At one point in this first section, the authors recount a recurring nightmare that Emily Alandt, a close friend of the group, has experienced since the murders. Alandt thinks it might be based on a real encounter between Kohberger and Mogen from the previous summer, but she’s not sure. In the dream, Kohberger walks into the Moscow restaurant where Mogen works and, after a brief introduction, asks her out. Mogen politely declines. He seems wounded and walks away.
Hence a theory that Mogen was the intended target of the murders, a theory that makes sense to friends and family of the victims, Ward told an interviewer. In a crime with no apparent motive, this might be the closest anyone has come to credibly positing one.
Patterson, a Floridian born in New York, writes in his preface that in the aftermath of the murders, the victims “came to be known as the Idaho Four.” Maybe that’s true in Florida, but the phrase seems entirely foreign to local residents — a fact that reminds us how resounding this story became in the outer world. In a way, so do two typos on page 49 that nobody here would commit to print — the spelling of Clarkston as “Clarkson.”
But the book accurately reads the mood in the air, particularly the sense that has emerged since Kohberger, with icy disembodiment, said “Yes” last month when Judge Steven Hippler asked if he had committed the crimes.
To many, he doesn’t count anymore. In an evocative and skittering way (which is why we wind up with 138 chapters), “The Idaho Four” explores Kohberger’s background in Pennsylvania — his short-lived heroin addiction, his battle with “visual snow,” his history of anger and apparent misogyny. But the strength of this work is the finely shaded renderings of the victims.
Goncalves’ eldest sister, Alivea, said it best during an impact statement at Boise when Kohberger was sentenced to life in prison, after “The Idaho Four” was published. Alivea figures prominently in other contexts of the book, justly lauded as “fiercely intelligent.”
“The truth about Kaylee and Maddie,” she told Kohberger as part of a devastating 10-minute dress-down, “they would have been kind to you. If you would have approached them in their everyday lives, they would have given you directions, thanked you for the compliment or awkwardly giggled, to make your own words less uncomfortable for you. In a world that rejected you, they would have shown mercy.”
Imagine what Patterson and Ward could have done with that.
Grummert, an editor at the Lewiston Tribune, may be contacted at [email protected].