University of Idaho students had locks fixed the weekend before the murders

One of the four murdered University of Idaho students had visited her father and fixed a lock in the house the weekend before she and her friends were brutally murdered, her mother said in a new interview.

Xana Kernodle’s father had visited the home during a visit in the first week of November and repaired a lock, her mother, Cara Denise Northington, told NewsNation on Friday.

The distraught mother wasn’t sure if the updated lock was on the front door of the Moscow home or on Kernodle’s bedroom – each of the six bedrooms has its own coded lock – but was certain Kernodle’s father was about to quadruple murder one had crafted.

A knife-wielding mystery killer brutally stabbed Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves early on November 13th.

The locks could be a clue as to who the killer might be, Northington said.

“I think they knew her,” Northington said of her daughter’s killer. “I think they might even have been friends with them. I think there must have been someone close to her that got away with it like that.”

“It just doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. It must have been someone they trusted.”

Police have theorized that a stalker stalking Goncalves could be the culprit, but Northington believes the crime goes “much deeper”.

Officials recently returned to their theory that the victims were targeted, but Northington remains confident the four students were singled out by their killer because of their close relationship with one another.

The grieving mother fought back tears during the nearly 20-minute interview, during which she made multiple complaints that police were withholding information.

James Keivom

Xena Kernodle/Instagram

James Keivom

Here’s the latest coverage of the brutal murders of four college friends:

“I learned more from the news and television than they told me,” Northington said.

“I think they have information they’re not giving us. And it’s really lazy. I will say that.”

Goncalves’ family complained to NewsNation on Friday that police were not accommodating to the victims’ families. Goncalves’ mother has expressed concern that officers are too quick to acquit people linked to the killings.

“Some of the names that have been floating around, I think it’s hard not to go into that and I don’t know how much of that we have, so little information from law enforcement, and how much of that is really sister or intuition of a father,” said Alivea Goncalves, Kaylee’s sister.

“I just feel like there were a few people who got deleted very quickly, which maybe shouldn’t have been,” said Kristi Goncalves, Kaylee’s mother.

Police said they released several people, including the person who made the 911 call, two housemates who lived in the home but were unharmed, and another person whose name is on the lease.