Nancy Grace Joins Us to Talk the Idaho Multiple Murder Mystery

CLAY: We are joined now by Nancy Grace. She is the host of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, the podcast. And, Nancy, Buck and I were talking and we said, we need to get Nancy on to talk about this case, because both he and I are really kind of obsessed with what may have happened in Idaho surrounding this murder story, that is basically leading newscasts everywhere. For people who do not know, four murders, they cannot figure out who is responsible, just off the University of Idaho’s campus. What can you tell us about this story? And for people out there who may not be following it, what details in general do we at least have confirmed at this point?

GRACE: Hello. Thank you for inviting me. Yes, we just covered this on Crime Stories on Fox Nation. About an hour ago, the very latest — well, let me play catch up. For young students — two age 20, two age 21 — were slaughtered in off-campus housing. When I say off-campus, it’s at the edge of campus. It’s right along fraternity row in Idaho, University of Idaho. Three were women, one was a boyfriend, a man. They lived in a home where five co-eds live there. The boyfriend just happened to be over that night. Right now, police are stumped. It looks as if all four were murdered in their sleep.

Now, two may have woken up and began fighting back. There are some defensive wounds, and by that, I mean cuts on the hands, the arms, the back of the arms, possibly on the legs, curling up in a fetal position where you try to protect your throat, your face and your chest. No suspects. The parents of one or two of the girls are complaining right now because they believe police wasted time looking at one of the girls’ ex-boyfriends.

But I got news for everybody, right or wrong, the first suspect, the first person of interest is always the boyfriend slash lover, husband, ex romantic interest. It always starts there because statistically that’s typically who did it. Not in this case. In fact, police are now considering that the killer of four people — remember, he could overpower four people, one of them, a man — could have been lying in wait in woods outside the home.

BUCK: Hey, Nancy, it’s Buck. You know, I’ve been reading about this a lot, as I know people across the country have. And two things have stuck out to me so far about this case. One is that there’s the description in the press reports of a lot of evidence but we don’t really seem to, we don’t ever get any specificity on. I’m wondering if you could shine a little more light on what they obviously know is a grisly crime scene, but what kind of evidence they would be looking for here, because they say they have a lot of it so far, but no leads. And then also that there was, I mean, and this is horrific, you know, additional reporting that there was that a dog that was a pet that was skinned alive nearby. And some think that there may be a connection. Wondering what you see in these two things.

GRACE: To your first question, there is, as one layperson, a civilian said, tons of evidence. What we mean by that is there’s a lot of blood evidence. These people were stabbed, dead with a knife that clearly has a hilt. It’s a fixed handle. In other words, it’s not a pocketknife. It’s not a switchblade. It’s immovable, the type with a hilt. And for those that don’t camp or have never been in the military, a hilt, there’s usually that little perpendicular, kind of like a handle on the knife. We say that because the wounds apparently were so severe that they believe it was a fixed knife.

There’s going to be a lot of blood evidence. I have worked several multi-victim homicide scenes and it takes weeks to separate whose blood is whose. In a contact murder like this there’s going to be fiber evidence where the killer actually touched the victim with their shirt or their chest or their arm. There will be hair evidence. There will be blood evidence most likely because we have multiple stabbings. Very often the killer’s hand slides down the knife and they end up cutting themselves. There’s going to be fingerprints. Here’s the problem with all of that. That is a treasure trove of evidence, but you’ve got to have something to compare it to.

Unless the killer is in APHIS, fingerprints or CODIS DNA databank, there’s nothing to compare it to. They may have to use ancestral DNA like the Golden State Killer, like I think was used in Delphi, although they haven’t said it, where you trace back, back, back, back to somebody’s great, great, great, great grandparents who built a family tree until you trickle down to the killer. That’s the quote, tons of evidence that’s there. Blood, fiber, fingerprints, DNA. But it’s going to take a long time to sort this out.

