Judge rules for Moscow murder victims’ families in fight over crime scene photos
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Kevin Fixler and Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho Statesman) — Two families whose children were among four University of Idaho students killed in a highly publicized attack in Moscow obtained a partial victory in their legal fight to prevent the release of crime scene photos through public records requests.
Second Judicial District Judge Megan Marshall agreed with the parents of victims Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin in her ruling that they possess privacy rights over the images of their deceased children. But the law also does not extend absolute protections that entirely outweigh the public’s right to know, she wrote in her decision Wednesday.
“There is little to be gained by the public in seeing the decedents’ bodies, the blood-soaked sheets, blood spatter or other death scene depictions,” Marshall said in her written opinion. “Whereas the dissemination of these images across the internet and in public spheres where plaintiffs may come upon them by happenstance, as has already occurred, causing them extreme emotional distress is an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Crime scene photos from inside the two rooms of the King Road home where the four students were fatally stabbed, with redactions, were already disclosed by the city of Moscow, in response to public records requests. In following the Idaho Public Records Act, the city may continue to release such images, Marshall wrote, but will be required under her order to further redact those images to meet the demands of the families who sued the city.
Karen and Scott Laramie, Mogen’s mother and stepfather, filed the civil lawsuit and were later joined by Chapin’s parents, Stacy and Jim Chapin, and their daughter Maizie Chapin. Both families were represented by Coeur d’Alene-based attorney Leander James.
Jim and Stacy Chapin wrote in court filings that they “inadvertently” came across the photographs online without any notice. The Chapins said they are “haunted” by the photographs, which aren’t just images but painful reminders of their son’s life taken too soon.
“We now have images in our minds — ones that we are unable to escape — and desperately do want lingering in our memory,” the Chapins wrote.
All of the victims’ parents and families are against the release of the images, though not all of them were able to retain an attorney to represent them, the Chapins wrote.
“Even the thought of crime scene photos being released or being on the internet takes us all back to that day of horror,” they wrote. “It is a tremendous and heartbreaking loss for our family to live in fear, worry and sickness that we will inadvertently see death photos of Ethan and any of the children.”
Mogen, 21, and Chapin, 20, were killed in November 2022 along with friends and fellow U of I undergraduates Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Xana Kernodle, 20. The man responsible, Bryan Kohberger, 30, pleaded guilty in July to the four murders and was sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison, with no chance of parole or ability to appeal.
Kohberger, at the time a Ph.D. student of criminal justice and criminology at nearby Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, was arrested and charged with the crime in late December 2022. The nearly seven-week investigation, and almost two-and-a-half-year court case that followed, garnered global attention. Kohberger entered the Idaho prison system on July 23 after his sentencing hearing.
“The fact remains: The murder investigation and the criminal case are closed. Releasing these records will have minor effect upon those who continue to be perplexed by the facts or fixated on unfounded conspiracies whereas it has and will continue to have profound effect upon the decedents’ loved ones,” Marshall wrote. “The city may disclose the investigatory records in this matter, but must black out any areas within the images, photographs, video, or other media that depict any portion of the decedents or their bodies and the blood immediately surrounding them.”
Only a handful of the photos were initially publicized by KTVB, an NBC affiliate in Boise, but in the weeks after their release, dozens of other news outlets published more photos.
“They’re now out there everywhere,” James said.
He argued at an August hearing that images showing blood and personal information was a privacy violation, adding that the case’s worldwide attention made it different from other criminal cases.
Andrew Puskal, a Lewiston-based civil attorney who was representing the city, agreed that the images were “harrowing.”
He said there was no need for anyone else to see them. But, he noted, the photos were indeed public record, and the city had a duty to release them upon request.
“If there were an option set forth in the statute that allowed these records to be fired into orbit into the sun … we would just as soon not release these records,” Puskal said. “Nobody gets them. These are harrowing images. This was a horrific crime.”
Steve Goncalves, father of victim Kaylee Goncalves, praised Marshall’s decision.
“We are immensely proud of Karen Laramie standing up for what is right,” Goncalves said in a text to the Idaho Statesman. “It’s regrettable that families must turn to lawyers and legal battles to safeguard the dignity of their murdered loves ones, which once again erodes the rights that were stripped from our children.”