What began as a celebration turned into a tragedy no one could have imagined. This story unpacks the red flags leading up to Florence, Kentucky’s first mass shooting, rooted in a violent, obsessive relationship that spiraled beyond control. Through firsthand accounts, police records and community memories, reporter Ava Bumgarner follows the warning signs, the heartbreak and the aftermath – while exploring how those left behind are turning their grief into action.
Laughter spilled into the night on what was typically a quiet street in Florence, Kentucky, the echoes of what was supposed to be a celebration – a mother’s 21st birthday party for her son – captured in the background footage of a home security camera.
Just beyond the driveway, out of the streetlight glow, someone who had not been invited to the party was watching.
By early morning, July 6, 2024, before the young crowd at the home of 44-year-old Melissa Parrett dispersed, the party scene turned violent as the unwelcome figure stepped out of the shadows.
Four lives were taken, and a community was left heartbroken in the first mass shooting in the city’s history, according to the Courier-Journal, all because when a girl tried to get away, there was a guy who refused to let go.
What started out as any other relationship usually does spiraled into stalking and threats, ending in the deadliest act of domestic violence Florence had seen.
Delaney Eary, 19, had tried to leave her former boyfriend behind after months of putting up with his controlling behavior. Friends say he tracked her location through apps, showed up uninvited in the middle of the night and once brought her a bag of his shaven-off hair.
The man standing in the dark was Eary’s ex, Chase Garvey, and when he started toward the birthday party with a gun it was the culmination of months of fear, coercion and control.
And it was already too late.
What happened that night was not random. It was not sudden. And by the time anyone realized what he was capable of, the damage was done.
“Chase is here! He has a gun, everybody run,” Kaelin Millwater, 20, one of Eary’s best friends, said, as she recounted hearing Eary’s warning at the party to police in an interview.
Four people lost their lives, including Eary and Melissa “Missy” Parrett and two other friends in attendance, Hayden Rybicki and Shane Miller, both 20. Other lives were forever changed, including three survivors who were hospitalized for gunshot wounds.
“I was just lost, dazed and confused, I think that was the worst part of it all. I was hearing everything, and I couldn’t make out who it was,” Millwater said. “The silence that followed for like just a split second, is where I think everybody realized it was deafening . . . I had no idea what I was gonna walk out to.”
(Note: Below are timestamps determined from home security camera footage and victim accounts supplied by the Florence Police Department.)
Friday, July 5, 2024 – 11:43 p.m.
Chase Alexander Garvey of Florence, Kentucky, glances quickly back at the door as he leaves his home on Remy Lane on foot.
Garvey, 21 years old at the time, a little over 6 feet tall, 175 pounds, buzz-cut auburn hair and blue eyes, heads off into the night in a grey T-shirt, tan cargo pants and what appeared to be brown cowboy boots and a forward-facing baseball hat.
In the past few years he has been arrested multiple times, once in 2021 on charges including rape and sodomy and then two separate probation violations in 2023 for a felony offense, according to kentuckyarrests.org.
Garvey was supposedly headed to play Xbox with an underage friend of his, something the two often did together, according to a police interview. Garvey had told his friend earlier he would return in an hour, but by 2:10 a.m. the minor texted: “Yo, it’s been an hour,” and Garvey never responded.
Saturday, July 6, 2024 – around 1 a.m. (According to Kaelin Millwater)
A home on Ridgecrest Drive in Florence, Kentucky, was full of life. Several of Brendon Parrett’s friends, including Eary, Rybicki and Miller, had gathered for the 21st birthday celebration thrown by Brendon’s mom.
Earlier in the evening, Ava Mueller, who attended the party, had mentioned someone allegedly saw or heard Garvey’s vehicle pass by, according to a police report.
In response, Mueller and a few others walked down the street in hopes of locating Garvey’s vehicle, but they never saw Garvey nor found his vehicle, according to a police report.
“I had a feeling in my gut that he (Garvey) was there, because I walked the street earlier that night looking for him. My one deal was if I see his car, I’m calling 911,” Millwater said. “Then I didn’t see it, so I went back over to the house.”
Millwater knew Garvey did not particularly like her, and she had hoped they would be able to locate his vehicle.
“Because at this point, like, me and Chase publicly hated each other. Like, he texted me and was like, ‘Literally please die,”’ Millwater said. “Like, literally all the time, like, that man threatened to kill me and wanted to be the one to do it.”
Saturday, July 6, 2024 – 2 a.m. (According to a Eufy home security camera)
A neighbor’s home security camera shows Garvey on Ridgecrest Drive in the side yard of a home near the residence where the birthday party was held. Garvey steps out a tad, turns to look up the street and walks back toward the side yard into the veil of the shadows.
Garvey was astonishingly close to the party, without anyone having yet known he was lurking in the darkness, according to other home security camera recordings, despite the fact that some of the partygoers had gone looking for him.
Saturday, July 6, 2024 — 2:16 a.m.
Garvey turns and walks into the driveway of the same neighboring home, clutching his left side with his right hand. The home security camera once again catches his movement as he moves out of the frame and out of sight.
