The first call to the man, Jack DuCoeur, was at 2:26 a.m., and there were six more over the next 26 minutes, with the final one at 2:52, Ms. Goncalves said. She said that Mr. DuCoeur, also a student at the university, had missed the calls because he was sleeping, and that her sister’s phone account did not show any other calls.
Ms. Goncalves said Mr. DuCoeur, who did not respond to a request to discuss the case, had been a childhood friend of her sister’s. She said that they had been dating for years until recently, when they decided to take an amicable break. Ms. Goncalves said she and her family “stand behind Jack 100 percent and know he absolutely had nothing to do with this at all.”
At a news conference, Chief Fry said he believed the man that the women called did not have any connection to the crime.
Ms. Goncalves said that the number of calls was not unusual: Kaylee Goncalves would frequently call people late at night, and often until they picked up, even to ask a mundane question like what she should have for a meal.
Bill Thompson, the top prosecutor in Latah County, said investigators were looking at cellphone tower data and social media information to try to determine who was in the immediate area at the time of the killings.
The victims had spent the night socializing.
It had been a typical Saturday night in Moscow, with many students from campus going out to socialize after watching a University of Idaho football game.
Mr. Chapin and Ms. Kernodle, who had been dating since the spring semester, attended a party at the Sigma Chi fraternity from about 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. near the home where the attack later occurred, the authorities said. Ms. Mogen and Ms. Goncalves had gone together to the Corner Club Bar at about 11 p.m., staying there until 1:30 a.m.
