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La Conner, Washington

I t’s the one-year anniversary of the death of their beloved child.

Jim, Stacy, Hunter, and Maizie Chapin, dressed in black tie, are welcoming their guests.

Over glasses of wine in early summer, Jim and Stacy thought very hard about what they wanted to do on this day. They wanted the evening to be upbeat. Positive. Celebratory, even. They wanted it to raise money for their foundation, Ethan’s Smile. They wanted it to be intimate and private.

There are more media requests flooding in than ever, partly because of the anniversary, but also because Stacy’s insistence on keeping the focus of Ethan’s story away from the lurid end is becoming a focus in itself.

In October, the New York Times covered her weekend visit to Orlando, Florida, for CrimeCon, which billed itself as “the world’s number one event for true crime and mystery.”

Stacy had gone to the convention as part of a panel of victims’ parents who, like her and Jim, were starting foundations as their children’s legacies. Once there, she saw that a professor from Alabama was offering a seminar purporting to be a “forensic analysis” of Ethan’s murder.

Stacy tried to attend, but walked out after a few minutes. After some deliberation, she returned to the packed seminar near the end of the session. She stood up at the mic during the Q and A.

“My name is Stacy Chapin, and I’m Ethan’s mom,” she said.

The room of thirty-two hundred people hushed, then broke into loud applause.

Her voice quavering with emotion, Stacy pressed on, explaining that she hadn’t watched the presentation but had a message for the room: In their fascination with crime, they should not forget the victims.

“These were four of the greatest kids, and all of the great things that you read about them [are] legitimately true… Don’t forget these kids. They were amazing, amazing kids in the prime of their life.”

The moment goes viral on Fox News.

Whether she wants to do this or not, through her steady insistence that people focus on Ethan’s life, not his death, Stacy Chapin is developing a brand: iconic supermom.

But now, on the one-year anniversary of Ethan’s death, she and Jim want a press-free evening.

They accept an offer from a friend and neighbor in La Conner, Jeff Hellam, to use his Hellam’s Vineyard wine shop and bar for a party.

As Stacy warms to the idea, she realizes she doesn’t want just any party. If they are going to do this, they are really going to do this. The dress code is going to be black tie.

She thinks hard about a guest list.

Of course Hunter and Maizie will be there.

Of course they will ask close family friends like Susie DeVries.

And her cousins Kathleen and Stuart, and the PR executive who acted as their gatekeeper.

And Melissa and Jeff and all the people who helped with the foundation. Dean Eckles sends two of his team.

There are also the people who have come to be part of the Chapins’ growing family because of the tragedy.

One is Jazzmin Kernodle, Xana’s big sister, of whom Stacy feels increasingly protective. Jazzmin has moved to Seattle with her boyfriend, Pat. But because Jeff is in Arizona, Stacy worries that Jazzmin can feel alone at times. Stacy wants to support her.

The other person Stacy invites is the Moscow police chief, James Fry.

Even as she dresses for the evening in a long navy gown, Stacy isn’t sure that the chief will be able to make it. After all, there’s an anniversary vigil going on at the UI campus, and La Conner is a six-hour drive from Moscow.

But as everyone sips the fine wines, Chief Fry walks in quietly, his son JD beside him.

During her remarks Stacy asks the room to acknowledge him.

“We just cannot thank you enough for the work that you have done to right this atrocity. And we can’t wait for it to be over so that we can talk about some of what we know and what some of us really know.”

The chief smiles.

The Chapins, like Michelle Wiederrick, Joseph’s mom, and Chrissy Dove, Sarah Parks’s sister, are his kind of people. “We all have different personalities… Some of us are always going to take the bad and make some good out of it,” he later said.

“And then there’s people who take the bad and try to capitalize on it. And then there’s people who take the bad and let it destroy them. And I think Stacy, the Chapins—look what they’ve already done. Thirty-three scholarships, over fifty thousand dollars given to kids.”

He added, “After what happened to them? That’s extraordinary.”