Parents of slain Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves defend her ex-boyfriend as cops clear ride-share driver

The parents of slain University of Idaho student Kaylee Goncalves are backing their daughter’s ex-boyfriend after it was revealed she called him multiple times on the night she and her roommates were stabbed to death.

Steve and Kristi Goncalves maintained on Fox News that their daughter’s ex Jack was not involved in the quadruple slay, saying cops are “wasting their time” investigating the young man, whose last name was not released.

Police, meanwhile, on Saturday night released some new details, including that the 911 call which alerted them to last week’s slaughter was made by one of the two surviving roommates.

The updates came ahead of a news conference slated for Sunday — only the second time police in Moscow, Idaho have scheduled a media availability since the shocking Nov. 13 crime.

No suspects have been identified in the massacre, and police cleared a ride-share driver who dropped off two of the victims from being involved in the murders, The Idaho Statesman reported Sunday.

Madison Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum; junior Xana Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls; and freshman Ethan Chapin, 20, of Mount Vernon, Washington were all stabbed to death in the early morning hours as they slept after a night of carousing the college town.

It was later reported that Mogen and Goncalves called the latter’s ex a combined total ten times between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m.

Goncalves’ mom, in an interview on “Lawrence Jones Cross Country“ Saturday night, maintained the young man’s innocent.

“Jack is just as distraught as we are. Jack is our family. Jack is 1,000%. 2,000% our family, and Jack is with us, and we stand behind him 100%,” Kristi Goncalves told host Lawrence Jones.

“We are supporting him, and we know in our hearts and our minds and our souls and the depths of our soul, Jack is hurting,” she continued. “Kaylee and Jack would have eventually been married. They would have eventually been married, and they would have eventually had children.”

The pair had been reportedly dating for years before taking a break in their relationship recently, and Mogen was very close to the Goncalves family, the parents said.

“Maddie was in our oldest daughter’s wedding,” Kristi said. “She said, ‘All of my sisters are my bridesmaids,’ and Maddie was one of those bridesmaids. And it was all of Olivia’s sisters, including Maddie.

“Every time we traveled out of the country or went on vacation, Maddie went with us, so this is both of our girls, and we will never stop looking for who killed them,” the grieving mom told Jones. 

The mom also recalled how Kaylee had sent her photos of herself and Maddie on Saturday afternoon — and the last conversation she had with her daughter that same day.

“Kaylee called me on Saturday, my birthday was earlier in the week,” she said on the program. “And said ‘Mom, I’ll be home on Tuesday, and I’m gonna take you out to breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it’s all on me, all on me, and we’ll celebrate your birthday.’”

The mom told Jones she’d been looking forward to spending her birthday with her daughter, and that she responded: “That sounds great Kaylee and, and I’ll see you on Tuesday, honey.”

There was no sign of forced entry in the home shared by the three female victims, and the four were likely attacked while sleeping and had defensive wounds, police said.

Two other roommates — Bethany Funke and Dylan Mortensen — were at the off-campus home at the time, and one of them made the 911 call to police about eight hours after the murders were believed to have occurred, the Statesman reported.

Neither Funke nor Mortensen were considered to be suspects in the case and had been cooperating with cops, the article said.

Police told the outlet the roommates had been out on the town until the early morning separate from the victims the night before and were sleeping in.

“Everyone is hurting, everyone feels the pain of this,” Steve Goncalves said Saturday. “The one shiny thing out of all of this is I’ve never realized how beautiful my community is and how much love there is for people. We just have one bad person, and we have to find that guy.”