LEADORE, Idaho — It’s a mystery that has baffled people around the world for the past 10 years.

On July 10, 2015, Idaho Falls toddler DeOrr Kunz Jr. vanished from the Timber Creek Campground in Lemhi County. Over the past decade, investigators have visited the remote campsite dozens of times, multiple searches have been conducted, private investigators have performed their own analysis, and countless theories have emerged about the case.

To this day, nobody has been arrested or charged in connection with his disappearance, and the question asked 10 years ago remains the same: Where is DeOrr?

The camping trip

DeOrr and his parents, Jessica Mitchell and Vernal DeOrr Kunz, left Idaho Falls the afternoon of July 9, 2015, for a camping trip in Lemhi County.

Deorr’s great-grandfather, Robert Walton, and his friend, Isaac Reinwand, drove in a separate vehicle and met up with the young family at Timber Creek Campground, a remote area about 125 miles northwest of Idaho Falls near Leadore.

By the time the two groups arrived, it was dark. Reinwand slept in a tent, Walton slept in his camper and DeOrr slept with his parents in the back of Walton’s blue Chevy Blazer.

The next morning, July 10, Reinwand recalled seeing DeOrr as everyone ate breakfast. The child was wearing large cowboy boots and “clumping around” the campsite, Reinwand told EastIdahoNews.com in a 2016 interview.

Around noon, Mitchell and Kunz said they took DeOrr to the Stage Stop Junction store in Leodore, around a 30-minute drive on rocky terrain from the campground. They returned to the campsite, and the parents went off to explore.

“They left DeOrr in the care of the grandfather. They went fishing for a little bit and then came back, and he was gone,” former Lemhi County Sheriff Steve Penner told EastIdahoNews.com this week. “(Walton) thought he was with them. Isaac was off in the creek fishing.”

Kunz and Mitchell began looking for their son. When they couldn’t find him, Kunz jumped into his truck and drove down a dirt road so he could get cellphone reception to call for help. Mitchell’s phone was able to get a signal from the campground, and she called 911 at 2:28 p.m.

“My 2-year-old son … we can’t find him,” Mitchell told the dispatcher. “He was wearing cowboy boots, pajama pants and a camo jacket, and he’s got shaggy blond hair.”

Nobody else was camping near the family that day, and the site has a large hill on one side with an 8- to 10-foot descending hill leading to a creek on the other.

“It’s such a small area – that’s what a lot of people don’t understand. They just assume, ‘How could you let your kid out of your sight?’ Well, this area is pretty well blocked in and there’s no way you couldn’t not see him,” Kunz told EastIdahoNews.com in 2015.

Search efforts

Over the next 48 hours, search and rescue teams scoured the area on foot, ATVs, horses and in helicopters. K9 dogs were brought in, and divers focused on a nearby reservoir and the creek.

“We searched that real intently. It’s not very deep, but we put divers in there on their bellies and removed all the log jams and brush piles and things like that,” Penner said.

John Bennett, who is now the Lemhi County sheriff, was one of the divers. He recalls over 200 people showing up around the third day to help look for DeOrr.

“Search and rescue coordinated grid search efforts. Basically, you could hold hands — and we went in a line, walking step by step through the campsite,” Bennett said this week.

In the days after his disappearance, Kunz and Mitchell said they believed their son had been kidnapped and made a public plea for him to be returned.

“Who would harm us this way?” Mitchell said. “Especially knowing how much he means to us. He’s everything to us. … If somebody has him, please don’t hurt him. Just bring him home safely where he belongs.”

Posters and billboards featuring DeOrr’s photo were plastered across eastern Idaho. The Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI were brought in to assist the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office. Tips poured in from across the country, including a possible sighting of the toddler at a Motel 6 in California that turned out to be false.

Mitchell, Kunz, Reinwand and Walton were interviewed by law enforcement and have been cooperative since the beginning, according to Penner. Kunz and Mitchell voluntarily took lie detector tests, and then-Sheriff Lynn Bowerman said in July 2015 that investigators did not suspect foul play.

