Link: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/oct/02/people-want-the-university-of-idaho-murder-victims/

A lawsuit filed last week in Walla Walla from the families of Madison Mogen, Ethan Chapin and Kaylee Goncalves, who were killed in an off-campus Moscow home by former Washington State University graduate student Bryan Kohberger on Nov. 13, 2022, seeks to bar avid requesters from gaining access to the victims’ cell phone data.

The suit claims six people filed overly broad records requests for the victims’ phone data to the Walla Walla Police Department, which assisted Moscow police in data extraction.

Xana Kernodle was also one of the four killed, but does not have a family member named in the lawsuit.

According to records requests attached to the lawsuit, the requesters were asking for the “full digital extraction files” from the victims’ phones as well as metadata, photographs, screenshots, emails and other documentation during the investigation. Though Walla Walla police helped extract the phone data, Moscow police is the custodian of those records, the lawsuit states.

The requests are also overly broad and hamper the ability of city staff to access, review and identify such records. Some requesters appear to be people also posting photos on popular social media threads about the case.

The families argue the release of the phone data, which holds extremely personal information and intimate conversations between friends and family, would cause them “irreparable harm.”

“A blanket request for all data on these phones violates the rights of the children, our families, and everyone whose information is in the data,” said Chapin’s mother, Stacy Chapin, in a statement released Friday.

Washington law states certain records can be withheld if the records violate someone’s privacy by being “highly offensive” and if it is not of legitimate concern to the public. Goncalves’ sister, Alivea, said in a statement that “the public’s right to know has limits” and called the requests an intrusion into her family’s privacy.