Ethan Chapin’s last day was spent with his siblings, dressed up and dancing.

Chapin — one of four University of Idaho students stabbed to death last weekend in a crime that has left police still searching for suspects — was a triplet. His brother and sister also attend the scenic state school in Moscow tucked away in the rolling hills of north-central Idaho.

“He was our our daughter Maizie’s date, and his brother was Maizie’s roommates date,” Chapin’s mother, Stacy Chapin, said in an interview Wednesday. The group was attending a dance hosted by Maizie’s sorority. “They all spent their last day together, all dressed up, and had a great time. We’re all thankful that they spent that time together.”

Ethan Chapin captured photos of the event on his phone, but the family has yet to see them. The device is being held by law enforcement as potential evidence in the homicide investigation.

Chances are, the photos will show the waves in his dark hair and the dimple that emerges when he smiles. What they won’t show is Ethan’s knack for making people laugh, or that he never cared what restaurant the family was headed to, so long as they were going there together.

“He could read any situation and make it better,” Stacy Chapin said. “He was just so carefree.”

Ethan, a 20-year-old member of the Sigma Chi fraternity who loved sports, was dating 20-year-old Xana Kernodle, a junior who was majoring in marketing and a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Both were killed in the violent attack last Sunday, stabbed by a killer or killers inside Kernodle’s rental home, which was steps away from the university campus.

Two of Kernodle’s roommates and friends, 21-year-old Madison Mogen and 21-year-old Kaylee Goncalves, were also killed in the attack. The four students’ bodies were discovered hours later, and police have yet to find a suspect or a murder weapon.

All four of the students were stabbed to death in their beds and likely were asleep when they were attacked, a county coroner told a cable news channel.

Latah County Coroner Cathy Mabbutt also told NewsNation on Thursday that each victim suffered multiple stab wounds from a “pretty large knife.”

“It has to be somebody pretty angry in order to stab four people to death,” Mabbutt told NewsNation. The victims were stabbed in the chest and upper body, the coroner said.

In a Friday evening statement, the Moscow Police Department confirmed the coroner reported the victims were likely asleep and that some of the victims had defensive wounds. Police additionally said there were no signs of sexual assault.

Comments from Mabbutt and the police expanded on autopsy reports released Thursday, which concluded the four students were murdered by being stabbed to death.

The killings have shaken Moscow, an Idaho Panhandle town of 25,000 residents that last saw a homicide about five years ago.

Moscow police released a map Friday and later a statement with a rough timeline of events leading up to the deaths. Police asked the public to provide any tips or leads.

The map showed that Chapin and Kernodle were seen at the Sigma Chi fraternity house between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday. Police said it’s believed the two returned to the home by 1:45 a.m. Sunday.

Meanwhile, Goncalves and Mogen went to the Corner Club, a popular bar in downtown Moscow, from 10 p.m. Saturday to 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Then they visited a food truck on Main Street before using a ride-hailing service to return to the house by 1:45 a.m.

Surveillance video from the food truck shows Goncalves and Mogen ordering at the window, taking photos on their phones and chatting with friends in a segment of about 10 minutes.

Police said Friday that detectives do not believe a male seen in the video was involved in the crime.

Police have said evidence at the scene leads them to believe the students were targeted, though they haven’t given details. Investigators say nothing appears to have been stolen from the victims or the home. Police also said online reports of the victims being tied and gagged are not accurate.

Detectives seized the contents of three dumpsters on the same road as the residence for possible evidence. Officers also have been contacting local businesses to determine if a fixed-blade knife was recently purchased, police said.

After initially saying there was no ongoing danger, police reversed themselves Wednesday. “We cannot say that there is no threat to the community,” Moscow Police Chief James Fry said. “We still believe it’s a targeted attack. But the reality is there still is a person out there who committed four very horrible, horrible crimes.”

Two people found unharmed in the sprawling house, described by police Friday as roommates, are not believed to be involved in the case, the police statement said.

Fry declined to say whether these two roommates were able to provide an account of the killings or to specify who called 911. There was no sign of forced entry and a door was found open by the first officers to arrive, the chief said.

Detectives are investigating nearly 500 tips and have done 38 interviews with people who may have information about the murders, police said. Idaho State Police, the FBI and Latah County Sheriff’s Office are assisting with the investigation.

The four victims — Mogen of Coeur d’Alene, Goncalves of Rathdrum, Kernodle of Post Falls and Chapin of Mount Vernon, Washington — were members of fraternities and sororities. Their bodies were found around noon Sunday.

Kernodle was lighthearted — the kind of person who always lifted up a room, her older sister Jazzmin Kernodle said.

“You rarely get to meet someone like Xana,” her sister said via text message. “She was so positive, funny and was loved by everyone who met her.”

Xana Kernodle went to high school in the scenic northern Idaho city of Post Falls. For her graduation in 2020, she decorated her mortarboard with flower and butterfly cut-outs and the words, “For The Lives That I Will Change.”

During a candlelight vigil in northern Idaho on Wednesday, one of her high school friends, Garrett Sciortino, was overwhelmed by emotion. But he couldn’t help but laugh when recounting stories about their time together, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported.

Mogen was also a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She and Kernodle both had jobs at the Mad Greek restaurant in downtown Moscow.

Ethan Chapin and Xana Kernodle were friends before they began dating, his mother said. By this summer, Kernodle was spending time with the entire Chapin family.

Mogen and Goncalves grew up together in northern Idaho, such close friends that they were practically sisters. Goncalves chronicled some of their history in an Instagram post celebrating Mogen’s 21st birthday in May.

Pictures of the pair as tweens making silly faces for the camera, wearing matching navy-and-khaki school-style uniforms and carefully laced sneakers, and side-by-side in high school graduation gowns were accompanied with a heartfelt caption.

“I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to be the main character in all my childhood stories,” Goncalves wrote.

“I love you more than life! My best friend forever and more,” Mogen replied, adding a heart emoji.

Mogen, a marketing major, was using those skills to run a social media campaign for the Greek restaurant where she worked. She loved the color pink and planned to move to Boise after graduating this spring, family friend Jessie Frost told The Idaho Statesman.

Goncalves, who had joined the Alpha Phi sorority and was a senior majoring in general studies, also had big plans. She’d recently bought a 2016 Range Rover, planned a trip to Europe next year, and expected to move to Texas after graduation, her sister Alivea Goncalves told NBC’s “Today” show.

“She had everything going for her, absolutely everything,” her sister said. “She had her job lined up. She had worked really hard for it.”

Along with photos, Mogen collected quotes on her Instagram page.

“It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but a good amount of it actually is,” read one brightly colored post.

Talking about Ethan Chapin, memorializing him in conversation, has been cathartic, his mother said, during a time when complete strangers have been spreading speculation and conjecture about the family’s greatest tragedy. Shortly after learning of the murders, the family escaped to the privacy of a vacation home for a time.

“We realized yesterday morning, watching information about our son being posted that didn’t come from us personally, that the greatest gift we could do for our son in this moment is be his voice,” Stacy Chapin said.

As the Chapins drove home, they braced themselves for what lay ahead: The funeral planning, the interminable wait for answers. The uniquely difficult burden of holding their own, unfathomable loss inside a community that is also grieving.

“We can’t go back and change the outcome. We really have to focus on just memorializing our own son,” said Stacy Chapin. “We’re grieving as a family, but I can see so many hurt kids, like the fraternity which has all these kids flying in for the funeral.

“I have continually tried to remind Maizie and Hunter that we are grieving, but we have to be aware of everybody else who needs to grieve this as well,” she explained.