But in January 2016, Bowerman named DeOrr’s parents as suspects and told EastIdahoNews.com they had been “less than truthful” in interviews and polygraph tests.

“Their timeline keeps changing, where they were at keeps changing, and movements and statements about DeOrr Jr. keep changing,” Bowerman said at the time. “Their statements don’t match, and it’s frustrating because we have absolutely no idea where DeOrr is. There have been so many inconsistencies that it’s hard to tell the truth from everything they’ve said.”

Penner and Bennett do not consider Mitchell and Kunz suspects; rather, they say everyone at the campsite that day is a “person of interest” because they were the last people to see DeOrr.

Rumors, national media and private investigators

As the search for the young boy heated up, so did rumors and online speculation.

Theories were shared on social media, and commenters attacked Kunz and Mitchell on websites, YouTube videos and other platforms. In response, officials issued a statement reminding the public that “details regarding this case will come from the Lemhi County Sheriff’s Office, and we will not release information based on speculation or unverified facts.”

In June 2016, DeOrr’s face was featured on the cover of People magazine with the headline “Without a Trace” and documentaries, television shows and podcasts have been produced about the case.

In 2017, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released an age-progressed photo of DeOrr, showing what he could have looked like when he was 4 years old.

Over the past 10 years, three private investigators have conducted their own examinations into the case.

Frank Vilt worked with the family early on and believed initially that DeOrr was abducted. But, in early 2016, he ended his involvement and said Kunz and Mitchell lied about their son’s disappearance. Vilt died in August 2023.

Philip Klein, a private investigator based in Texas, then joined the case. He spent months interviewing the parents, Walton, Reinwand and other family members. Klein concluded DeOrr was the victim of an accidental homicide and that Mitchell and Kunz were involved.

The third private investigator, David Marshburn, is currently working with the family and has a different theory. He believes the parents had nothing to do with the disappearance and says Reinwand knows more than he is saying. Reinwand insists he had nothing to do with the disappearance.

Penner and Bennett told EastIdahoNews.com they will not comment on other investigators but appreciate tips that are shared with the sheriff’s office.

Where the case stands today

Penner and Bennett visited Timber Creek Campground with EastIdahoNews.com on Wednesday. They both walked around the campsite, stared into the creek, lifted up rocks off the ground and then drove around the reservoir.

Penner estimates he’s been here 100 times over the past 10 years and has repeatedly said, “When someone is lost, you look for them.”

Even though he is no longer sheriff, he remains on the Lemhi County Search and Rescue team. He and Bennett are close and neither one of them plans to stop looking for DeOrr.

Over the years, bones have been found at the campsite. Investigators send photos to anthropologists at Idaho State University, and in each case, they’ve turned out to be animal remains. In one instance, a bone was sent to the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, for testing; but again, it was from an animal.

Other possible evidence has been processed, but so far, there have been no solid leads.

“Everything that we have sent to the lab has been analyzed and it has not produced anything. None of the evidence has had a positive outcome,” Penner said.

The four adults at the campsite have tried to remain out of the spotlight over the years. Walton died in 2019, and when contacted for comment this week, Reinwand said he was trying to “put this behind him and move forward.”

Kunz declined to comment, but his attorney, Allen Browning, says his client “1,000% had nothing to do with his son’s disappearance.” He says Kunz and Mitchell have endured nonstop vitriol from the public over the years, forcing Kunz to leave Idaho Falls. The couple is no longer together.

In a statement to EastIdahoNews.com, Mitchell said, “Each of the 3,647 days have felt the same. The pain of him missing is still as real as day 1. I love and miss my son every day.”

Trina Clegg, Mitchell’s mother and DeOrr’s grandmother, says she and her family still visit Timber Creek Campground because the peace of the area gives her hope that she will see her grandson again.

“Our family is still grieving every day and does our best to stay positive for something to develop in this case,” she tells EastIdahoNews.com. “We still pray every day for an answer to what happened 10 years ago that still haunts us with heartfelt pain and grief, missing our sweet Baby DeOrr.”

