Category: kifi-local-news

Linda Larsen

BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) — As Ross Allen Wardlaw of Boise faces first-degree murder charges for the deadly July 6 stabbing of Jordan Harbst on the Boise Greenbelt, a voice from his past is speaking out. Hannah French, who says she survived a violent encounter with Wardlaw less than a year ago, says the recent tragedy could have been prevented.

A History of Violence

French, a Fremont County native, claims Wardlaw attempted to stab her less than a year ago while she was working at the Interfaith Sanctuary in Boise.

According to court documents, Wardlaw was charged with aggravated battery and aggravated assault in June 2025. Those charges stemmed from allegations that Wardlaw broke a man’s nose at the shelter. French says she was speaking to the gentleman who had been punched in the face when Wardlaw chased her with a knife. 

In addition to the assault and battery charges, prosecutors argued Wardlaw was a persistent violator, as evidenced in the litany of his criminal charges in his court records

However, a jury found Wardlaw not guilty in that case this past May. He was released from custody less than two months before the fatal attack on the Greenbelt.

“Housing Status is Not a Reason People Commit Murder”

French expressed profound grief over Harbst’s death, emphasizing that the tragedy highlights a breakdown in how the justice and healthcare systems handle severe mental illness.

“My heart was broken for the individual, the victim,” French said. “It’s just very unfortunate that in order to possibly get Ross Wardlaw help with his mental health and things like that, an individual had to be murdered.”

French also says the problem is not Wardlaw’s homelessness but rather an unaddressed mental health crisis. She suggests he should have been remanded to a psychiatric facility rather than released.

“I think it’s important, besides the fact that the system failed this 25-year-old victim, to understand that people don’t commit crimes because they’re unhoused; they commit crimes because there are internal factors at play,” French said. “Housing status is not a reason that people commit murder. Being unhoused shouldn’t rope you into this stereotype because of one individual.”

Community Support Pours in for Harbst’s family

In the aftermath of Harbst’s death, a verified GoFundMe for Harbst’s family has already raised more than $50,000. The fundraiser identifies Jordan as the oldest in his family, survived by his younger sister and two parents.

“The loss has left the Harbst family devastated, and they are now facing the unimaginable challenge of saying goodbye to their beloved son,” states the Fundraiser. For more information, click HERE.

His accused killer, Wardlaw, remains in custody and is scheduled to return to an Ada County court next Monday, July 20, for his preliminary hearing.

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Par Kermani

UPDATE:

BANNOCK COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) — Idaho State Police released additional information Monday afternoon about a crash that temporarily shut down southbound Interstate 15 near Inkom.

According to ISP, the crash happened around 9:30 a.m. Monday near milepost 56, just south of Inkom.

Troopers said a 2023 Freightliner Cascadia semi-truck driven by a 55-year-old man from Calgary, Alberta, was traveling southbound when it struck a guardrail and came to rest across the southbound lanes.

The crash blocked all southbound lanes of I-15. Crews alternated northbound and southbound traffic for about two and a half hours while the scene was cleared. No injures have been reported at this time.

The crash remains under investigation by Idaho State Police.

BANNOCK COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) — Idaho State Police are investigating a crash involving a commercial vehicle on Interstate 15 near Inkom that is causing significant traffic delays Monday morning.

The crash happened around 9:30 a.m. in the southbound lanes of I-15 near milepost 56, according to ISP.

The incident occurred in an active construction zone where traffic is already reduced to two lanes.

Authorities say the southbound lanes remain blocked and crews are alternating both northbound and southbound traffic through the northbound lanes, causing significant delays and backups in the area.

Drivers traveling through the area should expect delays and traffic backups until the roadway is cleared.

Motorists can check current road conditions and traffic updates through Idaho 511 at 511.idaho.gov.

No additional information about injuries or the cause of the crash has been released.

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CNN

Originally Published: 13 JUL 26 13:29 ET

By Sara Smart, CNN

(CNN) — What started as a yearly trip for a grandfather and his grandson turned into a visit to a Montana hospital after a bison attack at Yellowstone National Park.

Carl McDaniel, 65, was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground, according to McDaniel and the National Park Service.

