NORTON SHORES — It’s difficult for Chad Seils to turn away from photos of his 3-year-old son, Skyler Seils — the little boy with deep chocolate-brown eyes always looking up at the camera with a big toothy grin.

Photos of his boy are all he has left since the grisly May 15, 2010, murder of his son at the hands of his ex-wife’s boyfriend, Todd Pink, who is scheduled to be sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in a Macomb County courtroom.

“I miss everything about Skyler — his smile, his eyes, just him being little Mr. Independent. He was full of energy and full of life,” said Seils, 37, of Norton Shores.

He plans to be at Pink’s sentencing and to read a statement to Pink, although he said he doesn’t expect that will provide much in terms of closure.

“I’ll just miss having Skyler around every day. It doesn’t seem like it’s been a year,” he said. “I’m numb. I’ve been numb since this has happened. It still hasn’t sunk in.”

The attacks came a little more than a year ago in Macomb County’s Clinton Township. Pink killed Skyler with a meat cleaver — and also stabbed him 15 times in the back. Heavyn, Skyler’s then 5-year-old sister, also was seriously injured after she was cut with a knife, but survived.

Seils said Heavyn has recovered physically, but her emotional scars are likely there forever.

“The only closure I feel is what I promised Heavyn: that she would never see (Pink) again and that he would die in jail,” he said.

Pink also shot and killed the children’s mother, Carrie Seils, 35, Seils' ex-wife, that night and shot and wounded Carrie’s roommate, James Pagano.

Pink, who had dated Carrie, was convicted of first-degree murder earlier this year in the slayings of Carrie and Skyler Seils, and attempted murder for the attacks on Heavyn Seils and Pagano.

“I wish Michigan had a death penalty in cases like this. I don’t think (Pink) cares,” Seils said. “There’s no answer for it at all. He robbed me and my family of my son. He put a hole in my heart that’s never going to close. It’s inexcusable.”

A night of terror

Seils said the evening of May 15, 2010, is a blur, a nightmare from which he cannot wake.

He said he heard the news from a friend of his ex-wife less than an hour after the assault.

“I was out with some friends that night. I went home around 8:30 p.m., and something clicked inside of me. I was having a good time, but just wanted to go home,” he said. “I was so close to going by (Carrie’s) house, and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t.”

Coping with tragedy 14 Gallery: Coping with tragedy

Seils said about a half an hour after he got home, a friend of Carrie’s was knocking on his door.

“He said that Carrie is dead and Skyler is dead ... and Heavyn is asking for you, and she’s been attacked,” Seils said.

Authorities said the incident occurred after Pink and Carrie had been drinking much of that day, and went with the children and Pagano to the Downtown Hoedown in Detroit, where they began to argue.

After arriving at Carrie’s home, they continued to argue. Pink left and went to his father’s house in Sterling Heights, about 10 miles away, and retrieved a .40-caliber handgun from the bedroom closet.

He returned to Carrie’s house, kicked in the door and brutally attacked all four people inside, Seils said.

During Pink’s trial in April, prosecutors said Pink fired first at Pagano, striking him in the face, then shot Carrie in the side of the head while Heavyn and Skyler stood a few feet away.

Seils said Pink turned the gun on Skyler, but it jammed, so he went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and meat cleaver and attacked the children.

An autopsy showed Skyler had three to four major wounds to his head likely caused by a meat cleaver. He also had 15 stab wounds to his back, two major lacerations to his right arm and several puncture wounds from a meat fork in his chest, Seils said.

Seils thinks his children attempted to run from Pink before they were attacked.

“I believe he chased the kids around the house a little bit. Heavyn told me she told Skyler to run,” he said.

After killing Skyler, Pink turned to Heavyn and sliced her with a knife as well. Heavyn blacked out for some time. Pink left the house, and Pagano, after regaining consciousness, carried Heavyn out of the home, Seils said.

After the attacks, Pink went to his sister’s Macomb Township condominium, according to police records, where he was arrested.

Around 10 p.m. the same night, Seils said a Clinton Township detective called him and asked him to come to the police station.

“He told me what they knew,” he said. “I was like, ‘Take me to the children’s hospital. I want to see Heavyn.’”

'It could have been prevented'

Carrie and Chad Seils were married in 2003 and divorced in 2008. The couple had lived in Warren, but after the divorce, Carrie moved to a Clinton Township rental home, Seils said.

They had joint custody of the children at one point, but Carrie struggled with substance abuse, he said, and he tried, unsuccessfully, to gain sole custody of the children on several occasions.

According to court documents obtained by the Macomb Daily News, Seils told a judge he feared for the safety of his children.

Seils said he wanted to keep the mother of his children in their lives, but it was clear Carrie had begun spiraling out of control, again and again putting the children at risk.

“She was a good mom when we were married. But when we got divorced, it’s like she was lost,” Seils said.