Let me think, your other question was regarding the dog. About several days, more like three weeks before the murders, a pet, a precious little Australian shepherd mix mini, was found skinned, head to tail, October 21, by his owners. That was Jim and Pam Colbert. They let him out to the backyard in Moscow, Idaho, a couple of miles down from this murder scene. And he was murdered, skinned and filleted. Yeah. A pet dog. Much has been made of that because the person actually, you know, waiting outside, got the dog did this. And it’s a couple of miles away from the murder, saying I’m not ready to connect it.

CLAY: Nancy, when you see a knife used in a violent multimurder like this, what does that tell you in your experience from a profiling perspective? Also, where these people were maybe sleeping when the attack began, as you said? How does that differ from someone using a gun? And obviously, it’s almost unheard of to have a murder like this happening on a college campus anywhere. It almost, and Buck and I we’re talking about it off air, it almost feels Scream-like, you know, the movie where the killer is pretty much always using that sort of, curved knife. What sort of profile? When you see these details, what sort of alarm bells does it set off to you?

GRACE: I’ve heard a lot of analogies to the Scream movies. I have not made that because I find it is very hurtful to the victims’ families to compare it to a movie. But I see, I see what you’re saying and you’re not the first. That, of course, was a movie that has somewhat of true-life inspiration. But what does it mean? In the U.S., we don’t have as many knifings, for instance, as in Great Britain where they don’t really have guns. Here, if you analyze the mind of a stabber, a knifer, completely different from the psychology of somebody that at a distance, shoots, and I mean three, four feet, ten feet, 20 feet. With a knife. It is up-close and personal.

The person, the victim is fighting back. It’s like hand-to-hand mutual combat. I mean, think about it. Going into a young lady’s room while she’s asleep in bed. This happened between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning and we’re going to find that out from the bodies. The degree of coagulation or rigor mortis, the livor mortis. But also there’s extrinsic evidence, such as one person’s last phone call was 2:52 a.m. So, something is giving them that 4 a.m. mark. So, they’re saying 3 to 4 a.m.

Maybe 4 a.m. the neighbors heard something, maybe 4 a.m. something else happened to give them the 3 to 4 a.m. timeline. Back to the knifing aspect. Imagine going in a young woman’s room in the middle of the night — she’s asleep in bed or at least in bed because they all stayed out late that night, came home — and start stabbing her. What kind of a freak is that? Willing to go up-close and personal to kill. And keep in mind, no sex attack, no robbery. So, what’s the motive?

That is why police keep saying this was targeted to at least one of the victims. They keep saying targeted. But I say not all four, but at least one of the victims was the target. Doesn’t mean there’s a close connection. It’s not like your husband or your boyfriend. It could be somebody that has been watching them, somebody that delivers their pizza, somebody they saw at the grocery store that has been watching this person, that knows them. In that sense, that is scary. Units leaving in droves. I’ve always believed that a knife murder is one of the —

CLAY: That’s what I was going to ask you next.

GRACE: — scariest murders there is.

CLAY: If you are a parent of a University of Idaho student…

GRACE: Oh, yeah. My children would be out of there.

CLAY: A lot of these kids are home right now for Thanksgiving. You would say don’t go.

GRACE: I’d go grab them by their ears and drag them all the way home to Macon, Georgia. They would be at home and away from that campus.

BUCK: Nancy, we know you’re going to be following this story. It is a… Obviously, it has gripped the nation. We want to find out what happened here. There needs to be justice for these families. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, everybody, is the podcast. We know she’ll be covering it. Nancy, appreciate you being on the show. We hope you’ll come back with updates.

GRACE: Thank you, and I wish you well at Thanksgiving. And please keep these families in mind as you gather around the table and say your prayer.

BUCK: We will. Thank you, Nancy.

CLAY: Amen, for sure. Buck, we’ll talk a little bit about this to close out the show. But, my goodness, it’s an awful tragedy for people in Idaho as they still continue to grip — and try to figure out — what exactly happened there.