On a chilling November morning in 2022, the small college town of Moscow, Idaho, was thrust into the global spotlight after a harrowing crime shattered not only four young lives but also the illusion of safety that accompanies the rite of passage known as college life. For many families, sending their children off to college is an emotional milestone — a time of pride, joy, and anticipation for the future. But for two sets of parents, this hopeful chapter was brutally closed just a week into its opening.
Prime Video’s One Night in Idaho: The College Murders, a four-part documentary directed by acclaimed filmmaker Liz Garbus alongside Matthew Galkin, revisits this tragedy — not to mine it for sensationalist fodder or grotesque reenactments, but to honor those who were lost and explore the lingering emotional aftermath for the people left behind. In an oversaturated true crime landscape often obsessed with gore, plot twists, and perpetrator psychology, Garbus and Galkin choose an empathetic and restrained route. And in doing so, they breathe something genuinely human into a story that many thought they already knew.
The Heartbeat of the Story: Those Left Behind
Garbus is no stranger to stories shaped by grief and injustice. Her previous work — including Lost Girls, which followed the unsolved Gilgo Beach serial killings, and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, about Michelle McNamara’s obsessive pursuit of the Golden State Killer — consistently prioritizes the emotional cost of violence over the spectacle of it. One Night in Idaho continues in that tradition. For nearly half of the series, viewers never hear the name of the accused murderer. Instead, Garbus and Galkin dedicate the opening episodes to painting full, warm, and layered portraits of the victims: Maddie Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin.
Their lives — bright, joyful, complicated — are illuminated through hundreds of personal photographs, social media snippets, and most powerfully, the voices of their closest loved ones. It becomes evident how much of modern youth culture is documented online, but rather than feel voyeuristic, the footage here is used respectfully to restore humanity to the four victims. From stories told by Ethan’s twin brother to Maddie’s mother recalling their last conversation, the documentary doesn’t just memorialize — it mourns with grace.
True crime, at its worst, is guilty of speeding through a victim’s story to get to the murder itself. But One Night in Idaho is different. It asks the viewer to pause, to sit with the ache of parents and friends who are still trying to comprehend their loss. The approach feels almost radical in a genre where the names of killers often eclipse those they took away. Garbus and Galkin make sure the opposite happens here.
Reconstructing the Bonds at 1122 King Road
The series gently reconstructs the close-knit relationships inside the off-campus residence at 1122 King Road, the site of the tragedy. Through loving anecdotes, we come to understand the dynamic between the housemates and their friends — their laughter, their dreams, and the unremarkable normalcy of their college routines. Their lives were filled with pizza nights, campus events, road trips, and all the beautiful banality that defines young adulthood.
And that’s the point — these were ordinary, vibrant young people, living in a safe, sleepy college town. The randomness and cruelty of what happened to them is what makes it all the more terrifying.
The documentary doesn’t dramatize their final moments. Instead, it highlights what their lives meant — to their siblings, their parents, their friends, and even to strangers who would come to know them only in death. And by focusing on the emotional and relational nuances of each victim, the filmmakers ensure that audiences will remember Maddie, Kaylee, Xana, and Ethan not for how they died, but for how they lived.
The Slow Unveiling of the Crime
Eventually, of course, One Night in Idaho must address the crime itself — the titular “one night” that altered so many lives. But this segment of the documentary is not a descent into bloody details or procedural theatrics. Rather, it’s an exploration of how the community and the broader world reacted, tried to make sense of the tragedy, and, in some cases, spun off into harmful speculation.
Social media emerges as both a connective and destructive force in the series’ middle chapters. Online sleuths, fueled by amateur detective fervor, quickly formed groups, some of which devolved into echo chambers of conspiracy theories and baseless accusations. The line between public interest and morbid curiosity blurred rapidly, revealing an unsettling reality of the digital age: when tragedy strikes, there’s an online audience eager not just to witness but to speculate and even insert themselves into the narrative.
