The Idaho Four Is Number One!

Thank You For Your Support

What a couple of weeks it has been!

First, I want to thank all of you for bearing with me these past weeks through the launch of The Idaho Four. I know you’ve been inundated with videos of me talking about little else…

But:

Last night, I was still wiping away tears after the oh-so-powerful victim impact statements made by three victims’ families in the sentencing of murderer Bryan Kohberger in the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho when I got a call from Jim ( aka my co-author, the legendary James Patterson) who told me that The Idaho Four had made it to Number One on the New York Times Non-Fiction list. (And, that it had also made it to the top of the New York Times’ combined print and e-book non-fiction list.)

I stopped crying when I heard that!

Getting to Number One has always been my goal for this book, partly because, as I reminded Jim, when we first teamed up he cleverly challenged me: “I know you’ve been on the NYT bestseller list before, but I don’t think you’ve ever been Number One before…”

That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone as competitive as me!

But I always felt in my bones that this book would touch people.

Because there was something about this horrific tragedy that spoke to all of us, including people who don’t care about True Crime. The four murdered college kids, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Maddie Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves were so brimful of promise; so beautiful; so vibrant.

The photograph of them taken the day before they died, the same photograph that is on the book’s cover, radiated joy, possibility, and also normalcy.

Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle (left to right)

And yet what happened to them was anything was anything but normal.

I remember attending a crime seminar many years ago, where we learned that if someone comes for you with a knife in the middle of the night, the odds that you know the knife-wielder are very, very, very high. As I recall, above 99 per cent.

The chance that a psychopathic stranger comes for you with a knife in the night is almost zero.

And yet, as far as the police knows, this is exactly what happened on November 13th 2022. A complete stranger clad in black stabbed four college students to death in their bedrooms.

They still do not know why Bryan Kohberger targeted the house at 1122 King Road.

But I spoke to Steve Goncalves, Kaylee’s dad this morning, and to Ava Wood, one of the neighbors and friends of the four victims, and the consensus is still that just Maddie Mogen was the target.

Steve says that they know that Kohberger withdrew a large - and final - sum of money out of a cash point on November 10th, which makes Steve think that was the date when Kohberger had decided for sure to go ahead with his heinous plan.

By that date, Steve says, Kaylee was packed up and gone from the house. Maddie, alone was on the top floor, which is directly where Kohberger headed on the night of the murders.

I asked Steve how he felt yesterday’s sentencing went. The answer was as well as he could have hoped, given he was against the plea deal. But, he said he was glad for the variety of emotions in the room. “People grieve differently and you saw that,” he said.

But when he stared at Kohberger as he issued his furious, disdainful diatribe, with the lectern turned directly at him, he told me he saw the pupils of Kohberger’s eyes get darker and darker and darker.

That was exactly the reaction I wanted,” he said. “I could tell he was angry.'

Steve knew he was violating court protocol by turning the lectern away from Judge Hippler to face Kohberger directly.

But, he told me, when the families had gathered together for a meal the night before, Jazzmin Kernodle, Xana’s big sister, had worried aloud that they’d even be arrested if they didn’t do exactly as they had been instructed.

That’s when Steve changed his mind about speaking last. “I’ll go first,” he told Jazzmin, “that way, if anyone gets arrested for breaking the rules, it will be me.”

I told him that I’d cried watching him swivel the desk to face Kohberger and swing into top gear, followed by his daughter, Alivea, whose obliteration of Kohberger was a master-class in electric elocution.

I told him I’d also smiled when at 10.37 am CT, in the midst of it all, he’d texted me, proudly: “Alivea was amazing.”

There are no silver linings in this horrific story, but I have felt I’ve seen the best of humanity among the people I’ve met and interviewed - as well as the worst in Bryan Kohberger.

One of the things I’ve relished is the palpable pride Steve Goncalves has in his articulate, whip-smart eldest daughter, Alivea, who, steamed far ahead of the police in the early stages of the investigation and who tirelessly corrected the false innuendo and speculation online about Kaylee and Maddie. She seized control of the narrative about her sister from the get-go. And yesterday in court she took the narrative out of Kohberger’s hands and gave it back to her sister with her final, knock-out punch. “If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep, in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.”

She deserved the applause.

Ultimately, the popularity of The Idaho Four tells me something positive about the state of this country, despite the torrid times we live in.

It shows me that there are many readers out there who want to feel the loss and the humanity in this tragedy.

Bryan Kohberger may have stayed stony-faced in court yesterday, but the bigger point is that he was alone in that.

Which means that, ultimately, Ethan, Xana, Maddie, and Kaylee did not die in vain.

The goodness of their short lives and youthful promise is the story that will never age in our collective memory. The Idaho Four will always be The Idaho Four; the kids in the photo; the kids on the book’s cover; The kids who will always be… kids.

Kohberger, on the other hand, will slowly rot in prison.

And, frankly, that’s as it should be.