Stacy Chapin looks like any other mom sprinting down from Hill’s Resort to pick up her daughter, Maizie, 23, fresh off a long day boating on the scenic Priest Lake, a slice of paradise in the northernmost portion of the Idaho Panhandle.
Together, the 56-year-old, dressed casually in shorts and a T-shirt for the hot summer day, and Maizie, in her swimsuit, look like the picture of a happy mother and daughter duo.
But beneath that warmth and ease is a mom who has lived through an unthinkable loss – the brutal murder of her 20-year-old son Ethan, at an off-campus house in Moscow, Idaho on November 13, 2022.
Ethan, one of Stacy’s triplets, was killed along with three fellow University of Idaho students who lived at the home. Two of the roommates survived.
Suspected killer Bryan Kohberger recently admitted guilt in a surprise plea deal earlier this month, reigniting tension among grieving families.
But for the Chapins, the decision is a path towards peace and healing.
‘Priest Lake is the most beautiful place, we call it God’s country,’ Chapin told the Daily Mail Wednesday.
‘We have a place here and we spend every summer here. I’ve been coming for years. It was Ethan’s true love, his favorite place was Priest Lake.’
Stacy Chapin and her husband Jim are seen with their triplets Maizie, left, Ethan, second from left, and Hunter, right, at Priest Lake, her late son’s favorite place, during a family trip in July 2022
Speaking to the Daily Mail last week, Stacy Chapin spoke of her surviving children’s resilience, nearly three years after the horrific murders in Idaho
She gestures at the sand volleyball court where Ethan and his siblings and friends played so much that a bench overlooking the court now bears his name.
Ethan also worked as a server at Hill’s Resort which overlooks Priest Lake and the volleyball court.
‘He was the clown of the family and he lifted any room that we were all in. I would say he was the top of the triplet pyramid. All things went through Ethan. He kept us all in check.’
Chapin, who has long said she was determined to keep her family afloat despite a tragedy that could sink many people, said she, her husband Jim, and their remaining triplets, Maizie and brother Hunter, are ‘are doing, all things considered, amazing…really great.’
‘Maizie and Hunter just successfully graduated in May, which is huge,’ Chapin said.
‘Our kids have gone from the lowest of lows on November 13 to graduation this past May 10, which was an incredible day for us.’
The remaining triplets chose to continue their studies and graduate from UI despite the horrifying memories.
‘That they graduated from the University of Idaho really speaks to our kids’ perseverance,’ their mother said. ‘They’re really something.’
Stacy and Jim visited the University of Idaho weeks before the tragedy for Parents Weekend on November 5, 2022, while Ethan, Maizie, and Hunter were all in their second year of college
The Chapins were frequent visitors of Priest Lake, specifically Hill Resort, in northern Idaho, where Ethan and his siblings loved playing volleyball on the sand courts
Now the bench overlooking the court has a small plaque bearing Ethan’s name in his memory
Chapin spoke to the Daily Mail just one week after Kohberger appeared in a Boise courtroom and admitted in a shock confession that he killed Chapin, his girlfriend Xana Kernodle, 20, Maddie Mogen, 21 and Kaylee Goncalves, also 21.
Her interview also comes after the Chapins cooperated and appear in new docuseries, ‘One Night in Idaho: The College Murders,’ that premiered on Amazon Prime Video last Friday.
The families are split over Kohberger’s decision to take a plea deal and serve four life sentences without possibility of parole or appeal in order to avoid a possible death penalty.
He will be formally sentenced July 23.
Kaylee’s dad Steve Goncalves has been vocal about how upset he is that there won’t be a trial, saying ‘Idaho has failed’ him and his family by letting Kohberger accept a plea deal without the family’s input.
Jeff Kernodle, the father of Xana, also issued a statement saying he was ‘disappointed’ with the prosecutor’s surprise decision to make a deal with Kohberger.
Stacy Chapin, however, sees the plea deal as a positive — and a way to move on without subjecting her family to the miseries of a trial and possibly years of appeals by Kohberger’s attorneys.
‘Our family is happy for the plea agreement,’ she said. ‘Our kids, you know, had been subpoenaed. And for our family, that was a big deal to not have them involved in it, and not just our kids, but all of the kids.
Ethan and girlfriend Xana Kernodle, center, were among the four victims of the heinous attack. They are pictured together with brother Hunter
Left to right: Dylan Mortensen, Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen (on Kaylee’s shoulders) Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Bethany Funke
‘We’ve kind of tried to embrace and heal all of the kids, university, fraternity, sorority.
‘There were tons of kids who had been subpoenaed. So it (the plea deal) was a relief on so many different levels.’
When asked if she focuses on Kohberger and wonders, as many do, what his motive was for the quadruple murder, Chapin shakes her head no.
‘I mean, you could spend a lot of time going down that rabbit hole but what good would that do any of us?,’ she said.
‘I mean, honestly, it’s done. We can’t bring Ethan back. Is it a tragedy? It’s horrific.
‘It goes without saying that we would take him back tomorrow. We would all love to have our kids back. But we try to only spend time in the most positive of things, and that isn’t it.’
The Chapin family continue to build their Ethan’s Smile Foundation, a charity founded to both memorialize Ethan and provide scholarships in his name, Stacy said.
So far, Ethan’s Smile has awarded 86 scholarships and given out $105,000.
‘You have to think about how you’re going to memorialize your son and there were a lot of people that were just giving us money because I think they didn’t know how else to help us,’ she said.
‘So we had to talk about what we were going to do with that money. And so we created a foundation, and it is the entire purpose of it is to scholarship kids in Ethan’s name.
‘We had no idea when we set out to do it that it would be so incredibly successful.’
Other than the foundation, Stacy said her number one goal since losing Ethan ‘is trying to protect Maizie and Hunter and give them the most normal life.’
‘If I can do it and set a good example for them, then I would hope that they could do it too,’ she said.
‘And honestly, that’s just it. It’s just literally getting up. You just realize you just have to get the best out of the cards that were dealt, I suppose. And this is a tough one.
‘I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody, but it is what it is, and we just have to get the best that the rest of this life has to offer our family. That that is my motivation.’
Chapin and her husband were in western Washington at their main home near Seattle when they got word of Ethan’s murder and had to make the grueling six-hour drive to Moscow, Idaho.
Prime suspect Bryan Kohberger finally pleaded guily to murdering the four University of Idaho students on July 2
The Chapin family cooperated with and appear in new Amazon Prime docuseries, One Night in Idaho: The College Murders
‘We picked up Macy and Hunter, and…. I just said to the kids, I do not know what the hell has just happened to our family, but it will not sink us. We may look a little bit different but we’re just as good.’
Stacy admits, however, that her well-known steely resolve and cheerfulness took a serious hit after her son was killed.
‘But about five months after we lost Ethan (we said) you know, there’s only so many mornings when you can cry into your coffee cup and wonder how you’re going to get through the day.
‘My husband Jim and I just made a decision one morning. We were like, OK, we’re not getting anywhere.
‘This is not a true measure of success for us and our kids and our family.
‘And so we just decided from that day forward, we’d get up, shower, and forge ahead.’
