(HOUSTON) — A suspect has been arrested and charged with murder in the fatal shooting of Migos rapper Takeoff, Houston police said Friday.
Patrick Xavier Clark, 33, was arrested Thursday evening in Houston and “charged with the murder of Takeoff,” Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said during a press briefing.
Takeoff, whose real name is Kirshnik Khari Ball, was shot and killed outside the 810 Billiards & Bowling in downtown Houston around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 following a private event, police said. He was 28.
A 23-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman also suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the shooting, police said.
Police said at the time that an argument between some of the party guests “led to multiple unknown males firing pistols at each other.”
There was a “lucrative dice game” during the event, followed by an argument outside the venue, Houston Police Sgt. Michael Burrow said during the briefing.
“I can tell you Takeoff was not involved in playing the dice game, he was not involved in the argument that happened outside, he was not armed,” Burrow said. “He was an innocent bystander.”
Investigators were able to determine that Clark was the alleged shooter of Takeoff through shooting reconstruction and ballistics evidence, Burrow said. Police have also obtained cellphone and surveillance footage that has “surfaced over time,” he said.
Police have urged the public to come forward with tips in the days and weeks since.
Around 30 people were at the scene went the shooting happened, and police are still looking to speak with those who were there, Burrow said.
“Literally every one of those people left the scene without leaving a statement,” Burrow said. “It’s important that those people come forward.”
Amid the investigation into the shooting, a man was recently charged with two counts of felon in possession of a weapon for allegedly having a gun at the time Takeoff was fatally shot, ABC Houston station KTRK reported.
Takeoff was part of the Grammy-nominated hip-hop trio Migos, which formed in 2008 in suburban Atlanta and gained mainstream recognition and rose to stardom in 2013 with their song “Versace.” His uncle Quavo, who was present when the shooting took place but unharmed, and his cousin Offset were also part of the trio.
ABC News’ Deena Zaru contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge on Thursday pressed attorneys for Republican Florida governor Ron DeSantis to explain why the governor’s recent suspension of a state prosecutor he viewed as “woke” wasn’t an unlawful and politically motivated overreach of executive authority.
U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle said he would rule in the coming weeks on whether the governor was within his rights to suspend Andrew Warren, a Democrat who was reelected last year as the top state prosecutor in Tampa and surrounding Hillsborough County after running on a platform of criminal justice reform.
“This whole thing is chock-full of animus toward [reform-minded] prosecutors,” Hinkle said on the last day of a three-day trial in Tallahassee. “Florida law does not allow a governor to remove a state attorney because the governor disagrees with a state attorney’s general approach.”
But attorneys for DeSantis insisted in court that was not why the governor suspended Warren, who was first elected to his position in 2016.
“We have someone here who was not going to enforce the law, based on his own statements,” DeSantis attorney George Levesque told the judge.
According to the executive order suspending Warren in August, the state attorney demonstrated “incompetence and willful defiance of his duties” by implementing certain “policies of presumptive non-enforcement” and by co-signing a left-leaning advocacy group’s public statements about state laws criminalizing gender-affirming care and abortions.
“[We] commit to exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions,” said a statement signed by more than 80 local, elected prosecutors from around the country on June 24, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, leaving the question of abortion rights to the states.
After his suspension, Warren filed a federal lawsuit in August, asking a judge to have him reinstated as state attorney. Hinkle, a Clinton appointee, is deciding the case without a jury.
During trial this week, Hinkle said the outcome of the case hinges on the “real reason” for Warren’s suspension: Was it about Warren’s conduct — a lawful basis — or was it really about his speech, which would violate Warren’s First Amendment rights?
Hinkle suggested the curated text of the executive order alone may not “tell the whole story” of what truly motivated Warren’s suspension.
An attorney for Warren, David O’Neil, told Hinkle that Warren’s suspension was a “political hit job,” targeting his rights to free speech.
“Mr. Warren was suspended from his office because of what he said and what he believed,” O’Neil said.
The statements Warren signed — which were also supported by dozens of prosecutors from other parts of the country — were “purely symbolic, purely an expression of values,” O’Neil said.
