SEATTLE — It’s been two and a half years and not a day goes by without the Chapin family thinking about what they’ve lost.
Ethan Chapin, a triplet from Skagit County, was just 20 years old. In November 2022, he was among the four University of Idaho students stabbed to death in a house off campus.
Last week, their killer, Bryan Kohberger, admitted guilt to the murders without giving any explanation as to why he did it. His plea deal means there will be no trial and no death penalty. He will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Kohberger's sentencing later this month will bring this legal case to a close, but for the victim’s families, including the Chapins, it’s only the end of a chapter in a tragedy they have to live with.
The family went on the record with KING 5's Joyce Taylor from their Idaho home hours before they learned Kohberger accepted the plea deal.
Stacy Chapin: I just think about him. It's hard.
Jim Chapin: It's hard.
Stacy Chapin: You just miss him walking into a room and saying something funny. He was the king of one-liners. He was so funny. He could just elevate a room. You just miss his presence.
Taylor: I asked you a year and a half ago: What did you miss most about him? Do you remember what you told me?
Stacy Chapin: Absolutely, it’s still the same. Absolutely hugging him in his blue Patagonia coat.
Jim Chapin: Oh my God, right. I'd give anything. Yeah, that was the last thing I did. It was the last time we saw him. It was in the parking lot at the Sigma Chi house. I told him, I always tell my kids, 'be safe.' Yeah, you be safe. He goes, 'Oh, yeah, I will.'
Stacy Chapin: Every single day, there's probably a moment between the two of us where we are just like, 'Boy, how did we ever get here?' You imagine your entire life and this isn't how you think it's gonna go. We've come a very, very long way from that point. I mean, you just tuck him in a place and for me personally, he’s tucked in my heart and soul and you really have to work at moving forward.
Jim Chapin: It's easier now, because, you know, the kids are out of college, and they seem to be doing very well. And for me, that's a win-win.
Taylor: You sent them back to the University of Idaho after this all happened. Why was that important to you?
Jim Chapin: They had to go back.
Stacy Chapin: Yeah. They had to finish what they started. Yeah, that was one. And the second reason was, honestly, Ethan would want that for them and we played that card.
Taylor: Now they're college graduates. What was that like?
Jim Chapin: Right? What was that? It was amazing. (It) was amazing. It's so cool, you know, just, just a very special day.
Stacy Chapin: It was much easier than expected
Jim Chapin: I had decided that what we had to do was actually tuck Ethan away for the weekend. The elephant in the room was obvious, but it was all about Mazie and Hunter. They did it. I mean, they, I say that, they went from the bottom to the very top, you know, graduating with honors their last semester, both of them and the resilience that they have shown is, in my opinion, shocking.
Taylor: Let's talk about Maizie and Hunter. It’s been an adjustment for them too. You shared a story with me about getting their driver's license.
Stacy Chapin: That story is so bittersweet. The DMV lady pulled up their birth dates. And of course, there's a third, you know, kid with the same last name on that birth date. And, you know, Maisie and Hunter, the woman said to them: 'Where's Ethan?' So they quickly were like, 'He's at work.' I think they told a lie about where he was, and they left, and they agreed with each other that day to, from that day forward, to tell people that they were twins, and not to ever downplay the fact that they were triplets, but to eliminate a very uncomfortable conversation. You know, took us a minute to be like, 'Yep, they're twins.'
Jim Chapin: It’s tough.
Stacy Chapin: But you have to, you have you have to, I have to let them say that. I mean, I you cannot tell the bartender that. No, actually, there was a, there was a third one, you know? I mean, you just can’t. Those tiny little things that you don't think about, 'Holy, they're tough,' and they keep coming at you. They do.
Jim Chapin: He’s still on the Hulu screen.
Stacy Chapin: Yes, his little icon.
Taylor: His truck is still downstairs.
Stacy Chapin: Yeah, his Jeep is here.
Jim Chapin: He loved that Jeep. He had a lot of fun with it. I say, 'Hey, I'm cleaning your Jeep again.' And, you know, I know you can see it, you know. And I don't know, there's just a lot of him in there. It even smells like his shirts and stuff, you know. It's just - i's just tough. You know how much he loved this and all the good times he had in it, priceless.
Stacy Chapin: These are his shoes with his golf glove and these are his old work boots. He wore a size 16.
Jim Chapin: I didn't know where the hat went, and I was looking everywhere. And then when we sold the boat, we cleaned it out, and there was this hat. You know, it came time to go up to the cemetery, and it was cold.
Stacy Chapin: Terrible. It's just a terrible, terrible day, classic pacific northwest, I have to say, foggy, rainy, probably 38 degrees. It was the worst day you could imagine in the pacific northwest, and we're walking around the cemetery.
Jim Chapin: And I told Stacy, 'I can't. We just can't do this.' We just can't leave him here by himself, and it was cold, so we took him. This room in the house like a burn room. It'll last, supposed to last three hours, if the house was to catch fire, that the stuff in there will be safe.
Taylor: And so he is in the room in there, locked with all Ethans stuff. How did you kind of decide, like his trophies, all his wards for soccer and basketball and and all that stuff, all his real personal stuff in there?
Jim Chapin: He's just not physically here with us, but he's here in, in the home, the place that he truly loved.
Taylor: How have you worked through so much grief?
Stacy Chapin: Where do I start? Where do we start?
Jim Chapin: I think we, what's helped us is that we just created all these things in his name, which helps a lot.
Stacy Chapin: It would be very easy to drink it, eat it, bury it in really bad ways, it would be easy, and I feel like one. We've made some pretty conscientious decisions to spend time on our own mental health. I think it's most important that we're on the same page at the end of the day. There's statistics out there that say that the divorce rate of a family that loses a child is one of the highest, and I can see how, potentially, but just not for us, we just made a decision. We're just going to get through this together.
JIm Chapin: You just have to stay positive. Because it's so easy to go negative, and negative is not going to get you anywhere.
Stacy Chapin: Honestly, there's, there's something good you can find in every single day, even on the worst day, sometimes it's the taste of your coffee, and it’s like, okay.
Jim Chapin: You have to try to get one good thing out of the day. Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: And it could be the smallest of things.
Stacy Chapin: Yeah. The smallest. On your toughest day it could be the – smallest – thing. A beautiful thing for me, personally as a mom, is that I know, even down to the last minute, that he knew how much he was loved. And that is a very comforting, comforting thing. Our kids know how much we love them. I don't have any regrets or guilt or anything over anything that we should have done differently.
Jim Chapin: I'd say, for people, you know, just make sure you hug your kids before you leave.
Ethan's Smile Foundation
The Chapins, including Mazie and Hunter, shared their story as a family for the first time in a documentary coming out this week. They said it was important to get the true story out about what happened that November night and how it has changed their lives.
In their son’s memory, the chapins created the Ethan’s Smile Foundation. It gives scholarships to post high school students. The scholarship has awarded more than 90 students a total of $105,000.