THE IDAHO STUDENT MURDERS

US, 2025, 90 minutes, Colour.

Directed by Catherine Park.

In Moscow, Idaho, the University campus, four students were stabbed to death in November 2022.

The first part of this crime documentary focuses on the victims, establishing them as persons, personalities, their characters, likability, their family families and friends. The device is having four girls, close friends of the victims, sitting at a table, being interviewed about the friendship, tearfully sometimes, smiling at other times, bringing their dead friends to life. There are many photos, there are many video clips, a lot of tick-tock photography, and many close-ups of the four victims, very attractive in their appearance and personalities, sympathetic to the audience.

The next part of the film focuses on the initial investigations, indications, footage of a car circling the apartment block where the murders took place, the finding of a knife she is and the exploration of DNA and connections.

There are quite a number of experts who speak to camera, giving explanations of procedures, the defence lawyer questioning some of the evidence and its reliability, the prosecuting lawyer highlighting the importance of evidence and procedures. There are some criminologists interviewed, journalists covering the case, and a former FBI agent elaborating on procedures.

What follows then is the focus on the chief suspect, from Pennsylvania, studying at the University of Washington, studying criminology. The mysterious car is linked to him. There are interviews with his family. Gradually there is a buildup of his family background, tensions, his personality, his being bullied at school, his exercise in reducing his weight, some heroine addiction back recovery, his going to study criminology.

Once again, there is video material from his past, quite a number of photos, the camera dwelling on them, especially in close-up. He is named, a number of witnesses talking about him and his personality and life, his studies.

He is arrested, charged, pleading not guilty.

There are some sequences at the beginning of 2025, especially with the brother of one of the murdered women, and his discussing with a pod cast are who specialises in crime and who has been interviewed throughout the film, especially with her investigations and her pod casts.

The film and suddenly with, in 2025, the accused pleading guilty.