Clegg adds, “If Baby DeOrr hears this, please know, sweet handsome DeOrr, you have a very devoted family that loves and cares for you every day and hopes one day you will come home.”

Bryan Kohberger, a painfully awkward, arrogant introvert and criminal justice student, believed he could have committed “the perfect murders,” James Patterson said.

“One of the things that professor [Dr. Katherine Ramsland] said that with murderers like this, they get tunnel vision – they panic, and they miss things,” the award-winning author told Fox News Digital. 

“So here was Kohberger who almost committed the perfect murders – except [he had] that tunnel vision,” Patterson shared. “He left that knife sheath behind. And that’s what ultimately led to his arrest.”

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Patterson, who has sold more than 425 million books, published over 260 New York Times bestsellers, and won 10 Emmy Awards, has teamed up with investigative journalist Vicky Ward to write a new book, “The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy.” 

Madison Mogen, top left, smiles on the shoulders of her best friend, Kaylee Goncalves, as they pose with Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, and two other housemates in Goncalves’ final Instagram post, shared the day before the four students were stabbed to death. (@kayleegoncalves/Instagram)

He is also a producer on the new Prime Video docuseries, “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders,” which is based on the book. Several loved ones of the victims spoke out in the film.

Fox News Digital reached out to Kohberger’s lawyer for comment.

In 2023, FOX Nation honored James Patterson with the “Back the Blue Award” for his work supporting law enforcement. (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Prime Video)

Kohberger, a former Washington State University criminology Ph.D. student, pleaded guilty on July 2 to killing four University of Idaho students on Nov. 13, 2022, as part of a deal with prosecutors to escape the death penalty.

The 30-year-old faces four consecutive life sentences for fatally stabbing 21-year-olds Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, as well as 20-year-olds Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin at their off-campus house.

For the book, Patterson and Ward conducted more than 300 interviews and took a deep dive into Kohberger’s upbringing.

The family of Madison Mogen, including mother Karen Laramie and stepfather Scott Laramie, walk out of the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, after a hearing in the case, on July 2, 2025. (Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

“He was inappropriate – he didn’t know how to socialize very well,” Patterson explained. “… He was a teaching assistant, and he was just turning people off. He graded the women poorly. He had an inability to deal with women, yet he thought he was popular. It was a thought of, why aren’t these people, these women, loving him? Because he found himself very worthy. And in this documentary, most of this comes out.”

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A side by side of Bryan Kohberger’s sophomore Pleasant Valley High School yearbook photo and his senior year. He later pleaded guilty to the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students. (Stephanie Pagones/Fox News Digital)

According to the book and docuseries, Kohberger may have been inspired by one killer – Elliot Rodger. The 22-year-old was obsessed with exacting “retribution” after experiencing what he claimed was a lifetime of social and sexual isolation, The Associated Press reported.

In 2014, Rodger killed six people in a stabbing and shooting spree in Isla Vista, California, before turning the gun on himself.

“No one knows that, like Rodger, Bryan is a virgin who hates women,” the book claimed. “No one knows that Bryan copes with loneliness by immersing himself in video games. Like Rodger, he goes for night drives. Like Rodger, he visits the gun range. And, like Rodger, he goes to a local bar and tries to pick up women.”

Happy memories of Christopher Michaels-Martinez are placed outside the entrance to IV Deli Mart in Isla Vista, California. The UCSB student was gunned down and killed in a shooting rage by Elliot Rodger. (Getty Images)

“Elliot Rodger wrote that he kept trying to place himself in settings where he could pick up women,” the book continued. “But no one noticed him. Bryan must think that surely he’ll be noticed. Women must spot his looks, his intelligence, and they must want him. They don’t.”

