Sporty, well-liked, friendly and welcoming – that’s how Chad O’Melia’s father Sean remembers him.
"There's nobody that I know that ever met him that didn't like him. And I will tell you this honestly - he loved his country, Ireland. He loved his Irish heritage," Sean O'Melia told KCLU on Wednesday in an exclusive interview.
"He absolutely loved, loved sports. And I think he loved it more because of the relationships and the team environment and the friends that he developed through it. So he was just a very open, social, welcoming person. That's who he was."
Chad O’Melia was 26 years old when he was fatally stabbed – over 100 times - at his home in Thousand Oaks in 2018. Sean recalls his shock and disbelief.
"The morning of May 28th, at about 10.15 in the morning, two sheriff's deputies came to my home. He said to me, 'I'm sorry to have to tell you, but your son has been stabbed'. And I said, 'Okay, well, I need to know where he is. I need to go and see him. What hospital is he at?' I did not think he was dead.
"And then they told me. They said, 'I'm sorry, sir, we got to tell you that he's deceased'.
"And I just....I collapsed, I fell to my knees. I was in disbelief," he said.
The woman who killed him, Bryn Spejcher, had smoked cannabis with the victim, and the judge said she had a “psychotic break from reality” from using the drug, when she was sentenced this week to two years of probation and 100 hours of community service - after a jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter. O’Melia says the woman who killed his son should not have been spared prison time.
"Because she was in a psychotic episode, therefore, she couldn't have known it was going to happen or what she was doing....so what? There are people that drink alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car, and they're in prison right now because they killed somebody doing that. And this is way more heinous an act. There are people to get 100 hours for not paying their traffic tickets," he said.
"So I don't understand why a person can all of a sudden smoke marijuana and not be held accountable for their actions. That doesn't make sense and legally doesn't make sense. She should have been sentenced to prison time, but she wasn't."
He says the judge failed his son, and the grief of losing Chad and going through the court case has been agony.
"You know what it's been like torture. This has been torture going to that place, and then to have it to come to an end like this.
"My son, he didn't do anything to this girl. He didn't do anything to deserve what he got," he said.
O’Melia – who works as the assistant director of design and construction at UCLA – says that he’s going to take time to spend with his younger son – who not only lost a brother – but also lost his mom a year later.
"She died a year and a half after it happened. She got depressed and couldn't take care of herself, and she died. I hold the girl responsible for both of these deaths," said O'Melia.
"I kind of want to just spend a couple days with my younger son and show him some love. Nothing is as rewarding as seeing your children be happy and seeing your children grow and seeing your children be successful."
"Chad was everything to me," he said.
