The mother, who tried to stop the attack, was also cut before the suspect fled according to police.
POCATELLO, Idaho — The attempted murder case against Marita Gonzales rests in large part on a mother’s account that she opened her daughter’s bedroom door and found a stabbing underway, then suffered her own injury as she tried to intervene in the late-night attack inside a Pocatello apartment, according to police and court records cited in local reports.
Investigators said the assault unfolded on Sunday, Feb. 15, inside an apartment on South Arthur Avenue where Rajah Keller, 32, lived with her mother, Starla Keller, 49. Before the attack, court records cited in local coverage said Rajah Keller had met Gonzales online and invited her to the apartment. That detail has drawn attention because it places the alleged assailant inside the home not as a stranger who forced entry, but as a guest who had been allowed in. It also narrows the starting point of the case to a more private and less visible setting, where only the people inside the apartment initially knew what had happened and where police had to reconstruct events from trauma, witness memory and later investigative work.
Starla Keller’s account, as summarized in reports on the court record, describes a burst of violence that was already in motion by the time she reached the bedroom. She told investigators she heard a commotion at about 10 p.m. and walked into the room, where she saw Gonzales stabbing Rajah Keller. Authorities later said Rajah Keller was stabbed 18 times. The mother’s entrance did not end the violence. Police said Gonzales then cut Starla Keller in the face before leaving the apartment and running from the area. In one sequence, then, the state says it has a witness to the attack, a second victim who was injured in the same episode and a surviving stabbing victim whose wounds match the account of a sustained assault.
Responding officers arrived minutes later, at about 10:06 p.m., and found a scene that prosecutors are likely to emphasize as evidence of the seriousness of the crime. According to court records described publicly, Rajah Keller was conscious but nude, covered in blood and suffering wounds to her face, head, neck and hands. Those are not minor injuries, and they are not located in a single area. Together, they suggest a struggle that moved quickly and violently, one in which the victim may have tried to shield herself or push the weapon away. Officers rendered aid until she could be taken to Portneuf Medical Center, where medical staff determined she needed to be airlifted to a hospital in Salt Lake City for further treatment.
The mother was treated locally and released, but her role in the case goes beyond the aggravated battery count attached to her injury. Her report also appears to explain why police initially circulated a suspect description that later changed. In the first public alert, police said they were looking for an unknown male assailant approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall, with short hair, a hat and a dark jacket, last seen running south on Arthur Avenue. That description framed the first stage of the manhunt and was repeated in early news reports. It was not, however, where the investigation ended.
Detectives later reviewed surveillance footage showing Rajah Keller and another person entering a store about an hour before the incident, police said. That footage helped them identify Gonzales as the suspect, transforming the case from a neighborhood search for an unnamed male to a named arrest of a 32-year-old woman from Pocatello. The change is notable for two reasons. First, it shows the weight investigators gave to objective video evidence over the confusion of the first emergency reports. Second, it highlights how quickly the narrative of a violent crime can change when detectives move from eyewitness description to a timeline built from recorded movement, location and contact between victim and suspect.
Gonzales was arrested on Tuesday night, Feb. 17, at about 9 p.m. and booked into the Bannock County Jail. Police said she was charged with attempted murder and aggravated battery. By Wednesday, she was in court, where a judge ordered her held on $1 million bond. Those steps gave the prosecution its first formal shape, but the public record still contains major gaps. Authorities have not publicly stated a motive. They have not said what happened in the apartment between Gonzales’ arrival and the start of the stabbing. They have not disclosed whether the knife was recovered, whether forensic evidence inside the room supports the witness account in specific ways, or whether the victim was able to give investigators her own version of events after treatment.
Even without those details, the available facts have made the case stand out in southeastern Idaho. Pocatello is a city of roughly 60,000 people, and the attack happened in a residential block rather than in a commercial district or a public confrontation outside. The alleged violence also took place in one of the most private spaces in a home, a bedroom, after a meeting that reportedly grew out of online contact. That combination of personal access, repeated stabbing and a mother entering the room in time to witness the assault has given the case unusual emotional force, even as the legal process remains at a comparatively early stage.
For now, the case remains defined by what is known and what is not. What is known is that Rajah Keller survived a severe stabbing, Starla Keller was injured while trying to stop it, and police say Gonzales is the person responsible. What is not yet known publicly is why the attack happened and what additional evidence prosecutors will use to prove intent. Those answers are expected to emerge, if they do, through future hearings and filings in Bannock County court.
Author note: Last updated March 20, 2026.