Between 2:16 a.m. and 2:49 a.m., there is no record of where Garvey might have been. There’s no security footage or statements regarding his whereabouts during this time.
Saturday, July 6, 2024 — 2:49 a.m. (According to a home security camera, police report and Kaelin Millwater)
From the home security camera, Garvey is recorded yelling something inaudible, according to a police report, followed by terrified screams as Garvey proceeds to fire shots.
Standing in the driveway of the Parrett home, Millwater and a group of her friends were hanging out near the garage when she heard popping sounds.
According to Millwater, a neighbor had to yell out of her window and tell police that someone was in the house with a gun. She said allegedly the police had arrived at the scene prepared to knock on the door, thinking it was just a bunch of drunk kids with fireworks.
“Because that was their assumption, because we were all crying. We’re calling at three in the morning, Fourth of July weekend, a lot of us are very obviously drunk, by the way we were acting on this phone call,” Millwater said. “Obviously, their first assumption is ‘These kids are too drunk. They’re mistaking a firework finale for gunshots right now.”’
Millwater and several others sought refuge in the basement of the house, staying on the phone with the dispatchers as they proceeded to hide in Missy Parrett’s bedroom located in the basement.
“So, if you were hiding in the house, he didn’t open up any doors, he didn’t look, the only way you got shot was if you saw his face,” Claire Smith said, one of the three hospitalized victims. “So, he shot at everyone who looked at him.”
Smith, Konnor Markesbery and Chloe Parrett, sister of the birthday honoree, were all rushed to UC Medical Center in Cincinnati in critical but stable conditions. All three made full recoveries.
Police located Garvey fleeing the scene in his 2002 Lexus LS 430 near Farmview Drive and U.S. 42 and attempted to pull him over, which led to a chase. He crashed on Dale Heimbrock Way near Hicks Pike after he veered off the road and into a ditch, according to a police report.
When Garvey refused to step out from his car, police found he had sustained a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Garvey was pronounced dead at St. Elizabeth Hospital.
Missed Calls and Blank Spaces
Eary had been glued to her phone that night, Smith and Millwater recalled in an interview, and just by looking at her best friend, Millwater could tell something was not right. Smith said she could also sense Eary needed some support from her friends.
“Whatever he was saying was scaring her, and everyone could see it,” Millwater said.
Smith was not sure that night if she actually wanted to attend the party, but it was for her best friend Chloe’s brother, and Smith adored the whole family. So, she went.
“The effect of this has changed our lives forever, and people don’t even know about it,” Smith said. “We’re living our lives right now in a completely different way than we would have been living it before . . . I was at my best friend’s brother’s birthday party, did you think it was gonna get shot up?”
Smith sustained two gunshot wounds, one to her upper right thigh, which ended up putting her through three surgeries, and one to her stomach.
Sitting at Fort Thomas Coffee, in Fort Thomas, Kentucky, Smith pulled her phone out from her purse and brought up an x-ray image of her leg with the metal rod doctors used to replace her shattered femur, showing where the bullet had been an inch away from her artery.
“I mean this is literally how bad my leg was shattered, because when he shot me it went in my bone, and they (the bullet and bone) both collided and they both exploded,” Smith said.
It was not uncommon for Eary to be entirely consumed by her phone to stay in communication with Garvey. The two had been in a relationship that took a turn for the worse around Memorial Day weekend in 2024, according to a police report.
Eary and Garvey met in January 2023, according to a close friend of Eary’s, 20-year-old Alexandria Shehan, who was not at the party that night but gave background information to the Florence Police Department on the toxicity of the relationship.
Shehan explained that at the time Garvey and Eary met, she and Eary were both working at the Kroger in Union, Kentucky, where Garvey had gone through Eary’s checkout line. Not much time had passed until Garvey himself had begun working there as well. Eary began dating Garvey soon after, according to a police report.
Their relationship became dangerous around seven to eight months before the shooting, according to Shehan’s statement in the police report. Around March 2024, Garvey had allegedly strangled Eary. She then broke up with Garvey approximately one to two months before the shooting.
Eary had told Shehan that Garvey had threatened, “If I find out you ever hung out with another guy, I’ll kill him, you, then myself.”
That meant her ex was watching when Eary spent time with her friends, trying to feel normal, including spending time with 20-year-old Hayden Rybicki.
“So, our guess was, we found this out after the fact, back when Chase was still actively in our friend group, we all had a Life360 circle together, and he never left it,” Millwater said. “He just turned his location permissions off, and a lot of us had our location on still . . . so I think he was watching that a lot.”
This is how he had always known of Eary’s whereabouts, by watching the friends’ locations that were available, Millwater assumed.
Jackson Hemingway, a longtime friend of Rybicki’s, remembered him being interested in Eary a few weeks before the party, hanging out with her here and there.
“He was always the one to speak up if he thought someone was doing something wrong or like not being a good person, because that’s what Hayden stood for,” Hemingway said.
But as Rybicki grew closer to Eary, those around him began to worry about who he might be getting involved with — and what that could mean for him.
