The parents of Idaho murder victim Ethan Chapin have revealed why they won’t be going to court to face their son’s accused killer Bryan Kohberger.
Ethan Chapin’s parents told Fox News Digital that they are planning to skip the week-long preliminary hearing in June because they don’t need the “negative energy”.
Instead, Jim and Stacy Chapin would rather honour their son’s memory and urge other families to spend as much time with their children as they can.
“If we had a message to literally give anybody… I mean, I don’t think we missed a basketball game or a sporting event of our kids,” said Ms Chapin.
“You never know when life is going to throw you a curve ball… I think we got the worst curve ball,” she said, adding that “I wouldn’t know what I know now and change the 20 years that I had”.
The heartbroken parents described the last time they saw their 20-year-old son alive, just days before he was brutally murdered in Moscow, Idaho.
It was 6 November 2022 and the Chapins had waved goodbye to their three children – triplets Ethan, Hunter and Maisie –at the University of Idaho campus where they were all students.
“We said goodbye in the parking lot Saturday night,” Mr Chapin said.
“Sigma Chi house. Gave him a hug. Told him to be safe. And that was the last time.”
Ms Chapin recalled it had been a good day as they left their children at the college knowing they were “having the time of their lives”.
“We drove out of town that Sunday morning … and we literally high-fived each other that day,” she said.
“We literally congratulated each other. We were like, ‘We’ve done it, we’ve done it. They’re ‘adulting.’ They’re kind. We’ve done it. We can rest easy.”
But, just seven days later, everything changed.
On 13 November, Chapin, his girlfriend Xana Kernodle, 20, and her roommates Madison Mogen, 21, and Kaylee Goncalves, 21, were all stabbed to death in a horror attack in the off-campus rental home that the three young women shared with two other friends.
Over a month later, 28-year-old Washington State University criminology PhD student Mr Kohberger was arrested and charged with their murders.
No motive has been given for the attack on 13 November and officials have not confirmed what connection Mr Kohberger had – if any – to the victims.
The affidavit, released in January, revealed that investigators believe Mr Kohberger may have stalked the student home in the run-up to the mass murder, with cellphone data placing him around the property 12 times before 13 November.
Then, at around 4am on 13 November – after the students returned from enjoying Saturday nights out partying – investigators say he entered the home and stabbed the victims to death.
The murder weapon – a fixed-blade knife – is yet to be recovered.
Ms Chapin said that her son’s murder plunged the family into the “depths of hell” and hunkered down as a family to try to cope with what happened.
Now, they are using their grief to honour their son’s memory with a foundation titled “Ethan’s Smile”.
The foundation, to pay for scholarships for students to go to the University of Idaho, grew out of Tulip Valley Farms.
Chapin worked at the farm in Mount Vernon, Washington, in 2020 and so it began growing tulips in memory of him after his death, with proceeds going towards the scholarship.