According to three days of witness testimony, DeSantis’ so-called “public safety czar,” Larry Keefe, asked people he knew in the law enforcement community if there were any state prosecutors refusing to enforce the law.
“All roads were leading to Mr. Warren,” Keefe testified.
A Republican sheriff in Warren’s own county even sent Keefe a packet flagging two of Warren’s policies that he found worrisome, including one policy — issued in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — telling prosecutors to only bring low-level charges like trespassing or public intoxication under certain circumstances.
In testimony, Keefe conceded that, of those whose party affiliations he knew, all but one of the people he spoke with early on about Warren were Republican.
Then, months later, as the Supreme Court was overturning Roe v. Wade, Warren signed the abortion-related statement from the group Fair and Just Prosecution.
In pressing DeSantis’ attorneys, Hinkle said “a possible view of the facts” is that DeSantis was “genuinely opposed” to “more lenient,” liberal-minded prosecutors, and “it would be good politics to take one down,” so he mentioned that to Keefe, who went “out looking for” them.
“He finds one,” Hinkle said. “He conducts a very one-sided inquiry … [and then] incidentally, he finds the abortion statement. Bingo.”
But at least one senior lawyer in DeSantis’ office who helped formulate Warren’s suspension testified that the abortion-related statement and the other Fair and Just Prosecution statement relating to transgender issues, would not by themselves have led him to recommend Warren’s suspension.
A key point of contention throughout the trial was whether Warren’s signature — and official title — on the Fair and Just Prosecution statements amounted to official policy.
Signing the abortion-related statement “was an announcement we were not going to prosecute cases under the law,” and it told prosecutors in Hillsborough County “what Mr. Warren wanted from them,” Warren’s former chief of staff, Gary Weisman, testified in court.
The top lawyer in the governor’s office, general counsel Ryan Newman, agreed, saying any “reasonable person” would view the statements Warren signed as “a pledge,” making Warren’s suspension not only warranted but lawful under Florida state law.
Warren himself disputed that the statements reflected any type of policy or pledge, testifying that he signed them because he “agreed with the general idea” behind them.
To emphasize that point, O’Neil noted that Warren never disseminated the statements he signed — as he would with an official policy — and that the statements never impacted “a single” case because no abortion-related case was ever referred to Warren’s office for prosecution, and the state of Florida doesn’t even have a law relating to gender-affirming health care.
When DeSantis announced Warren’s suspension in August, he accused Warren of promoting an agenda that is “basically ‘woke,'” elevating his “own personal conception of, quote, ‘social justice’ over what the law requires of you.”
During his testimony this week, Warren defended his time in office, saying the policies he implemented were about efficiency and “fairness” in the criminal justice system, and about trying “to steer low-level offenders away from the downward spiral of the system.”
Warren’s attorney told the judge that upholding Warren’s suspension would have a “chilling” effect on the free speech of other elected officials.
“What other state attorney is going to speak out on policy issues the defendant disagrees with?” he asked.
Prosecutors, however, said Warren’s actions made him unlike other elected prosecutors in Florida.
“It’s not as though every [reform-minded] attorney is somehow on the chopping block,” Newman said.
DeSantis declined to testify in his own defense, which Hinkle said left “a massive hole in the center of [the governor’s] case.”
The judge also expressed concern that no one affiliated with DeSantis contacted Warren or any of his staffers to inquire about his office’s practices and policies.
“You do understand he’s not getting paid — they’ve taken his job,” the judge told Newman while he was on the stand. “Didn’t you think you owed [Warren] any due process before you suspended him for months?… At least pick up the phone and call him?”
Nevertheless, Hinkle made clear that — even if he’s critical of how it transpired — he hasn’t decided whether the suspension was unlawful.
“I don’t know who’s going to win,” the judge said.
(NEW YORK) — California’s ongoing drought and a poor forecast is forcing the state’s water management agency to cut back on its fresh water supply to nearly 27 million residents.
The state’s Department of Water Resources announced Thursday an initial allocation of 5% of requested supplies for 2023 for 29 local water agencies across California.
DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in a statement that the state is already preparing for a fourth dry year and more extreme drought conditions. Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s largest reservoir, remains at 55% of its average for this time of the year, according to the agency.
“This early in California’s traditional wet season, water allocations are typically low due to uncertainty in hydrologic forecasting, but the degree to which hotter and drier conditions are reducing runoff into rivers, streams and reservoirs means we have to be prepared for all possible outcomes,” Nemeth said in a statement.
DWR said it will “assess requests for additional water that may be necessary for health and safety including minimum domestic, sanitation, and fire suppression needs.”
The agency said it will reevaluate requests depending on the precipitation during the winter and spring months. California typically receives half of its rain and snow totals by the end of January, according to DWR.
Most of California has seen less than its average precipitation levels over the last 60 days, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System. Most of the state is under severe to exceptional drought warnings, the data showed.
“We are in the dawn of a new era of State Water Project management as a changing climate disrupts the timing of California’s hydrology, and hotter and drier conditions absorb more water into the atmosphere and ground. We all need to adapt and redouble our efforts to conserve this precious resource,” Nemeth said.
(WASHINGTON) — The time for the big reveal of the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber has finally come, but what will we see when the Air Force’s newest long-range bomber is unveiled Friday after being shrouded in secrecy?
All that is known for sure is that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be there in person as the B-21 Raider rolls out of Northrop Grumman’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
There will be a live video broadcast of the unveiling presented by the U.S. Air Force and the plane’s manufacturer, Northrup Grumman, but it’s unclear how much of the aircraft will actually be shown as it’s made public for the first time.
The mystery surrounding the Air Force’s sixth-generation stealth fighter is in keeping with the scant details provided over the last decade during the development of the bomber — intended to replace the B-2 Spirit and the B-1 Lancet bombers.
Throughout that time, the goal has been to reveal as little as possible of what it might look like in order to avoided providing any hints of how it can remain undetectable to advanced radars.
And it has literally been cloaked in secrecy.
The first glimpse of what the new aircraft might look like came in the final seconds of a Northrup Grumman Super Bowl ad in 2015 that showed only the plane’s general wing-shaped contours because it was covered by a shroud.
Since then, Northrup Grumman has released only artist renderings of a wing-shaped aircraft in flight that looks a lot like the B-2 bomber.
Like the B-2, the new long-range aircraft is designed to deliver both conventional and nuclear weapons while flying undetectable to advanced radars and air defense systems anywhere in the world.
The B-2 does that through its unique flying-wing shape and the materials and coatings on the plane’s fuselage that reduce its radar footprint. It’s assumed the new B-21 will improve on a 30-year-old technology.
The aircraft unveiled on Friday will begin initial flight testing at Edwards AFB in California with its first flight forecast to take place in mid-2023. For now, the are six B-21 aircraft in various stages of production and the Air Force plans to to acquire at least 100 of the new bombers, with the first one entering service in the mid-2020s.
As they enter into service, they will eventually replace the B-1 and B-2 bomber fleets, joining the venerable B-52 as the U.S. Air Force’s long-range strategic bomber.
Overall, it is estimated that the fleet of a hundred B-21s will cost $203 billion to develop and operate over the next 30 years, according to Bloomberg.
Unless they are temporarily deployed overseas, the B-2 fleet is housed at Whiteman AFB in Missouri. The Air Force plans for the new B-21 to operate from Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, although Dyess AFB in Texas could be an alternate location.
In 2016, the Air Force announced that the new bomber would be known as the Raider to honor the famous Doolittle Raiders who flew the surprise bombing run on Tokyo on April 18, 1942.
(LA FAYETTE, Ala.) — James Michael Grimes is speaking out for the first time in an exclusive interview with ABC News after going overboard on a Carnival cruise ship after being missing for almost 20 hours.
The 28-year-old man said he was determined to make it out of the Gulf of Mexico alive, calling it the experience of a lifetime.
Grimes said he treaded water for nearly 20 hours after falling overboard on Thanksgiving Eve — battling jelly fish, rip currents and shark-infested waters before being airlifted by the U.S. Coast Guard on Nov. 24. shortly after 8 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard told ABC News.
