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Priest Lake, Idaho

E verywhere Stacy looks in the house at Priest Lake, she sees memories of her beloved dead son.

From the deck behind the kitchen at the back of the house, she can see the twelfth hole of the golf course.

To the front, headed down a slope to the pond, is the thirteenth.

How many times have she, Jim, and the kids roared with laughter coming over that hill, a few drinks worse for wear, mindful to aim their balls to the left side of the slope?

It’s a tight-knit community out here, and everyone knew Ethan.

One of the neighbors affixed a cross to the front door, one of the many acts of kindness that will flood the Chapins in the next few days and weeks, none of which Stacy will forget.

In the afternoon, she and Jim head out into the snow for a walk, partly to catch their breath, but partly also to talk about how best to support Hunter and Maizie.

They are in the woods when their phones start to ring and ring with unknown callers.

Weird, Stacy thinks. She wouldn’t have expected cell reception out here. But also, who, outside of family and law enforcement, wants them so badly?

It turns out that almost every news organization in the world wants them.

In the next hours and days, all four Chapins are besieged with voicemails, texts, DMs, and emails from journalists of every stripe.

Stacy later said: “It would be easier to list who did not contact us. Literally everybody. Everybody. Every news organization. CNN, Anderson Cooper, the Today show, Good Morning America … All of the Idaho stations… It was crazy.”

They make a family decision: They won’t talk to anyone.

It’s a plus, they discover, that they bought the Priest Lake house relatively recently, because no one can find them in Idaho databases.

That night, Stacy and Jim lay awake again. One a.m.; two a.m.; three a.m. They check in with each other every hour, on the hour, and rise early to put on a pot of coffee and walk again.

The phones start ringing early, and not just with media. They get a call from the funeral home back in La Conner. Their friend Kirk Duffy runs it. He has a relationship with Cathy Mabbutt, the Latah County coroner.

He’s on his way to Spokane, which is where Ethan’s body has been taken for the autopsy.

He tells them they need to pick a date for Ethan’s funeral service. Stacy and Jim choose the following Monday because that gives them enough time to be ready but also enough time for the students who come to get back to their families for Thanksgiving.

Maizie and Hunter still have their social media on, and Tuesday morning is when Stacy becomes aware of the rumors on TikTok in the wake of a new police press statement with information that an “edged weapon such as a knife” was used to kill her son and the other victims and that the weapon has not been located.

Social media is also rife with rumors that Ethan was part of a love triangle. Maybe drugs were involved. Maizie is so upset, she uninstalls TikTok from her phone.

It’s in this moment that Stacy temporarily forgets her grief.

Instead, she feels a blazing anger. “I don’t mind telling you, I went out of my fucking mind.”

Nobody gets to defame Ethan. Nobody gets to speculate like this about her son. She doesn’t know where this is coming from, but she’s going to stop it.

Fortuitously, Priest Lake friends and neighbors Evelyn Allison, Ethan’s ex-girlfriend, and her mother, Kim, who worked in broadcasting in Spokane, knock at the door.

Stacy asks Kim for help. She wants to call up one media organization and do one press interview, preferably with a local journalist whom they can trust.

A young woman named Conner Board at King Five, Seattle, is the journalist she selects.

Kim acts as director. She sets Stacy and Jim up in chairs in front of bookshelves in the living room and positions Stacy’s laptop so that they all fit in the frame.

And the interview begins. It lasts around ten minutes. Stacy and Jim look alternately shell-shocked and tearful throughout as Board gently questions them about Ethan’s love of sports and of people.

Through her grief Stacy is articulate and deliberate.

“It’s important for us to get Ethan’s story out,” she says. “We don’t really want anybody else representing him and it’s hard to have people speaking on his behalf, so we think it’s best for us to do this.”

She continues, “I mean, the reason we’ve agreed to do this is there’s some misinformation out there.

And that’s been hard for us and that’s why we as a family talked about it and agreed to do this because the things that are being said are a hundred percent not true.

There’s not drugs involved. There’s not some weird love triangle…

All of the kids were just really good, great kids. ”

Not long after they are done, Stacy hears tires crunch on the driveway. It’s Emily and Hunter Johnson. They’ve driven up from Post Falls, having spent the night with Hunter’s mom.

They are clearly still in shock. Emily whispers that Hunter Johnson has not spoken for twenty-four hours.

Stacy phones Karen Alandt, Emily’s mom, who is at the Alandt family condo in Mexico. “I just want you to know they are here and they are safe,” she tells her.

But are they okay? Clearly not, Stacy thinks.

The young couple’s plan is to fly to Mexico to join Emily’s parents. Stacy is worried that isolation will worsen their trauma, not ease it.

This is a moment they all need the comfort of one another. That afternoon and evening, the group huddles in the living room, talking, remembering Ethan.

Hunter Johnson relaxes and, to Emily’s relief, speaks. He and Hunter Chapin go down memory lane, at one point getting out their phones and comparing their text messages with Ethan on that last awful night.

Early that evening, the group drives down to Hill’s Resort to find food. The team there has heard the news and welcomes them with open arms and group hugs. Stacy captures the moment on her iPhone.

She’ll take all the comfort she can get.

She knows the coroner will call at any moment with details she doesn’t really want to hear. Details as to how her son died.

She knows from Kirk that the autopsy is taking longer than expected.

It’s possible that Ethan could be transported tomorrow, not today, from Spokane to Mount Vernon for his funeral service.

Her son will be on I-90, the same road that the family has to drive.

As she lies in bed that night, Stacy shudders, already worrying about tomorrow.

Pray to God, she thinks, we don’t wind up overtaking Kirk’s white Suburban . Other drivers won’t know it, but she will:

It’s Ethan’s hearse.