be at the top of that list. Because it’s really a safe community,” Moscow Mayor Art Bettge told the Idaho Statesman. “And when these things happen, it’s bad, really bad. We’d like to think of ourselves as being a safe place.”
The University of Idaho reported 30 cases of sexual crimes, robberies, burglaries, domestic/dating violence and assaults on campus between 2019 and 2021, according to the school’s annual security and safety report.
By comparison, Idaho State University reported 68 instances of similar crimes and Boise State University reported 40 during the same period, according to those schools’ annual reports.
“I’ve been here a long time, and stuff like this doesn’t happen often in Moscow,” said Latah County Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Mikolajczyk, a 28-year veteran of the department. “It doesn’t happen often, but it has every once in a while, and I think this is probably one of the worst ones.”
Idaho crimes with several deaths remain rare
Idaho has had only a few crimes in which several people died.
In 2005, when Joseph Edward Duncan killed four members of a Coeur d’Alene family, including two children. Duncan, who was later diagnosed with brain cancer, died in a federal prison last year, before his death sentence was fulfilled.
Other incidents largely remained in the Treasure Valley. A shooting shocked Boise residents in 2021 when a gunman opened fire at the Towne Square mall, killing two people before taking his own life. The shooter killed mall security guard Jo Acker and customer Roberto Padilla Arguelles, who was shopping for his family, and injured several others.
Three years earlier, Timmy Kinner killed a toddler and stabbed eight others at a Boise birthday party. He remains imprisoned on two life sentences.
The suspect in a Caldwell triple murder remains at large. Law enforcement suspects Michael Bullinger killed three people, including his wife, in 2017 but have been unable to locate him. Bullinger faces three charges of first-degree murder.
Reporters Sally Krutzig and Angela Palermo contributed.
