'Everything was fine': Family, friends help father cope with immeasurable loss

ASHBURNHAM, Mass. — The murder of Brandon Chicklis has devastated his family, particularly his father.

It was on Father's Day that Brandon and his dad made plans to see each other the following weekend. It turned out to be the very day Brandon disappeared.

“We were supposed to go out that night and have some dinner and talk and catch up on things,” Paul Chicklis told Boston 25 News in an exclusive interview. “He was perfectly fine the week before. Everything was fine.”

It has been weeks and Paul still cannot come to terms with the murder of his oldest son, Brandon.
One of Brandon's friends, Julia Enright, has been arrested and charged with his murder.

“He wasn't a trouble maker,” Paul said. “He didn't do anything that was bad.”

Paul’s life turned upside down the weekend of June 23, when Brandon never made it to his house in Windham, New Hampshire.

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“Sunday, late afternoon -- weekend was almost over. [I] hadn’t heard from him. Usually I would get a phone call or text,” Paul said.

It would be a week before Brandon's car was found in a parking lot in Rindge, New Hampshire.

A jogger later found Brandon's body a few miles away on the side of Route 119.

Brandon's cell phone last pinged in Ashburnham near property owned by Julia Enright's father.

Authorities say they found blood in a tree house and in Julia's car.

None of it makes sense to Paul.

“They were friends. As far as I knew, they were friends,” Paul said.

A GoFundMe account to help pay for funeral expenses, has raised thousands of dollars.

And Friday, family friend and guitarist Gary Hoey will perform a memorial concert for Brandon in Derry.

“I just want to focus on my son -- how good of a person he was; how he wanted to live life,” said Paul.

Friday's memorial concert is going to go a long way toward helping Brandon's father heal.

But justice, and the answers it might provide, are going to take some time.

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