Judge Tracey Yokich of the family division of Macomb County Circuit Court reviewed but denied several of his requests in 2009 and 2010 to revoke Carrie’s unsupervised visitation rights, Seils said.

Yokich could not be reached for comment Monday.

Seils had full custody, with Carrie having custody every other weekend.

Seils said he asked Yokich in writing and verbally to stop his ex-wife from having unsupervised contact with the children because her excessive drinking, failure to pick up the children on time and other behaviors.

The Macomb Daily News reported that after describing two incidents of Carrie drinking in the presence of the children, Seils made prescient remarks in an Oct. 2, 2009, handwritten court motion: “(I am) only trying to protect anyone from getting killed, most important to me Heavyn and Skyler.”

Later in the motion, he said: “So there for (sic) I’m asking Honor (sic) for the best interest of the kids that I should and want full custody of Heavyn and Skyler before something happens.”

Yokich denied his requests for sole custody. On Dec. 9, 2009, the Friend of the Court agreed Carrie violated an order by being intoxicated in November when she tried to pick up the children, but did not hold her in contempt, the Daily News reported.

“I need justice by the police and the judge. They are so much accountable for the deaths (of Carrie and Skyler) and the injuries that my daughter had,” Seils told the Chronicle last week.

The day before the killings, Seils said he tried to get police to intervene when Carrie picked up Skyler while she was intoxicated.

Seils said he couldn’t stop Carrie from running out of the Roseville Police Station where the two always exchanged the children. Carrie ran out the door with Skyler — Heavyn was in school — and jumped into a vehicle driven by Pink.

Seils said he had not previously met Pink and learned just prior to the attacks that he and Carrie were engaged.

After getting the attention of officers at the station, Seils said he convinced them to stop by Carrie’s house to check on the situation.

Seils followed behind in his own vehicle, assuming Skyler would end up going home with him.

“They went to her home. The officers went to the door, and five minutes later, they pulled up next to me and said Skyler seemed to be fine. But I wanted them to have Carrie take a (breathalyzer test), and they didn’t. There was nothing I could do, but I knew that if I went to get Heavyn from school, I’d be held in contempt,” Seils said.

So he helplessly went back to his house, only to learn less than 24 hours later about Pink’s murderous attack.

“It would be one thing if I hadn’t brought it to someone’s attention,” Seils said of his ex-wife’s drinking in the weeks leading up to the murders.

“But I did, and the court was supposed to help the children.”

Rebuilding their lives

Seils and Heavyn have since moved back to his hometown of Norton Shores, where they are trying to rebuild their lives.

Heavyn suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, for which she sees a counselor regularly and takes medication, Seils said.

It’s been a rough year for Heavyn, who was very close to her younger brother, Seils said.

The two share memories of Skyler often, he said.

“I remember one time Heavyn and him were sleeping upstairs. I heard Skyler come down the steps, and I was waiting for him to come into the living room. But I heard him come into the kitchen and then go right upstairs. I found out later he had snuck four chocolate chip cookies from the cookie jar. He brought two up for her and two up for him,” Seils said, laughing.

These days Seils said his only focus is raising Heavyn and keeping Skyler’s memory alive.

“My outlook on life has totally changed,” he said. “It used to be, ‘Gotta have the big house, gotta have all the toys,’ but money isn’t so important to me. I just want the necessities in my life.”

GRAVESTONE INSCRIPTION

Skyler — This is daddy. I just want you to know that Heavyn and I miss you sooo ... much ... and you will always be my little right-hand man and you will never be forgotten.

We will always remember all the happiness that you brought me and Heavyn.

Just one of those things that I will always remember is how much you told me, “I love you, Dad'” with your head tilted and those eyes and your big smile.

I knew that it was coming from your heart. I love you, little buddy, always and forever.M

See you later — hugs and kisses.

He is self-employed, remodeling and doing other projects around the area, something he had hoped to do with his son someday.

“He was just getting to that age where he liked to help me work in the garage, on vehicles and boats,” Seils said.

Skyler also loved the idea of someday riding on the back of a motorcycle with his father, so Seils said he arranged for Skyler’s casket to be pulled behind a motorcycle, accompanied by a police escort, in Macomb County, prior to interment in Norton Shores.

“I wanted to give him a (motorcycle) ride,” he said. “We did an eight-mile loop, pulling his casket behind the motorcycle.”

Seils, Heavyn and other family members will celebrate Skyler’s fifth birthday next weekend.

“We’ll gather at the cemetery first, and then we’ll have a celebration at our house in remembrance of his life,” Seils said. “It’s the only way a person stays alive.”

In the meantime, Seils hopes to raise money for a foundation he would like to start in Skyler’s name “that would help protect children from becoming victims of the state’s court system.”

“It could have been prevented,” Seils said of his son’s death. “I’m not going to let his face be forgotten.”

Email: hpeters@muskegonchronicle.com