An undated photo of Elliot Rodger is seen at a press conference by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff in Goleta, California, on May 24, 2014. Rodger, 22, went on a rampage in Isla Vista near the University of California at Santa Barbara campus, stabbing three people to death at his apartment before shooting to death three more in a terrorizing crime spree through the neighborhood.  (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Patterson pointed out that at the Seven Sirens Brewing Company in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Kohberger would push his way into unwanted conversations with female bartenders and patrons. He went as far as asking for their addresses. Some women, according to the book, started complaining to the brewery’s owner about “the creepy guy with the bulging eyes.”

Bryan Kohberger enters the courtroom for his arraignment hearing in Latah County District Court, May 22, 2023, in Moscow, Idaho. (Zach Wilkinson-Pool/Getty Images)

Kohberger was adamant that women would notice him. But Patterson noted that to many, he was simply “off-putting.”

“He made people uncomfortable,” said Patterson. “The bartenders and owners remembered him as being this weird duck who would sit at a bar and just weird everybody out and talk inappropriately. He had a lot of trouble socializing.”

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“The Idaho Four: An American Tragedy” will be available for purchase on July 14. (Little, Brown and Company)

According to the book, Kohberger felt that by going to Moscow, Idaho, across the state border, he could find a girl willing to date him. He read about a place online called the Mad Greek where they sell vegan pizza – he’s vegan. When he walked inside, he noticed a blonde waitress – “Maddie” Mogen.

A photo of Madison Mogen, left, and Kaylee Goncalves, two of the University of Idaho students found dead in their off-campus home on Nov. 13, 2022. (Instagram/ @kayleegoncalves)

It’s been speculated by sources who spoke to Patterson that Mogen rejected Kohberger.

The book pointed out an eerie similarity.

“Elliot Rodger wrote of reuniting with a childhood friend named Maddy in the months before the day of retribution,” read the book. 

The Prime Video docuseries “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders” is based on James Patterson’s book. (Prime Video)

“She was a popular, spoiled USC girl who partied with her hot, popular blonde-haired clique of friends,” Rodger wrote, as quoted by the book. “My hatred for them all grew from each picture I saw of her profile. They were the kind of beautiful, popular people who lived pleasurable lives and would look down on me as inferior scum, never accepting me as one of them. They were my enemies. They represented everything that was wrong with this world.”

When asked if we’ll ever know Kohberger’s true motives for committing the murders, Patterson replied, “Oh, I think we already do [know].”

“One Night in Idaho” features interviews with several loved ones, including Karen Laramie, Maddie Mogen’s mother. (Prime Video)

“I think he had decided that Maddie… You could see it when you went by the house. You could see her room. Her name was up in the window of her room. We think it seems like he went there to deal with her. It seems fairly obvious. Will we know more? I don’t know. If he wants to be interviewed at this stage, I’m happy to go there and do an interview. And I’ve done that before – people who’ve gone to prison, and they decide that, all of a sudden, they want to talk.”

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Bryan Kohberger’s childhood home in Effort, Pennsylvania, located about 10 minutes north of Pleasant Valley High School, where he graduated in 2013. The family moved elsewhere in Monroe County in fall 2012, according to online messages between Kohberger and a high school friend. (Kevin Fixler/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Past acquaintances described Kohberger as frustrated by females – and even sexist as a result. One woman who met Kohberger on a Tinder date several years ago claimed on social media that her interaction with him was so awkward she pretended to vomit just to get him to leave her apartment. He also appeared to be well-versed in “incels,” or “involuntary celibates.”

“Pretty much everybody we talked to just said, ‘This is a strange man with a strange look – couldn’t look people in the eye,’” said Patterson. “If he did look at you in the eye, sometimes people wished that he hadn’t. And his impression of himself was totally out of whack with the way other people perceived him.”

Many of those who encountered Bryan Kohberger described him as “off-putting,” author James Patterson told Fox News Digital. (August Frank-Pool/Getty Images)

The book describes Kohberger as having once expressed an “offensive, anachronistic view of gender roles.” And following the murders, he may have viewed himself as a criminal mastermind.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland speaks about Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler, at Penn State Berks, circa 2016. (Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)

Moscow, Idaho, was overwhelmed by the gravity of his heinous crimes and the public scrutiny that came with it.

