Idaho State Police “temporarily” yanked horrifying crime scene photos of the off-campus house where Bryan Kohberger slaughtered four University of Idaho students from its website amid privacy concerns, the law enforcement agency revealed Thursday.
Thousands of previously unseen photos of the blood-soaked Moscow murder house were quietly uploaded by state authorities on Tuesday but were quickly scrubbed to further review, police told The Post.
“Following adjudication of the criminal case, the Idaho State Police received a large volume of public records requests seeking the photographs,” a spokesperson for the department said in a statement.
“In making the redactions, the Idaho State Police also chose to follow Judge Marshall’s permanent injunction, which required the City of Moscow to redact areas of the photographs depicting ‘any portion of the bodies of the decedents or the blood immediately surrounding them,’” the statement continued.
”After questions were raised, the records were temporarily removed for further review to ensure the appropriate balance between privacy concerns and public transparency was struck.”
Police vowed to re-release the photos “soon,” but didn’t provide an exact date.
Authorities also acknowledged the frustrations expressed by the victims’ families over the shocking faux pas.
“This was a tragic case, and we do not take the impact of the crime or the release of records lightly,” the statement said.
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The nearly 3,000 disturbing photos — obtained by the Daily Mail before being taken down — show blood splattered on nearly every surface of the ransacked bedrooms where Xana Kernodle, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen and Ethan Chapin were knifed to death as they slept on Nov. 13, 2022.
Haunting images showed puddles of blood on the floors and gore dripping from the walls.
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Other eerie shots captured mattresses, bed sheets, pillows, furniture, clothing and the victims’ personal belongings drenched in blood inside the trashed bedrooms.
Goncalves’ devastated family released a statement after the gruesome images were made public, claiming they were only given a 12-minute “heads up” from police before the photos were published.
“Please be kind & as difficult as it is, place yourself outside of yourself & consume the content as if it were your loved one,” the family wrote in a lengthy statement on Facebook Tuesday night.
“Murder isn’t entertainment & crime scene photos aren’t content.”
Kohberger, 31, copped to the quadruple killings when he took a surprise plea deal last July, just weeks before his highly anticipated trial was set to kick off.
However, the deal saw him skirt the possibility of the death penalty, enraging some of the families of his victims and leaving the loved ones with no explanation for why he committed the heinous murders.
He is serving four life sentences without the possibility of parole at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution.
