'Hot Prowl entries': Internet says Idaho murders have eerie similarities with 1997 Grangegorman killings
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MOSCOW, IDAHO: More than a month has passed since four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death in their beds. In the early morning hours of November 13, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were stabbed to death in an off-campus three-story rented home. Law enforcement is yet to identify the suspect(s) in the case. Authorities have said that the gory scene where the students were killed was the “worst they’ve ever seen."
Ever since the murders took place, many compared the case to Gainesville Ripper Danny Rolling's murders. While some said it resembled Ted Tundy's attack on women in the Chi Omega house in Tallahassee, others remembered the murder of University of North Carolina student Faith Hedgepeth.
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An Internet user has now said the murders are eerily similar to the Grangegorman killings. The notorious case involved the brutal murders of Sylvia Shields and Mary Callinan, patients at St Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital in Grangegorman, Dublin, Ireland, in March 1997. Dean Lyons was charged with the murders.
The Grangegorman killings
"I would like to share with you a murder case that is very similar to the Moscow Idaho murders. I'm Irish. This double murder happened in 1997, in Dublin, Ireland, where I grew up. At the time, I was living only 15 minutes walk from the murder scene," a user wote on Reddit.
"On the night of 6th March 1997, an intruder broke into a house in Grangegorman (a normal residential area in Dublin, Ireland). The occupants of the house, three middle-aged women, were asleep in bed," the user wrote, describing the killings. "The intruder entered the back garden through an unlocked gate and gained access to the house by breaking a kitchen window at the rear. He carefully removed the broken pieces of glass and stacked them on the ground outside before climbing through the window. In the kitchen, he opened all of the drawers and took out a number of large knives and a carving fork."
"The intruder went upstairs. Halfway up the stairs, there was a small landing area with a door that led to a bedroom. The intruder apparently was not aware there was a bedroom here. (He may not have known it was a bedroom as this layout is strange in an Irish house.) He passed by this door without opening it and continued to the top of the stairs," he continued. "When he reached the 2nd floor, he entered the first bedroom he came to. This was the bedroom of Sylvia Shields (57). The killer stabbed her to death and then moved to the next bedroom, that of Mary Callinan (61). Mary must have heard some noise because she was just getting out of bed and beginning to stand up when the killer attacked her and stabbed her to death."
"Both victims were stabbed in the face, neck and chest. The chest wounds were fatal. Neither of the victims had any defensive wounds. Most of the injuries to their bodies were inflicted post-mortem. The Gardai said that the killer "inflicted wounds of an extent and nature never previously encountered in a murder investigation [in Ireland]"," the user added.
The user said in the post that the wounds of the second victim was much more ferocious than that of the first. In the Idaho case, it was reported that Kaylee Goncalves' injuries were more brutal than the others', leading to some assuming that she may have been the killer's target.
"After he had finished mutilating both victims, the killer walked halfway down the stairs and checked the third bedroom (the door he had passed before). Inside, a third woman was asleep in the bed. She had slept through the attacks. This woman wore headphones and listened to music at night to help her sleep. We know that he stood in the room and watched her sleep because of blood evidence found on the doorknob and the bottom of her bed, and also because months later, in his confession, the killer was able to describe the headphones she was wearing," the user said. "The killer left this woman untouched. He went downstairs and checked a 4th bedroom on the 1st floor. It was unoccupied. We know this because the killer's bloody boot print was later found on the floor inside the room. After that, the killer exited the house, not in the way he had come in, but through the front door."
The Idaho killer entering the house, killing the four students and leaving two others unharmed is eerily similar to the Grangegorman killings. Records show that the Idaho killer possibly crept through a series of rooms on both floors of the apartment. They may have entered through a sliding door before going on the killing spree. The killer is said to have murdered the victims on the second and third floors after looking around the house. Two of the victims were on the second floor and the other two on the third when the killer stabbed them to death. Two students, Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen were left untouched.
Creepy similarities
The user listed similarities between the Idaho murders and Grangegorman, the most noticeable of which was the 'Hot Prowl' entry. A 'Hot Prowl' is a burglary when the suspect enters or attempts to enter a house while someone is at home. In both cases, the victims were at home, sleeping.
The user also noted how the suspect used a knife and attacked multiple victims while they were in their beds, sleeping. In both cases, the killer did not disturb other potential victims.
Meanwhile, as the Idaho killer remains at large, it has been revealed that the lead investigator in case is reportedly 32-year-old US Army veteran Brett Payne, who joined the Moscow Police Department from the army in 2020, just two years ago. This week, the FBI reportedly added 30 extra agents to the case.