He was visiting the park with his 13-year-old grandson when they decided to take a walk after dinner.

Along the way, they encountered a large bison that appeared to be rolling around in the dust and was not bothering anyone, McDaniel told CNN.

“We were about a hundred yards away,” McDaniel said. “He was not aggressive; he was not having problems and we took some pictures and decided to walk on.”

McDaniel and his grandson snapped a quick photo and continued with their walk, video of the encounter shows. At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move, McDaniel said. There is no audio on the video.

The bison then appeared to become agitated and began running toward the pair.

“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.

The animal then pushed McDaniel with the top of its head, sending him flying into the air before he hit the ground, the grandfather said.

“When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me. He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, and he did not do so,” McDaniel said.

After McDaniel hit the ground, photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the encounter on video, had to step in, he told Cowboy State Daily.

“I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,” MacLeod said.

After the bison took off, people rushed over to McDaniel, who was in a lot of pain, MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. Yellowstone EMS arrived soon after, he said.

“Park emergency medical personnel responded and transported him to a nearby hospital,” the National Park Service said in confirming the incident in a statement to CNN.

This is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. A 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano on June 26, according to the agency.

After Friday’s attack, “all the people that were there were amazing; they were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could,” McDaniel said. A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.

He was then transferred to a hospital in Bozeman, a two-hour journey during which he was in intense pain. He said he was grateful for the paramedic who helped him along the way.

McDaniel broke his femur, the body’s strongest bone, in four places near his hip and suffered several bruises. He had surgery Sunday and could stand by Monday.

“I will be doing physical therapy for the next few days to get to walk, but it was not as catastrophic as it could have been,” McDaniel said.

The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 feet away from bison at all times and to never approach the animals. “If the bison follows you, spray bear spray as you are moving away, and seek cover behind nearby trees or cars,” the agency said.

The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

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Par Kermani

BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) — Ada County prosecutors have expanded the criminal case against an eastern Idaho nonprofit founder, adding felony charges alleging a conspiracy involving a child under the age of 16.

An amended complaint filed June 4 in Ada County District Court charges Samuel David Ferrell, 36, with conspiracy to commit child sexual abuse of a child under 16, sexual exploitation of a child, and preparing forged or fraudulent evidence.

Ferrell was initially charged in April with preparing forged or fraudulent evidence, according to court records.

The amended complaint alleges Ferrell and another defendant, Michael Whittaker-Miller, conspired between March and April involving a 15-year-old identified in court records only as “S.B.”

According to prosecutors, the amendment in the complaint states that Ferrell sent and received sexually explicit material involving the child and communicated with the child through text messages.

Court records further allege Ferrell encouraged sexual contact with the child and directed the child to fabricate abuse allegations.

According to the court records, Whittaker attempted to obtain sole custody of the child. After both Whittaker and Ferrell drove to ADA county to obtain the child, the complaint states Ferrell sought custody of the child after Whittaker was arrested.

The sexual exploitation charge alleges the child was used to create Snapchat messages depicting explicit sexual conduct, according to court records.

Ferrell runs the Rise and Respond Foundation, a nonprofit organization originally created to honor fallen Ada County Sheriff’s Deputy Tobin Bolter.

Boise State Public Radio previously reported on the nonprofit and Ferrell’s background in connection with the organization.

According to IRS nonprofit records available through ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Ferrell is listed as an officer of the organization.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Charges represent a formal accusation. All defendants are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

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News Team

STAR VALLEY, Wyo (KIFI) — The search for a missing North Carolina man ended over the weekend after a group of campers discovered his body along the shore of the Palisades Reservoir on Saturday, July 11.

The Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office assisted in recovering the body of 55-year-old Tory J. Raether, of Charlotte, N.C., ending a week-long search that began over the Fourth of July holiday.

RELATED: Search continues for missing man in Snake River Canyon

According to Star Valley Search and Rescue (SVS&R) Commander Matt McMurdo, on Saturday, July 4th, Raether was part of a group recreating near the Sheep Gulch Boat ram when he jumped into the river without a life jacket. Investigators believe he was quickly caught in a swift, powerful current and began struggling. While members of his group made several desperate attempts to pull him to safety, the current ultimately swept him away.

