The parents of one of four coeds viciously murdered by confessed killer Bryan Kohberger are speaking out.

Stacy and Jim Chapin, parents of 20-year-old murder victim Ethan Chapin, sat for an exclusive interview with NBC’s TODAY, a rare sit-down which aired Monday, July 14, 2025, as reported by NBC News. Statements by the grieving parents come less than two weeks after Kohberger confessed in court to fatally stabbing Chapin and three young women as they slept in their off-campus residence in Moscow, Idaho.

A motive for the November 13, 2022 quadruple murder remains unknown.

“I don’t believe that we will ever learn that, and I don’t need to know; it doesn’t change the outcome,” Mrs. Chapin told TODAY. “It’s a horrific event. We’ve gotten through it. I mean, as best we can, as we continue to heal every single day.”

Mr. and Mrs. Chapin on closure

Some of the loved ones of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Chapin’s girlfriend, Xana Kernodle, 20, were “beyond furious” when Latah County prosecutors informed them that Kohberger had accepted a plea deal, weeks before the highly anticipated trial. 

For the parents of Ethan Chapin, who was sleeping over at the 1122 King Road address where his girlfriend and her housemates lived on the night of the murders, it meant a sense of closure.

“If I could physically do a handstand, I’d probably do one, because I am so ready,” Jim Chapin told TODAY. “I’m ready for my kids to move on. I’m ready for us to move on. I mean, it’s been almost two-and-a-half years, and it’s, just, it’s over.”

As for the grieving process, Stacy Chapin, sitting alongside her husband, said, “The days do get better.”

Ethan Chapin remembered by his parents

The parents described their son as a fun-loving University of Idaho freshman majoring in recreation, sport, and tourism management. They joked he minored in Bud Light Lime and Taco Bell, according to NBC News. 

Authorities in Moscow said that on the fateful night, Ethan Chapin and Kernodle visited the campus’s Sigma Chi house before heading to the three-story home on King Road at around 1:45 a.m.

Kohberger, a criminology grad student who attended Washington State University and lived about 10 miles away over the state line, admitted to breaking in through a sliding glass door in the kitchen between 4:00 a.m. and 4:25 p.m. He confessed to using a hunting knife to kill Mogen and Goncalves in a bed they shared in a third-floor bedroom. 

Prosecutor Bill Thompson claimed Kohberger then came upon Kernodle — who dormed on another floor — as she received an early-morning DoorDash delivery around that time, according to ABC News.

As Kohberger was “either coming down the stairs or leaving, he encountered Xana and he ended up killing her, also with a large knife,” Thompson stated. “Ethan Chapin, Xana’s boyfriend, was asleep in their bedroom, in her bedroom, and the defendant killed him, as well.”

A Peacock Original documentary about the murders, The Idaho Student Murders, dropped earlier this month.  

Mr. and Mrs. Chapin on Kohberger’s changed plea

Before Kohberger changed his plea from ‘not guilty’ to ‘guilty’ to four counts of first-degree murder on July 2, 2025, Mrs. Chapin’s “initial response” was “an eye for an eye,” she told TODAY. However, after discussing the deal with prosecutors and more of the victims’ relatives, she realized “this was a better deal” as it would prevent the victims’ friends and family who were potentially going to be called as witnesses from having to relive the murders in court, according to NBC News. 

The Chapins attended the hearing, facing their son’s killer for the very first time in person. 

“It was cold and calculated and weirdly, like an automated phone message,” Mrs. Chapin told TODAY. “I mean, it was just like you expected some, I don’t know, remorse, emotion, something. And there was zero.”

Kohberger will be officially sentenced on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, and is expected to serve life behind bars without the possibility of parole. Although some have voiced their desire to see the trial through — primarily to learn of a possible motive or to see Kohberger get the death penalty — the Chapins were satisfied that the plea deal renounced Kohberger’s rights to appeal his conviction. 

“He’s gonna get what’s coming to him,” Mr. Chapin said. “I really don’t care what happens to the guy … He’s off the streets and he can’t hurt any more kids. That’s the most important thing.”

Learn more about the case by watching The Idaho Student Murders, available to watch now on Peacock.