“Good Morning America” will have an exclusive interview with James Michael Grimes that will air Friday at 7 a.m. ET.
Grimes had only been aboard the Carnival Valor for a day before his sister reported him missing. The two were last seen together at a restaurant where Grimes had won an air guitar contest before going to the bathroom.
That is the last thing he remembers. Grimes said he believes the fall overboard knocked him unconscious.
“The next thing I know… I regained consciousness. I was in the water with no boat in sight,” he said.
Alone in solid darkness, and the light from the stars and the moon, Grimes decided in that moment he would make it out of the water.
“I felt like I was given a chance right then… you’re alive for a reason… that [fall] could’ve killed me, but I felt like from that moment on, I was trying to stay positive. And, you know when you’re here, you’re still alive for a reason. So, all you got to do now is swim and survive. I was hoping… they will start looking for me… they will find me eventually,” Grimes said.
Grimes was aboard the five-day cruise with 18 of his family members for Thanksgiving. When he didn’t return to his cabin that night, his sister reported him missing.
The ship was on its way to Cozumel, a Mexican island in the Caribbean, and was released by the Coast Guard to continue to its destination after the rescue was made.
“The Jayhawk aircrew hoisted the man onto the helicopter and transferred him to awaiting emergency medical services at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport,” a statement from the Coast Guard read.
“We are beyond grateful that this case ended with a positive outcome,” said Lt. Seth Gross, a Coast Guard Sector New Orleans search-and-rescue mission coordinator.
“We greatly appreciate the efforts of all, most especially the U.S. Coast Guard and the mariner who spotted the guest in the water,” the Coast Guard said in a statement Thursday to ABC News. “Cruise ships have safety barriers in all public areas that are regulated by U.S. Coast Guard standards that prevent a guest from falling off. Guests should never ever climb up on the rails. The only way to go overboard is to purposefully climb up and over the safety barriers.”
Carnival Valor had said in a statement to ABC News that it conducted a search-and-rescue operation after Grimes went missing.
“Carnival Valor retraced its route to support the search and rescue, but the ship has now been released by the U.S. Coast Guard, and will continue on its way to Cozumel. Carnival’s Care Team is providing support to the family members of the missing guest who were sailing with him and remain on board,” the statement at the time said.
Against all odds, Grimes said he kept a positive attitude and “just kept swimming.”
In addition to his attitude, he said it was his will to see his family again that kept him afloat.
“I wanted to see my family and I was dead set on making it out of there. I was never accepting that this is it, this is going to be the end of my life. I’m 28 years old. I’m too young. This is not going to be it,” Grimes said.
“I always thought there’s a greater purpose for my life. Now, I know for sure I’m meant to do something on this Earth. And, you know, I don’t know. It was just the Lord was out there helping me, giving me strength and helping me stay afloat,” he added.
ABC News’ Victoria J. Arancio contributed to this report.
(SAN ANTONIO, Texas) — A grand jury has indicted former San Antonio Police officer James Brennand on two counts of aggravated assault and one count of attempted murder after he allegedly shot at unarmed 17-year-old Erik Cantu in a McDonald’s parking lot.
Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales announced the indictment at a Thursday press conference.
He said his office’s civil rights division will now proceed with the prosecution in the case, including a possible trial, in order to attempt to convict Brennand.
Police body camera video of the Oct. 22 incident shows Brennand opening Cantu’s car door and demanding he exit the vehicle in a McDonald’s parking lot. Cantu, who was eating a burger at the time, proceeded to back up and drive off while Brennand fired his gun several times.
Cantu suffered injuries to his stomach, diaphragm, lungs, liver, bicep, and forearm, spending weeks on life support. He was released from the hospital on Thanksgiving week.
Brennand was fired from the San Antonio Police Department just a few days after the shooting. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus confirmed his actions violated department tactics, training and procedures.
Brennand was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by a public servant and one attempted murder count. He could face a life sentence.
Gonzales said his office will seek the “maximum punishment” for Brennand, saying it “appears to be appropriate.”