A call was made to the Star Valley Search and Rescue team and Alpine Volunteer Fire Department shortly after 7:00pm on Saturday, July 4, reporting that a man from North Carolina had fallen into the Snake River near Sheep Gulch near Alpine. VS&R Commander Matt McMurdo said the group the man was with was enjoying the Fourth of July festivities at Jumping Rock, a popular spot to jump into the Snake River above the Sheep Gulch Boat Ramp, roughly 3 1/2 miles east of Alpine.

The initial search began that night, but had to be suspended due to the extreme safety risks of operating on the river after dark.

The search continued throughout the following week until Raether’s body was found on Saturday by campers along the reservoir shoreline, miles downstream from where he initially entered the water.

Editor’s Note: This story was adapted from an original on-air broadcast report with the assistance of AI. All content is thoroughly reviewed and verified for accuracy by the Local News 8 editorial team.

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Kaelyn Blessinger

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – When people think of public health pests, mosquitoes and ticks often come to mind. But experts say the common house fly deserves just as much attention.

House flies are among the most common insects found in homes and, because of their close proximity to people, they can pose a significant health risk. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), house flies can carry and spread disease-causing illnesses after coming into contact with contaminated materials.

“They have the ability to carry over 100 different disease causing pathogens,” said Laura Rosenwald, an entomologist with the National Pest Management Association.

House flies spend much of their life in environments filled with decaying organic matter, making it easy for them to pick up bacteria and other harmful micro-organisms.

“So when we think about housefly lifecycle, a lot of what they do is getting done in rotting organic material or waste or things like that,” Rosenwald says. “So they’re already living in environments that are not the cleanest to begin with.”

Those environments can include a wide variety of places around homes and neighborhoods. And when these areas have lingering rotting materials, the housefly will go for it.

“Anything that is organic is generally what these houseflies are going after it,” Rosenwald stated. “So it can be anything ranging from things like compost piles or garbage that you maybe left a little bit too long, garbage cans, dumpsters. It can also be things like pet waste. So they can really kind of take advantage of pretty much any rotting organic material that they can get their little tarsi on.”

After landing on contaminated materials, flies can then land on kitchen counters, food or other household surfaces, potentially transferring disease-causing pathogens.

According to the National Pest Management Association, house flies are capable of spreading illnesses including typhoid fever, salmonellosis and norovirus, along with other foodborne diseases.

Experts say prevention starts with good sanitation practices.

“One of the main things that you can do in terms of house fly management is just making sure that you are cleaning up after yourself,” Rosewood said. “So not only making sure that you’re doing regular taking out of the garbage, but also making sure that you’re doing regular cleaning and everything like that.”

In addition to keeping homes clean and disposing of garbage regularly, homeowners can reduce the number of flies entering their homes by installing window and door screens and making sure doors and other entry points remain closed whenever possible.

To understand more about flies and mosquitoes, you can visit the National Pest Management Association’s website.

For more pest prevention information, you can visit PestWorld.org.

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Maile Sipraseuth

BINGHAM COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI)– Two people are dead following a late-night police pursuit that ended in a rollover crash on Interstate 15 near Shelley, according to the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office.

The incident began around 11 p.m. Saturday, July 11, when deputies with the Bingham County Sheriff’s Office and the Joint Investigation Division responded to a residence on 1250 North West of Shelley to locate an adult man with a confirmed felony warrant.

Deputies were announcing their presence outside the home when the suspect fled in a car. Investigators say the suspect drove around the residence before heading west on 1250 North toward Interstate 15. The suspect reportedly drove without headlights and crossed into oncoming traffic before entering southbound Interstate 15 in the northbound lanes, driving the wrong way toward oncoming vehicles.

Officers attempted to position themselves to deploy spike strips to stop the vehicle. Before the strips could be used, a Bingham County deputy performed a Pursuit Immobilization Technique, or PIT maneuver, to end the pursuit. This resulted in the car to roll and leave the roadway, ejecting the suspect driver and female passenger.

The male suspect died on the scene. The female passenger was transported to Eastern Idaho Medical Center via Shelley Ambulance, where she later died from injuries.

The Eastern Idaho Critical Incident Task Force has been called in to conduct an independent investigation into the incident along with ISP District 6.