“You’ve got not only the murders here, but all of a sudden, you’ve got press from around the world in this small town,” Patterson explained. 

In “One Night in Idaho,” loved ones like Hunter Chapin, Ethan Chapin’s brother, spoke about the hurtful rumors that spread on social media following the murders. (Prime Video)

“You’ve got all of these rumors. One of the things in the book, and one of the saddest things that we discovered in the documentary, is the way that this stuff gets picked up by these true crime people, some of whom are vampires. They’re awful, they don’t care. They don’t take responsibility for their actions. And when you write a book or do a documentary, you have to be responsible for it. And we were responsible.”

WATCH: ATTORNEY FOR MADISON MOGEN’S FAMILY VOWS TO EMBARK ON A NEW PATH FOLLOWING BRYAN KOHBERGER’S GUILTY PLEA

And it could have been that “tunnel vision” Kohberger had that reportedly made him believe he wouldn’t get caught.

“Dr. Ramsland teaches her students that killers get tunnel vision when they are committing murder,” the book shared. “That’s why mistakes get made. Amid the high adrenaline and hyper-focus on the act itself, killers can forget things they otherwise would not.”

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Dr. Katherine Ramsland has written about serial killer Dennis Rader, also known as “BTK,” who stalked his victims in Wichita, Kansas. “BTK” stands for “Bind, Torture, Kill.” (Bo Rader-Pool/Getty Images)

And Kohberger’s family isn’t to blame, said Patterson.

“I think from everything we can gather, his parents did their best,” said Patterson. “They seemed to have done their best with him.”

Kohberger’s guilty plea doesn’t end the quest to seek more answers.

“Look, people talk,” said Patterson. “… When you’re in a big city, like New York, you’re kind of used to, unfortunately, to violence. But you’ve got these two college towns, Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Washington, and they don’t know what to make of this.

Brian Kohberger’s mugshot at the time of his arrest in December 2022. (Ada County Sheriff’s Office)

“… It’s a story of these families, and these kids… And, to some extent… the documentary – it will make you afraid. It will certainly make you feel what it was like to be in those towns during this period. What it was like the next day – the shock, the fear.”

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A memorial outside the home where four University of Idaho students were slain in Moscow, Idaho, on Oct. 31, 2023. The home was demolished in December of that year. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)

“It was a hard case to solve,” he reflected. “[Investigators] were very fortunate that Kohberger made that one really big blunder… He didn’t make a lot of mistakes. So it was a tough investigation… He might’ve never been caught. We might’ve been writing about God knows what right now.”

“One Night in Idaho” is now available for streaming. Fox News Digital’s Michael Ruiz, Audrey Conklin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Just days before the July 11 premiere of  “One Night in Idaho: The College Murders” on Prime Video, the coda to the four-episode docuseries had to be rewritten. Initially, the final card stated that Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students in November 2022, would face trial in 2025. But on June 30, Kohberger shocked those following the case by accepting a plea deal that spared him from the death penalty on the condition he plead guilty to the murders and waive his right to appeal. He will spend the rest of his life in prison, without the chance for parole.

The news stoked anger in some of the victims’ families, while others  accepted the prosecutors’ decision, with the second group including the families of Ethan Chapin and Maddie Mogen, who are featured in the docuseries, co-directed by Liz Garbus and Matthew Galkin. For Galkin, who was in attendance for Kohberger’s July 2 plea hearing, the sudden assemblage of everyone involved in the case was surreal. The families barely had 36 hours notice to get to Boise to be in the courtroom for the hearing. Galkin says he was on the first flight he could get.

“The atmosphere in the courtroom was harrowing,” he tells Variety. “It was a combination of emotionally charged, obviously, but also extremely dramatic because you had basically every main player in this horrific saga in one room, finally, facing each other because, logistically, that’s the way the courtroom is set up. All the families and the prosecutors were looking one direction, but the plaintiff and his legal team were off to the side, looking back towards the families. So there were a lot of crossed eyelines going on, and it was a really, really intense thing to witness.”

