How TikTok sleuths drove ‘suspects’ into hiding after accusing them of killing 4 students in infamous Idaho murders
THE brutal murders of four students, stabbed to death at their shared digs in November 2022, sent shockwaves through the small town of Moscow, Idaho, and made headlines around the world.
But what followed also highlighted a toxic social trend — as armchair sleuths wrongly targeted a series of “suspects” including the tragic students’ roommates, an ex-boyfriend, a local food truck owner and a college lecturer.
As police struggled to nail the killer of Xana Kernodle, 20, Ethan Chapin, 20, Maddie Mogen, 21, and 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves, TikTok blew up with unfounded theories that attracted more than two billion views around the world.
Named as possible perpetrators by self-styled online “investigators”, who published their pictures, places of work and even home addresses, innocent individuals were abused, threatened and forced into hiding.
Even after the arrest of criminology student Bryan Kohberger, 28, six weeks into the investigation, wild theories that there was more than one killer continued to circulate.
One young man — dubbed “Hoodie Guy” after he was caught on camera standing behind two of the victims in the queue for a late-night food truck on the night of the murders — was named in a TikTok video viewed by more than a million people, along with false claims he had boasted about owning a knife similar to the murder weapon and had fled the country after the horrific crime.
His desperate sister took to TikTok to make a passionate plea for the video to be taken down after her parents’ address was shared.
Outlandish theories
“This has nothing to do with my family. This video has pictures of our houses. It shows where we work and our faces plastered,” she says.
“We have received threats and harassment and we didn’t deserve that.”
Rebecca Scofield, a lecturer at the University of Idaho, where the four victims were studying, was forced to deny she was having an affair with one of the students and was behind the killings.
She is suing her accuser, online “psychic” Ashley Guillard, for defamation.
Among those hooked on the developing case and the outlandish theories surrounding it — plus the shady world of online sleuths — is Zara McDermott, who presents BBC documentary The Idaho Murders: Trial By TikTok on Wednesday.
She travelled to Moscow, population 25,000, and spoke to the armchair detectives there as well as those who have been targeted by trolls with accusations that they were involved.
She tells The Sun: “We wanted to show how hurtful and how damaging it can be for someone who is completely innocent to be accused of something as huge as a quadruple homicide.
“For example, if you search online for Hoodie Guy, a full name comes up as well as conspiracy theories as to how and why he murdered four of his peers.
“That is going to be there for ever for this poor young man because a couple of people made outlandish claims that could ruin his whole life.”
The four students had enjoyed a night out On November 12, 2022, before returning to their shared house in the early hours.
So much of the content I was watching was based on no substance
Zara McDermott
At around 4am they were butchered in their rooms with a military type knife.
Their roommates, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen, were also in the three-storey house but were left unharmed.
Within days a viral guessing game had sprung up on TikTok.
Zara, 27, says: “A lot of young people were hooked on this case and TikTok played a massive role in how viral it went.
“It came up on my TikTok page a couple of days after the murders, before there had been any police announcements or press conferences.
“There were conspiracy theories, so-called doorbell footage of the murders actually happening, which we now know weren’t real.
“The hashtag #Idaho4 was getting millions of views. But so much of the content I was watching was based on no substance.”
Police were reluctant to release information, creating a vacuum which was quickly filled online.
But one police report revealed that housemate Dylan had come face to face with the armed suspect outside her room and had gone into “frozen shock”.
However, the alarm was not raised until 11.58am — eight hours later.
The delay was seized on by the internet sleuths, who put Dylan and Bethany in the frame.
One TikTok user wrote: “I think it was an inside job and I think the two surviving roommates had something to do with it.”
After their photos and details circulated online the girls were forced to close their social media accounts and go into hiding.
Another target was Kaylee’s ex-boyfriend Jack DuCoeur, who she called several times on the night she died.
His aunt, Brooke Miller, told the New York Post newspaper her nephew “not only lost the love of his life” but also that “half of America” thinks he could be responsible for the murders.
Even Joe Woodall, manager of the Grub Truck food van where Kaylee and Madison bought tacos after leaving a local bar at 1.53am, was named as a suspect.
And the owner of a bagel bar, known as Smitty, tells Zara he received death threats after “online psychic” Donna Serafina said the killer was the “son of a baker”.
Yet Smitty doesn’t have a son.
‘People want answers’
With the rumour mill in overdrive, Moscow police were forced to call a press conference to rule out suspects named online, including Bethany, Dylan, Jack and “Hoodie Guy”.
To try to understand the online sleuths Zara met Jonathan Lee Riches, who grew his social media audience by 100,000 through posting eight videos a day about the killings and calls himself an “online truth-seeker”.
The host of YouTube channel JLR Investigates is unapologetic about the effect his “reports” have on the people he accuses.
He says: “The goal is to let criminals and bad actors be put on notice that you can’t get away with it nowadays, because you’re going to have YouTubers and social media on you.
“I throw names around that could be boyfriends of the victims, fraternity members, sorority girls, neighbours . . . because maybe you can get these people to come out and share where they were so we can cross them off.
“There’s no such thing as innocent till proven guilty. You’re guilty until you prove otherwise.”
Zara is not surprised by his views and says many of the so-called armchair detectives believe they are shedding light on an unsolved mystery.
She says: “JLR bases his existence around being a ‘truth-seeking sleuth’, and that’s what he does for a living.
“With someone so invested it’s very hard to make him see he’s doing anything wrong.
“From his perspective, he can make any videos he wants because he thinks it could help get to the bottom of the case.
“But from an outsider’s perspective I believe the authorities have access to all the information available and they are gathering evidence but having to keep it back because they don’t want people like him making sensationalist content around any information they release.
“People want answers and the police are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
“People continued to make videos saying, ‘The police haven’t done their job properly’. They can’t win.”
We won’t stop until we find out and if they don’t give us the information we’ll find out ourselves. You are guilty until you prove otherwise
YouTuber accuser Jonathan Lee Riches
She says the killings have devastated the town.
Zara continued: “They hadn’t had a homicide in many years and it’s a very quiet college town, with one road in and one out, full of students and people who have lived their whole lives there.
“The content affected all of them. If they weren’t directly affected, someone they knew had been accused.”
Bryan Kohberger — who was arrested in December after his DNA was found on a knife sheath at the murder scene — is on trial for the four murders. He has pleaded not guilty.
Zara, whose previous documentaries include Revenge Porn and Disordered Eating, says she is worried that younger people consume too much news from unreliable social media sources, especially TikTok.
She says: “We’re in a very odd space in social media where there are no repercussions for saying something outlandish online, even accusing an innocent person of quadruple homicide. How crazy is that?
“I worry that young people aren’t watching mainstream news or reading mainstream media, who all have to abide by certain journalistic guidelines and where facts are checked.
“The way the TikTok algorithm works, if I watch a certain type of content my feed will keep giving me more and more of the same.
“I could make a video right now with any theory I just made up and it could go viral. That’s really scary.”
- The Idaho Murders: Trial By TikTok is on BBC Three at 9pm on Wednesday.