Anja Sundali | Argonaut
Katy Benoit will be remembered by the University of Idaho community at a memorial service at 7:30 p.m. today in the Administration Building auditorium.
Benoit died Aug. 22 after being shot 11 times with a .45 caliber handgun. The shooter is believed to be former University of Idaho assistant professor of psychology Ernesto A. Bustamante. Bustamante was found dead the next morning, Aug. 23, from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Moscow hotel.
Bustamante may have suffered from multiple personality disorder and may have engaged in a past sexual relationship with another student, according to an affidavit filed at the Latah County Courthouse.
The affidavit was filed Aug. 24 by Moscow Police Department Detective Rodney Wolverton in an application for a search warrant for a storage unit rented by Bustamante. Wolverton said in the affidavit he talked to Rowdy Hope, a self-described “best friend” of Bustamante.
Hope said in the affidavit that Bustamante may have had multiple personality disorder, and that in the 14 months Hope knew Bustamante he had seen six distinct personalities: “Baby,” “Ernie,” “E,” “Ernesto,” “The Beast” and “The Psychopathic Killer.”
Bustamante told Hope he was going to kill a girl named “Becka” while in “The Psychopathic Killer” personality, with whom he had an apparent domestic disturbance, according to the affidavit.
According to the Aug. 26 MPD press release, Bustamante was a victim of a battery and a malicious injury to property Nov. 2, 2010. As a result of this incident, a protection order was issued Nov. 30 identifying Bustamante as the protected person.
The affidavit also said MPD had received information regarding another possible relationship between a female UI student and Bustamante.
“I was informed that a complaint was made to the University of Idaho by a friend of this female and that friend did not leave her name or the name of the female Bustamante had been sexually involved with,” Wolverton said in the affidavit. “I was informed this call was placed through some form of a ‘hot line’ to the U of I.”
Bustamante had a concealed weapons permit issued to him through Latah County Sheriff’s Office March 28, 2011. An Aug. 26 press release from MPD said six guns were found in room 213 where Bustamante had checked into at the University Inn Best Western, among them a Smith and Wesson M&P .45 caliber handgun, believed to be the weapon used to shoot Benoit, and a Smith and Wesson .44 caliber revolver, believed to be the weapon used by Bustamante to commit suicide.
Also found in Bustamante’s hotel room were prescription medications with Bustamante’s name on them, including Clonazepam, Lexapro, Alprazolam and Lamotrigine.
The investigation is ongoing at present.