As the investigation into the
murders of four University of Idaho
students continues this evening,
the university is holding a vigil
in memory of Ethan Madison,
Kaylee and Zanna. News Channel 7.
Brian Holmes and Morgan Romero joins
us live this evening from Moscow.
ID. Brian Morgan, we see it's a,
you know, a very cold day up there,
but what's the feeling in town ahead
of this vigil in about an hour?
There are a lot of people in
the area we're at right now
because this is the media parking
location where we're standing,
that vigil starting at 5:00 o'clock Pacific.
So at about an hour,
6:00 o'clock mountain time for you guys,
as you mentioned, it's cold.
So they moved the vigil from
outside where it was originally
planned to inside the Kibbie Dome.
There's going to be a lot of space
for everybody that wants to come
support and honor those victims.
And of course holding it after Thanksgiving
break when students return because
so many students and staff wanted to
be here. The media that
you mentioned over there,
the parking lot is more than two dozen.
Cars of people that have come here,
to be here, to be here for this
and to report on it for radio,
radio stations,
for TV stations all over the country.
I mean, the national media has descended
upon this town and has some people
have been here well since a couple
days after the tragedy happened.
And you know what,
there's also a pretty good journalism
school here at the university.
And those students,
they run the school paper.
They also run the school radio station.
And that got us thinking about what
it would be like to be a student
who's also trying to be a journalist
here at the University of Idaho,
to be a young person who's involved
and connected to the community.
And then have to cover a tragedy
like this while at the same time
still trying to process all of it.
The weather for the Moscow Pullman area
a blast of winter blew into
Moscow a bit early overnight.
Winter Storm warning continues until
7:00 PM Thursday. To be like this,
I guess, into tomorrow too,
so we'll probably get quite a bit,
but it still pales in comparison to
the storm that hit this college town
a little more than two weeks ago.
And the aftermath?
Has been falling continuously
since it feels. Safe.
Typically, Abigail Spencer is
a junior studying journalism
at the University of Idaho.
If I was going to study journalism
anywhere near where I grew up,
it would probably be here.
She's not only KUOI's news producer,
she's also the news editor of
the school paper the Argonaut.
We really do have one of the best
public journalism programs in the
Pacific Northwest, if not the nation.
In the last two weeks,
they've written more than a dozen stories,
lots on the quadruple murder
in a home off King Rd.
It's really just been increasing coverage.
As more stuff has come out,
Abigail says she got into journalism
for the service aspect of it.
I want to give back to my community.
She's done that by covering everything
from student government to city
government to events on campus
and off like every other student.
Abigail got the Vandal alert
on Sunday, November 13th.
The thing is, like, Vandal
alerts are normally about like the moose.
It's normally like, hey,
there's a moose on campus,
don't go pet it.
And then it's like, hey.
Moscow police discovered
that someone got murdered.
Be careful,
even she wasn't sure what
to make of it at first.
I will say the first few hours I didn't
quite, it didn't quite make like I
didn't quite click for me until.
I will say, we had a news meeting
that night and that's when it really
clicked for me that that happened.
What happened at the meeting?
We got an initial report of what happened.
Which really shook us as well as that
was right around the same time we
found out that it was four people.
For something like this to have happened
was kind of earth shattering for us.
And I think a lot of people were really
scared and that hasn't really faded.
But yeah.
So how does a journalism student handle
covering the murder of her fellow students?
Abigail says it's a separation with
which she is still coming to terms.
I will say I don't think I've quite clicked
fully out of journalist mode and I don't
think because I think my first instinct
was almost in a self preservation to
click into journalist mode. So I think.
There wasn't really a time that I just
was thinking about it as a student.
Cutting yourself off from your
feelings isn't good journalism either,
because it makes you become like this,
like callous robot.
Instead, I think I I feel those feelings,
but I set them aside.
So I can do my job.
This is a tight knit community.
This thing kind of affects everybody,
has affected everybody. Can you still?
Look at this objectively.
We're trying to balance it because
we know we're not objective.
We're still students. We're also
dealing with this in our community.
Has it changed your mind of this career?
No. Or is it reinforced it
anything? It's reinforced it because
before this I was thinking like,
you know, is it really worth it?
And then it kind of really just
reminded me why we do what we do here.
And it has reminded me why I do what I do.
There's sometimes that it feels
like drudgery and monotony,
but things like this,
and being able to give a mouthpiece
to those who are suffering and those
who are hurting is really a great
reminder of why I do what I do.
Abigail told me she was able
to process this a little bit
over the Thanksgiving break,
so she has had a little bit
of time to deal with it,
but for the most part has had to
transform back into the journalist
mode as opposed to just being a
student and processing all of this.
It's also been hard because she
knows that there are a lot of other
things to cover on this campus.
But this story has been all
consuming for the last two weeks,
and that's been the tragedy.
She talked about the fear a little bit,
and she said something today when
we spoke to her that she brought
this quote everybody likes.
That is quite common that people know about.
You know, courage isn't the absence of fear.
But it's facing that fear and still
doing what you need to do anyway.
Yeah, I like that.
And it's, I like what she said,
too, about as a journalist,
you can't completely desensitize yourself.
You know, it's difficult.
You have to do the job and it's important.
But when you have personal
ties to something like this,
it's important that you can
relate and empathize as well. So
the hardest part, she said,
is going to vigils like
what is happening tonight.
She said. That's been the
most difficult part for her.