“Justice means prosecuting the individual for misconduct. Justice means obtaining a conviction. Justice means making sure that man never works as a member of law enforcement, making sure that that man never has a gun and a badge,” Gonzales said. “Justice means seeking appropriate punishment.”
“I hope that by vigorously investigating and prosecuting this case, we can help to decrease the pain in our system, even if we can never bear all the pain and suffering that Eric and his family have experienced,” he added.
Cantu’s attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that the announcement of the indictment was a “relief” for Cantu and his family.
“The grand jury’s decision to indict on an attempted murder charge and two counts of aggravated assault is a significant step toward justice — but there is still a long road ahead,” Crump said. “We will continue to fight for accountability and transparency through the legal process.”
Nico LaHood, whose firm LaHood & Norton Law Group represents Brennand, told ABC News the attempted murder by a public servant charge was atypical and rarely used because prosecutors must prove not just use of deadly force but “intent to kill.”
LaHood, a former Criminal District Attorney of Bexar County himself, maintains Brennand’s actions were “legally justified” and that further information revealed during legal proceedings will demonstrate that.
“Until this day, James Brennand has been tried in the court of public opinion, without the benefit of his side of the story being known,” LaHood said. “Already we have seen that the initial reports by rush to judgment attitude, have been contradicted by subsequent reporting that has examined the facts. We anticipate more information will be revealed that will further shed light on this incident.”
(WASHINGTON) — The names and personal information of more than 6,000 noncitizens were posted on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website erroneously, an ICE spokesperson told ABC News on Thursday.
The data breach occurred on Monday, according to an agency spokesperson.
“On November 28, 2022, while performing routine updates, a document was erroneously posted to ICE.gov for approximately five hours that included names and other personally identifiable information, along with immigration information, of approximately 6,000 noncitizens in ICE custody,” an ICE spokesperson told ABC News in a statement.
“Upon notification, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took swift action to immediately rectify the error. Though unintentional, this release of information is a breach of policy, and the agency is investigating the incident and taking all corrective actions necessary. ICE is notifying noncitizens impacted by the disclosure.”
The LA Times was first to report the news.
At 9:45 a.m. on Monday, an Excel spreadsheet was uploaded to ICE.gov that included the names and A-numbers of 6,252 noncitizens seeking protection, according to a source familiar with the situation. The Human Rights First immigration organization then alerted ICE to the issue at 1:53 p.m. and at 2:04 p.m ICE deleted the personally identifiable information tab from ICE.gov.
ICE is notifying the impacted noncitizens directly or their attorneys-of-record of the improper disclosure, according to a source familiar with the situation. This will allow noncitizens or their attorneys-of-record to determine whether the disclosure may impact the merits of their protection claim, according to the source.
As a routine part of an investigation into a data disclosure, ICE will identify through IP addresses entities that accessed the information and the official says ICE is monitoring the internet for any reposting of the data.
(YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo.) — The supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park has substantially more magma reservoir under the caldera than scientists previously thought, according to new research.
In addition, the newly found lava is flowing at shallow depths that fueled prior eruptions, according to a paper published Thursday in Science.
Researchers mapped the seismic wave speed below the Yellowstone volcano using a technique called seismic tomography. This 3D modeling of seismic waveforms measures the volume of the melt and makes assumptions of the distribution of how the melt is spread in the subsurface in Yellowstone’s magma reservoir, Ross Maguire, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s department of geology and author of the study, told ABC News.
“We found that it’s likely that Yellowstone’s crustal magma reservoir holds more melt than previously was thought,” Maguire said, adding that there is up to 20% melt at shallow depths.
Previous studies have suggested the partial melt fraction was between 5% and 15%, Maguire said.
The Yellowstone magma reservoir is not so much “a big tank of magma,” with accumulation all in one body, Maguire said, but rather, more like a “snow cone,” in which there is a solid component and a liquid component, Kari M. Cooper, professor and chair at the University of California Davis’s department of earth and planetary sciences, told ABC News.