Galkin and Garbus began documenting the case mere months after the murders, first contacting the Chapins (including Ethan’s triplet siblings Hunter and Maizie) in April 2023 and later the Laramies (Maddie’s parents). The families of the other two victims, Xana Kernodle and Kaylee Goncalves, did not participate in the series, but Garbus confirms they were approached. While the Chapins and Laramies had largely avoided talking to the media about their lost children and the horrors of the circumstances surrounding their deaths, Garbus and Galkin pitched a victim-forward style of filmmaking. In the years since the murders, the fascination surrounding Kohberger has been eclipsed only by the intense internet sleuths who thought –– and in many cases, still think –– they could solve a case with so many unanswered questions. Through it all, the victims were often pushed out of their own stories.

“We wanted to reclaim them from this maelstrom of social media,” Garbus says. “I will say a lot of those people on social media are very well-meaning. But there is a fervor around this case in which the victims can get lost.”

Garbus, one of the co-founders of the series’ producer Story Syndicate, took a similar approach earlier this year with Netflix’s “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer,” which chronicled the decades-long killing spree of sex workers in and around the Gilgo Beach area of Long Island . In that case, the victims had been dismissed by the institutions meant to protect them and the communities meant to shelter them because of their professions. Their families spent years just trying to get attention paid to their unsolved cases.

The opposite happened for Maddie, Kaylee, Xana and Ethan after the news broke that they had been murdered in an off-campus house on a Saturday night.

“In this case, it was the entire world wanting to solve this, casting aspersions on boyfriends and developing conspiracy theories that really overtook those who were living through the heart of this darkness,” Garbus says. “What I’m so proud of is that we were able to not just talk about them as victims, but get to know them as people. Who they were and what their dreams were, and how they were loving life in this incredible friend group.”

Also featured in the documentary are members of that friend group, including Hunter Johnson, Emily Alandt and Josie Lauteren, all of whom were among those who first discovered the bodies on November 13, 2022. Johnson and Alandt, specifically, became the subjects of cruel and targeted conspiracy theories online questioning their involvement, taking an emotional toll they address head-on in the series.

But last week’s abrupt end to the two-year legal effort to give the families and friends their day in court leaves one question unanswered –– why? Why did Kohberger — who was arrested in Pennsylvania on Dec. 30, 2022 — stalk, and then enter the off-campus apartment at 1122 King Road in Moscow, Idaho and stab four friends he did not know personally to death, while also leaving two others alive under the same roof? Why did he choose this close-knit group of friends, and who among them was his intended target?

None of these are questions the docuseries could answer, especially since law enforcement and the surviving roommates Dylan Mortensen and Bethany Funke have been under a gag order since the murders and remain so until a verdict is reached (that date will now be the July 23 sentencing hearing). But Galkin says the answers many outside observers hoped the trial would offer were never the only priority for the families.

“I think anyone interested in this case, obviously, would like to have an answer of why this happened at all,” Galkin says. “I don’t want to necessarily speak on behalf of the Chapins or Laramies, but they were never involved in the investigative details of this case. They were focused on their own grief, and ultimately their own healing. I’ve had the conversation with Stacy Chapin before, and she said, ‘Well, who cares? It’s not going to bring Ethan back.’ So answering the question of why is not foremost on her mind.”

Without the insight of law enforcement and the eyewitness accounts directly from Dylan and Bethany, Galkin and Garbus leaned even more heavily into the stories of the victims. To assist them, they combed through years of social media posts that unintentionally immortalized a friend group that was chronically online.

“People are obviously curated and selective with what they post on social media, so that’s the forward-facing image that everybody wants to project,” Galkin says. “We were trying to look under the hood as much as we could with the access that we had to their family and friends. But it is a fascinating component of this story, because they were so well-documented that it lent itself to millions of people feeling like they knew these kids.”