In a deeply chilling twist, it is revealed that the alleged perpetrator may have been lurking within these groups, possibly engaging in discussions about the very murders he’s now accused of committing. That detail alone could have been sensationalized in countless ways, but the directors resist that temptation. They keep their lens trained firmly on the people affected, on the anxiety of waiting for answers, and on the ache of knowing those answers will never be satisfactory.
Enter: Brian Kohberger
Eventually, the series names Brian Kohberger — the Washington State University criminology student who now stands accused of the killings. Kohberger’s arrest brought an eerie blend of relief and horror to the community. Relief that someone had been caught. Horror that the accused was a criminology doctoral student with a known obsession with serial killers.
Kohberger’s past is scrutinized only as far as necessary. His unsettling behavior in class — including designing a psychological questionnaire for criminals — and his possible fascination with past mass murderers are touched upon. But One Night in Idaho wisely doesn’t attempt to create a comprehensive psychological profile. Because the truth is, there may be no satisfying explanation. This wasn’t a crime of passion or provocation; it appears to have been random, unmotivated, and devoid of logic. That very fact deepens the tragedy.
The documentary acknowledges this ambiguity without trying to resolve it. And in doing so, it resists a trap that many other true crime stories fall into: the desire to explain evil as if it were a puzzle that can be solved.
The Art of Restraint
Much of what makes One Night in Idaho so effective is what it chooses not to do. There are no reenactments. No crime scene recreations. No graphic autopsy details. And though such decisions might disappoint viewers who come to true crime expecting forensic drama or plot twists, Garbus and Galkin understand that restraint is often the most powerful form of storytelling. The horror of this case doesn’t need embellishment. It’s in the silence that follows a parent’s tears. It’s in the quiet dignity with which friends speak of their lost companions.
The series also benefits from strong editorial choices. Though it spans four hour-long episodes, the pacing feels patient rather than sluggish — although some might argue that the story could have been told within a single feature-length documentary. That may be true in terms of pure runtime, but the emotional scope requires time to settle. Grief isn’t efficient. Healing isn’t tidy. And the extra breathing room gives space for those left behind to speak in full sentences — and full emotions — rather than in soundbites.
Reclaiming the True in True Crime
One of the final, most resonant takeaways from One Night in Idaho is its implicit call to reshape the true crime genre itself. For decades, true crime has gravitated toward the lurid — focusing on the “how” and “who” rather than the “why” and “what now.” But that trend is slowly changing, and Liz Garbus is at the forefront of that evolution.
If this genre is going to survive with its integrity intact, it must prioritize empathy over entertainment. It must tell stories not of monsters, but of the humans they wounded. One Night in Idaho doesn’t just comply with this vision — it champions it. The focus remains firmly on the victims and their communities, offering a counter-narrative to the cultural tendency to immortalize killers while leaving victims as footnotes.
The haunting power of this series lies in its simplicity: it gives voice to pain without turning it into spectacle. It tells us that Kaylee, Maddie, Xana, and Ethan mattered — not just as names in headlines, but as people who danced, loved, laughed, and were deeply loved in return.
Final Thoughts
In the crowded arena of true crime docuseries, One Night in Idaho: The College Murders rises above the fray by refusing to look away from what really matters — the enduring, unbearable grief of those left in the wake of senseless violence. While it may not offer new investigative breakthroughs or shocking revelations, its true achievement lies in reframing the narrative away from the perpetrator and toward the human cost.
This is not just a documentary about a murder. It’s a meditation on loss, resilience, and the fragile thread of normalcy that binds our lives — until, in one horrifying instant, it snaps.
And by the end of those four episodes, you’ll remember Kaylee’s smile, Ethan’s warmth, Maddie’s laughter, and Xana’s energy far more vividly than the name of the man who took them. That’s the kind of storytelling that honors life, even when it’s been so cruelly taken.
