Netflix has dropped a new three-part true crime documentary, The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare, delving into the November 2022 stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students at their off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho. The series, released Wednesday, July 29, comes with a caution from the streaming service about graphic crime-scene imagery and violence.
What the documentary covers
The documentary uses bodycam recordings, CCTV footage, texts, and interviews with the victims' loved ones to trace the nearly two-month investigation. The victims—Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin—were fatally stabbed in the early hours after a night out. Netflix describes the series as “visceral and intimate but told with sensitivity” and warns viewers to “watch out for sensitive topics including violence and graphic crime-scene imagery.”
The official synopsis says the show “definitively chronicles one of the most chilling murder cases in recent memory – honouring the four young lives that were taken while tracing every step from the night of the killings to the suspect's eventual arrest.” It adds that the documentary is “peeling back the layers of a case that forever changed the tight-knit college town of Moscow, Idaho.”
Key details from the investigation
According to the documentary, roughly a month before the murders, Kaylee told her housemate she had spotted a man watching her while walking a dog. Weeks later, another flatmate found their front door open upon returning home. Through DNA examination of the knife sheath used in the killings, the FBI traced it to refuse collected from the family residence of Bryan Kohberger, a Washington State University graduate. Netflix states that “investigators came to believe that this was a premeditated crime that Kohberger had meticulously planned.” Kohberger pleaded guilty to all charges and received four consecutive life sentences without parole; he is now held at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.
Reactions and director’s statement
Viewers have responded on social media. One Reddit user wrote: “This show does a really good job of looking at the victims as people. It's really heartbreaking.” Another agreed: “I feel like the documentaries we had so far had a part for them, but they focused so much on their killer. Glad it’s different this time.” A viewer on X said: “It literally sends a chill through me. The ambiance of the scene, is so scary and dark. You can sense the evil that came through the house that night.”
Director Skye Borgman said: “Making this series became deeply personal to me because I felt a responsibility to keep Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin at the centre of every decision we made. At a time when so much attention has been focused on the case itself, I felt it was important to create something that brings the focus back to who they were, the lives they lived, and the love that still surrounds them.”
The Idaho Murders: College Nightmare is now available to stream on Netflix.