The mountain of visuals also offered the filmmakers an opportunity to faithfully and meticulously rebuild portions of the house at 1122 King Road, which was torn down in December 2023 after it had become a gruesome tourist attraction. Using social media posts, insight from their friends and even blueprints of the original home, the series’ creative team rebuilt the main entryway and staircase, the living room, Xana’s bedroom, Maddie’s bedroom and a small part of Dylan’s bedroom to scale on a soundstage in Brooklyn.

To put the viewer inside the home, the team sourced all of the furniture and wall treatments for each room from the original vendors. The set build and shoot took about a week, but the entire process –– including research, drafting and prep –– took months.

“We took that very seriously,” Galkin says “It was uncanny to the point that when we showed the series to the Chapin and Laramie families, they both turned to me and asked, ‘How did you guys get inside the house?’ Obviously, this was a house they knew really well. 

“We had the ability to do this really accurately,” Galkin continues, “and so we decided to capitalize on that — because it’s important to get the details right.”

Even armed with intense research, the directors were still confronted with surprises as they interviewed the families. In the final episode, Ethan’s father Jim unexpectedly shares what happened to his son’s cremated remains. The family couldn’t decide where he should be buried, so they brought him home. As Jim explains, now they visit with him every day and, when one of them passes, he will be buried with them. Until then, they didn’t want him to be alone.

The Chapin family had told Galkin nothing was off the table when they agreed to the interviews –– “If they were going to do this, they wanted to do it,” he says. But even he was taken aback at this admission.

“I didn’t know that Ethan’s remains were in the house at all,” he says. “It was nothing that had ever come up in some of our pre-interviews or earlier conversations. So when Jim said that to me, I mean — I started crying in the interview. The way he tells that story is so moving. I’m glad that we were able to capture it on camera. It is truly such a beautiful moment. Obviously, you feel the loss through the whole series, but that’s really a moment that crystallized it for me when we were shooting. It’s really heartbreaking.”

Both the Chapins and the Laramies were able to watch the series with Galkin and Garbus before its release, and prior to Kohberger’s plea deal. “As filmmakers, it was what you hope for,” Galkin says. “Karen Laramie described feeling a kind of lightness that she hadn’t felt since the murders. So I think there’s something very healing there.”

When news of the plea deal broke, questions circulated about what would happen to the docuseries. Should it be shelved out of respect? Does it even matter now, because the ending is already written? But Galkin is adamant that because their focus was always the victims, Kohberger’s plea deal only changed one thing.

“It changes the ending,” he says. “We changed the final card. But I don’t think knowing the ending completely changes the way you should look at these four hours.”

The filmmakers had planned to cover the trial, and potentially revisit the story with a possible second installment of the documentary. Without a trial, though, Galkin says they don’t know what is next. He remains close with the Chapins, with whom he attended the July 2 hearing. As for new interview subjects, he says they are interested in talking to law enforcement about the investigation, and would consider reaching out to the survivors to tell their story, which remains something that’s been revealed only through affidavits. But as of now, there is no formal plan in place for a followup.

“If there is an appetite, if there is more story to tell, 100% yes,” Galkin says. “But until then, we’re not going to put that kind of media attention on people, because you are entering their lives when you reach out to someone who has been going through something like this. So if we did it, we would want to do it as gently and delicately as possible. And without an actual production, there’s kind of no reason to reach out to them. So we’ll wait and see what happens.”

For now, Galkin will be in the courtroom on July 23 for the final appearance of Kohberger for sentencing. It will be the last time families can give victim impact statements and address the man who, on July 2, confirmed to a judge that he accepted the plea deal because he did, in fact, kill Xana, Ethan, Maddie and Kaylee. It isn’t known whether Kohberger will speak during the sentencing, to share his motive or what really happened in the King Road house. But Galkin says decisions are being made as to who among the Chapin or Laramie families might take the opportunity to do so.

“I’m glad I could be there for the families,” Galkin says of the July 2 hearing. “Both of them were incredibly brave to be there and to face all of this and to come out publicly and support this, even though there are other families that don’t necessarily feel the same way. Because they are finding peace in this decision, it brings me peace. That’s all I care about. If it’s good with them, then it is good with me.”