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Maile Sipraseuth

OVID, Idaho (KIFI)– Three people were injured Saturday night after a wheel detached from a Jeep and struck an oncoming vehicle on State Highway 36 west of Ovid, according to the Idaho State Police.

The crash happened around 10:06 p.m. on July 11 near mile marker 32.

The Idaho State Police say a 22-year-old man from Idaho Falls was driving a 2012 Jeep Wrangler when the vehicle’s front wheel came off. The detached wheel struck a 2016 Hyundai Elantra driven by a 21-year-old man from Lovell, Wyoming and had two passengers, both 22-year-old females from Montpelier, Idaho.

The Hyundai struck a tree after being hit.

The driver and both passengers in the Hyundai were taken by ground ambulance before being airlifted to a local hospital.

All occupants involved in the crash were wearing seat belts.

All lanes of travel was blocked for six hours.

The crash remains under investigation by Idaho State Police.

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Hadley Bodell

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – As part of a multi-year project called “Bringing War Home,” professors and students from Utah State University partnered with the Museum of Idaho to host a roadshow on Saturday, July 11 to find wartime artifacts in the community.

The project is funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities in their dialogs on the experiences of war. Organizers say it’s a community-facing project that has traveled around the state of Utah, and now, Idaho.

“We’re aiming to document people’s experiences of war through the objects that they keep at home,” said Molly Cannon, assistant professor at USU and co-director of the “Bringing War Home” project. “Today, we’ve seen family photo albums, medals and various artwork that hangs on walls.”

The organizers also had someone bring in a fragment of a Japanese aircraft that had been shot down by an ancestor. The team doesn’t take the objects from the owners, rather takes photos of them and interviews the people who bring them in. With the interviews, the stories behind the items are preserved in the exhibitions.

“We archive them in a publicly accessible digital archive through our library at Utah State University,” Cannon said. “Through the 11 events we’ve hosted over the last few years in Utah, we’ve curated a traveling exhibit that currently travels around Utah.”

This year, as part of the Utah 250, some of the stories and artifacts were preserved at the Utah State Capitol. Organizers said they were excited to see what the community of Idaho Falls could bring to the collection. If you participate in a road show, you’ll find different stations to attend.

“You’re greeted at the registration desk, then students will meet with you to learn more about the objects you’ve brought in,” Cannon explained. “They’ll document all the information about the object, and then at the final station we photograph them.”

The benefits of the project go far beyond the exhibitions. Students use the artifacts for research papers, teachers use them for lessons in their classrooms, and families find a place where a piece of their history, as well as the country’s history, is preserved.

Cannon said she is most looking forward to the next stage of the project where they’re beginning to share the curation with exhibitions and Utah Public Radio stories. At the same time, they’re still documenting hundreds of artifacts from communities across state lines.

“I’m looking forward to working with teachers to really get this curriculum into their classrooms,” she said. “Our project has a website which directs you to the current digital archive.”

Cannon said the most common items so far have been photographs and letters from wartime. They also get random objects like service medals, dog tags, canteens, uniforms, buttons and commemorative gifts like silk fabric and jewelry. Mainly, families want the stories connected to these items preserved.

“People can learn from them not only from their own families, but what we’re gathering is this collective of stories from our community. So we get to understand a whole community’s experience of and legacy of these conflicts,” Cannon said.

The culminating assignment for the “Objects of War” class at Utah State University is to host a road show in Logan, just a short trip down from locals in Eastern Idaho, and Cannon said everyone is welcome to come with their historic items. The hope is to one have documenting kits to send countrywide for people to document their own artifacts to add to the collection.

The website for the project is https://www.usu.edu/mountainwest/bringing-war-home/ for more information and to view artifact stories.

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Maile Sipraseuth

ST. ANTHONY, Idaho (KIFI)– A 66-year-old Montana man died Friday afternoon after an off-highway vehicle crash at the St. Anthony Sand Dunes.

According to the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, crews were dispatched to the St. Anthony sand dunes around 2:20 p.m. on July 10, after reports of an off-highway vehicle crash.

When first responders arrived, bystanders were already performing CPR on the man. Emergency personnel continued lifesaving efforts, but the 66-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

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