The findings show it’s possible there are some relatively small to moderate-size bodies of magma that are below Yellowstone that could be mobilized and expelled, Cooper said. Yellowstone tends to garner a lot of attention because of the potential for “catastrophic, explosive eruptions,” Maguire said, but that’s not the most common type of eruption in the park.
“They would be of a similar size to what’s happened in the very recent Yellowstone history that’s produced a series of lava flows that filled the most recent caldera after the most recent really large eruption,” she said.
Despite the new discovery, the research does not indicate that an eruption will happen any time soon, the scientists said. There are no signs of “increased volcanic unrest” at Yellowstone, Maguire said.
“This really does not change the hazard assessment at all, because we already knew that. We already knew this was the recent activity,” Cooper said. “We already knew that was the most likely sort of activity to happen next.”
However, a key issue for assessing the hazards of volcanic eruption is to ascertain how much magma is below the surface and where, and continued monitoring of the subsurface is important to provide a clear picture if the situation begins to dramatically change, the researchers said.
In addition, Yellowstone is thoroughly monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Cooper said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Navy is investigating how two of its warships on Tuesday ended up on a collision course in a narrow channel of California’s San Diego Bay.
The vessels came within 35 yards of each other on Tuesday morning, according to a Navy official, but were able to avert disaster through some last-minute maneuvering.
“USS Momsen and USS Harpers Ferry were transiting opposite directions in the San Diego Bay in close vicinity, Nov. 29. Both ships maneuvered to safety,” U.S. 3rd Fleet spokesman Lt. Samuel Boyle told ABC News in a statement.
Neither was damaged and no sailors were hurt as a result of the evasive actions.
The incident occurred in a somewhat narrow part of the channel that requires constant turns, according to the Navy official. The commanders of both ships agreed in advance to traverse the channel simultaneously and pass by in opposite directions. But although the ships were in communication from the beginning, they ended up sailing head-on at each other.
A second Navy official confirmed the authenticity of a video posted on Twitter that shows the near miss, and includes audio of the two ships communicating to avoid collision.
In the video, transmission from the Momsen’s bridge to Harpers Ferry can be heard: “We are coming to port to avoid you.”
The word “port” is used here in the nautical sense, meaning the Momsen intended to veer left, as it can be seen doing in the video.
The Harpers Ferry responded in kind: “We are coming to port to avoid you as well.”
The Harpers Ferry is a 610-foot-long amphibious ship that weights more than twice as much as the Momsen destroyer vessel, which is why it appears slower to turn in the video.
It was not a viable option for either ship to simply stop and let the other pass, because without propulsion they would be left at the mercy of the currents and wind, and would not be able to keep stable and on course, according to the first official. But while it is not uncommon for ships to pass by in opposite directions in the channel, they came closer than they should have in this case, the official added.
“We were watching it and … the [surface warfare officers] around here were like, ‘Phew, that was close!'” the second Navy official said. “But the consensus here is like, wow, they did a really good job of talking to one another and getting out of a tough situation.”
The Navy is now working to find out how the two ships got into that tough situation in the first place, and who might have been responsible.
San Diego Bay is home to one of the largest Navy bases in the U.S., which serves as the main port for more than 50 ships and tens of thousands of personnel.
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(MOSCOW, Idaho) — From motive, to how two roommates survived, many questions remain unanswered in the mysterious murders of four University of Idaho students.
“Everyone wants answers… we want to give those answers as soon as we can,” Moscow Police Chief James Fry told ABC News on Wednesday, adding that some details must be withheld to protect the investigation.
Here’s what we know and what’s still unclear:
The crime
Kaylee Goncalves, 21, her roommate and lifelong best friend, Madison Mogen, 21, another roommate Xana Kernodle, 20, and Kernodle’s boyfriend Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in the girls’ off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13.
No suspects have been identified.
The murder weapon — which police believe was a fixed-blade knife — is still missing.
Were killings targeted?
Chief Fry told ABC News on Wednesday that police “believe this is a targeted attack,” but he wouldn’t reveal why police think that. Fry would not say if a person or the house was a target.
But the Moscow Police Department contradicted that in a statement released just hours later.
