Demolition started Thursday on the house where four University of Idaho students were brutally murdered last year.
The sun was barely up over 1122 King Road in Moscow when excavators started dismantling the structure, photos showed.
The university announced plans to tear down the off-campus home earlier this month — 13 months after Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20, were found stabbed to death inside on Nov. 13, 2022.
“It is the grim reminder of the heinous act that took place there,” University of Idaho president Scott Green wrote in a school-wide memo.
The house has been set for demolition since earlier this year, when the owner of the property donated the crime scene to the university.
The defense team for Bryan Kohberger, the prime suspect in the killings, paid one final visit to the property to take photographs, measurements and drone footage before the scheduled demo, the university statement added.
The prosecution also visited the site on Dec. 21, an additional memo announced.
The Thursday demolition started amid protests from the family members of some of the victims, including the parents of Goncalves.
“PLEASE STOP THE DEMOLITION OF THE KING ROAD HOME!” the grieving family posted on Facebook Thursday morning.
“When the victim’s can’t speak you have to speak for them when you feel someone is hurting the case,” they continued, arguing that the house should stay standing for “basic evidentiary purposes.”
Goncalves was discovered stabbed to death on the second floor of the home, in the same bed as Mogen.
Kernodle and Chapin, her boyfriend, were found together on the third floor, according to court documents reviewed by People.
In their statement, the Goncalves family suggested that keeping the King Road home intact could help jurors visualize the perspective of the two surviving roommates who were home when the murders took place.
They also asked if Kohberger, 28, could have targeted the house itself.
Kohberger was arrested in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30, 2022, after DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene.
A probable cause affidavit later revealed that his cellphone data placed him in the area of King Road multiple times in the months before the stabbings.
But a trial expert previously warned that taking jurors to visit the scene — which has been boarded up and guarded 24/7 for the past year — would be a “logistics nightmare.”
“Usually when you go to trial it’s at least a year after the allegation occurred. So by that time the scene is done. You’re not gonna have yellow tape everywhere, you’re not gonna have bloodstains, and you’re not gonna see anything,” he explained.
Kohberger — who was pursuing a doctorate in criminology at Washington State University in Pullman at the time of the murders — waived his right to a speedy trial in August.
Prosecutors are pushing for a summer 2024 start date, CBS News reported.
The University of Idaho scheduled the tear-down for winter break to “decrease further impact on the students who live in that area,” the official memo noted.
The university will also be building a garden in memory of the four victims on campus, the administration previously announced.
Kohberger is facing four counts of first-degree murder in addition to one charge of felony burglary.
Prosecutors announced earlier this year that they are seeking the death penalty.
