For a university trying to erase the remnants of a tragedy, the house on a hillside near campus remains uncomfortably conspicuous — visible from nearby fraternity houses and sought out as a photo spot by true-crime aficionados from around the country.
Some want the University of Idaho to tear down the house where four students were killed. Others worry it may be needed for the trial.
“What’s best for the case is for us to take caution and protect what the jury may possibly want to wrap their heads around,” Steve Goncalves, the father of one of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, said of the university’s announcement. In Newtown, Connecticut, the Sandy Hook Elementary School building was razed and rebuilt after the 2012 mass shooting that left 26 people dead. In Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers last year, the school district has similar plans to demolish the school and build a new one.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. on Feb. 28, 2018. Jurors visited the school last year, during the sentencing trial for the gunman who killed 17 students and staff members there in 2018. Jodi Walker, a University of Idaho spokesperson, said that the house, in the middle of a student housing area, has been a constant reminder of what transpired there. She said officials were also considering the needs of all the students and staff members on campus when they made the decision to demolish the structure.Kohberger’s defense lawyer, Anne Taylor, told campus officials in April that she had “no objection” to the plan, according to an email.
Shanon Gray, a lawyer representing the Goncalves family, said jurors may need to see the house to understand how noise traveled in the building and how a killer could move through the home’s unusual six-bedroom layout.
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