You can’t just fly into a small town on the opposite side of the country and expect people to talk to you. For my research for The Idaho Four, I had a great deal of help and support in Moscow from a prominent local therapist, Dr. Rand Walker.
He and I spoke on the phone many times before I got to Moscow and he was kind enough to introduce me to a network of people he thought would be critical for my reporting. He was also kind enough to drive me around and show me 1122 King Road, the scene of the murders, and Bryan Kohberger’s student housing in Pullman in Washington State.
I’m not sure the book would have happened without him and the network he gave me. I discovered upon arrival, that because people trusted Rand, they trusted me. And once they met with me, they wanted to introduce me to others. It snowballed.
I came to love Moscow. You’ll see the town becomes a character of its own in the book. Locals, many of whom are academics, are very proud to live there.
They deeply resented that the murders put a stain on the community and that it was so widely publicized. And they hated that it caused a rift amongst them during the six weeks when no one knew who could have committed the murders. People started looking at each other’s arms in case there were signs of a knife wound. And of course, there were, given that elk-hunting is common in that part of the world.
Here’s a snippet from the book about Rand’s reaction to the murders:
Dr. Rand Walker, a trusted local therapist whom Chief Fry has put on standby to treat his traumatized officers and their families, is observing rare and frightening instances of the six-degrees-of-separation connections among the town’s residents. The fact that everyone in Moscow knows everyone else has morphed overnight from a source of comfort to something deeply unsettling.
Neighbor suddenly mistrusts neighbor. Friend mistrusts friend. Customer mistrusts vendor. People are shutting themselves in. Hiding from one another.
Walker is hearing from his patients, from townspeople, from members of his own family, that suddenly the connectivity between them all feels toxic. Walker’s son Kristian, a former UI student, knew the victims.
His girlfriend is the daughter of the owner of the Mad Greek, where Xana and Maddie worked. Now the restaurant is closed, and a handwritten placard is in the window:
We are closed temporarily to mourn the loss of two staff members. We will update FB on status of store soon. Please keep all the family and friends of yesterday’s victims in your thoughts.
— MG Family
It’s all too close to feel comfortable. Because who knows who among them is the murderer?
You can pre-order The Idaho Four here.
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