The statement said: “The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office stated the suspect(s) specifically looked at this residence, and that one or more of the occupants were undoubtedly targeted. We have spoken with the Latah County Prosecutor’s Office and identified this was a miscommunication. Detectives do not currently know if the residence or any occupants were specifically targeted but continue to investigate.”
As to whether the killings were targeted, former FBI agent and ABC News contributor Brad Garrett said Thursday, “I don’t think they [law enforcement] really know. I think they have theories, and maybe they’re good theories about what happened. … It certainly feels like, without knowing of course, that they don’t know what they have.”
Garrett isn’t involved in the investigation.
This wasn’t the first miscommunication by local leaders.
Initially after the shocking murders, Moscow police said they believed there was “no imminent threat to the community,” but later walked that back. Fry told ABC News Wednesday, “I own the messaging problem at the very beginning. We should’ve done a little better than that. … we needed to correct that.”
Garrett said high-profile cases put a lot of pressure on officials and it’s “not uncommon” to see uncoordinated responses among the different agencies.
Profile of the killer
Police have not released a motive or potential profile of the killer.
Garrett said his guess is the attacker “really wanted to kill all four of them — motive unknown and relationship to the victims unknown.”
“Why would you go to the trouble to kill four people if in fact you’re upset, angry or have revenge against one of them?” he said.
While Garrett doesn’t know the motive, he said he believes the killer “likes to do these type of things and maybe has done it before.”
He thinks the suspect is probably not in their late teens or early 20s because it’s unlikely they could “methodically think through” four murders.
“Because of the time it would take, the energy it would take, and the focus that would take, it’s a lot to ask of an 18-year-old,” he said.
The surviving roommates
Two other roommates were in the house at the time and survived, likely sleeping through the attacks, according to police. The roommates are not considered suspects, police said.
The murders likely took place around 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., according to officials. In the morning, the two roommates called friends over because they thought one of the victims on the second floor had passed out and wasn’t waking up, police said.
At 11:58 a.m., a 911 call from one of the roommate’s phones requested help for an unconscious person, police said. The 911 caller’s identity has not been released but police said “multiple people talked with the 911 dispatcher.”
Responding officers found the four victims on the second and third floors, police said.
Police said they do not believe anyone at the house at the time of the 911 call was involved.
As to how the surviving roommates could have slept through the murders, Garrett said the killer had the advantage of surprise, since the victims were likely asleep when he approached them. And the four victims “may have been killed in such a way it was difficult for them to scream,” he said.
Police said all four victims were stabbed multiple times and were probably asleep when attacked.
Community must help ‘get this person off the street’
As local, state and federal agencies continue to investigate, Garrett recommends they examine the “existing leads and go back over them regularly to see what you have missed.”
“You then also have to expand this case — and it sounds like they’ve done some of this — because if you’re dealing with a person who is a serial offender, then he has committed some version of this before,” Garrett said. “Are there other stabbings of a similar nature? Maybe in a house at night?”
Garrett added, “You also have to keep the case in the public’s eye, because you’re always looking for new leads” and want to encourage people to submit tips.
Sometimes community members are reluctant to come forward with information “because they’ve had bad experiences with police or they’re not sure what they know is really relevant,” Garrett said.
“I would push the heinous nature of this crime,” Garrett said, and stress that police need the community’s help to “get this person off the street.”
Students on edge
The University of Idaho community is on edge in the wake of the slayings, and the police department said it’s received an influx of 911 calls.
Garrett said he would tell concerned students: “What happened on your campus is extremely rare. The odds of you being in harm’s way is, relatively speaking, low.”
But he urges them to stay aware of their surroundings.
“Don’t walk alone,” he said. “Super-secure everything: the windows, the doors.”
The police chief promised to ABC News on Wednesday that the department won’t allow the case to go cold.
“We’re going to work continuously. And we’re going to provide as many answers as we can, and we’re going to do the best job we can,” he said.
Police urge anyone with information to upload digital media to fbi.gov/moscowidaho or contact the tip line at tipline@ci.moscow.id.us or 208-883-7180.