“He (Rybicki) sort of knew about it, and he was like ‘What’s the circumstance of the situation?’ Like we sat down and talked about it . . . because I told him, don’t take it personally if she (Eary) backs off of you for a little bit,” Millwater said. “Like he’s bad news . . . I’m not lying when I told Hayden don’t get yourself killed because he can, and he will.”
Millwater was not speaking in hypotheticals — she had already seen and heard of Garvey’s behavior that made her uneasy.
“Shit really hit the fan when he shaved his head, and then gave his hair to Delaney in a Kroger bag,” Millwater said. “He used to have long hair, it was like decently long, but then he shaved it all off and gave it to her in a bag. I was like, ‘Oh my god, he’s insane.’”
A similar instance of Garvey acting abnormally happened a few weeks before July 6. Smith said in an interview that she remembered learning that Garvey had shown up on Shehan’s doorstep unannounced when Eary was there.
“He showed up at Allie Shehan’s house, knocking on the door at like 2 a.m., and was like, ‘I’m just here to make sure my girlfriend’s okay.’ And they weren’t dating, like you can’t do anything,” Smith said. “He literally forced her to leave, she felt so unsafe and I’m assuming . . . she was like a very ‘didn’t want to put anybody else in danger,’ so she got her stuff and left. That scares me because she took a video, he had his hands behind his back the entire time, and was just like rocking back and forth, like acting insane.”
From a police interview with Eary’s mother and stepfather they doubted that Eary had reached out to the police because she was afraid of Garvey.
They also said they had talked with her about getting an emergency protection order, but she feared that doing so could provoke Garvey and make him more dangerous, according to a police report.
A Convicted Felon Somehow Had A Firearm
According to Kentucky Revised Statute 527.040, individuals who have been convicted of a felony are prohibited from possessing, manufacturing or transporting a firearm without a full pardon.
Despite this, Garvey got his hands on a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. The circumstances of how he obtained the firearm are unknown.
According to police reports, Garvey was still on probation and classified as a “low-risk offender” when he killed four people and wounded at least three others at the party.
Garvey was required to check in once a month at the probation and parole office with his last check-in being July 5, 2024, where he had requested a travel permit to visit his father in Florida from July 9-16, according to a police report.
The Hayden Rybicki Foundation
Rybicki, born in Seal Beach, California, moved to Northern Kentucky when he was four years old. With blue eyes, shoulder-length blonde hair typically covered with a beanie, he brought joy to everyone around him friends said in an interview at his 21st birthday memorial celebration.
He had many hobbies including videography, BMX racing, snowboarding, fishing and especially his car: a white 1993 Honda Civic DX sedan he had poured years of work into. Loved ones say he greatly loved his family and friends, and he always looked for a friend in everyone.
“He was just always someone to, you know, help other people, even if he didn’t know who they were,” Hemingway said. “Doesn’t care about what you look like or how you feel about it, he’s going to help you.”
Hemingway met Rybicki in elementary school, and they reconnected after their junior year of high school.
“He was kind of the anchor that held our friend group together . . . like we’re all still friends, but he was kind of a level head in the group that held us all together,” Porter Eggleston, a friend of Rybicki’s, said.
Friends said that Rybicki had risked, and lost, his own life to protect his friends.
“I want everybody to know how truly Hayden was a hero that night . . . Hayden was short, and Hayden was skinny, and I’m taller, but I mean, I would not have charged at Chase even without a gun in his hand,” Millwater said. “And that’s what Hayden did that night . . . he saved a lot of people that night, and I think that is exactly what he meant to do.”
A bone-chilling rain settled in over the Ohio River, replacing the previous week’s summery temperatures. Rain fell steadily and the breeze picked up, forcing people to migrate into huddles under the awning and inside the small coffee shop at Circuit Café in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Patrons yanked their hoods over their heads, tightly gripping their coffee cups close to their chests to avoid their drinks becoming watered down from the rain.
Cars slowly pulled into the parking lot, from a BMW 335i to a classic 240D Mercedes Benz, but there was one specific car that people craned their necks for.
A white 1993 Honda Civic DX sedan with a motor swapped for a JDM D15B.
It was Sunday, March 16, 2025, what would have been Rybicki’s 21st birthday. His beloved car had just pulled into the lot, without him behind the wheel.
Ordinarily, there was not a valid reason in the world in which Rybicki would not be behind the wheel of the car he had spent the past few years of his life refurbishing.
Ariana Manners, who had met Rybicki through the car scene, recalled his unique style, particularly the modified Honda Civic with blast pipes. After his passing, she drew several designs of the victims, along with Rybicki standing next to his car, and had them printed onto T-shirts some people were wearing at the gathering.
“Honestly, I see his car as an embodiment of him. I think that’s gonna be here forever, that’s how we’re always gonna remember him, I don’t think anything could compare to that car,” Manners said.
While Gracie Vance and Corinne Tucker took the time to keep their memories of Rybicki alive while celebrating his 21st, the community’s action in establishing the Hayden Rybicki Foundation is something they wanted to highlight.
The Hayden Rybicki Foundation, started by Rybicki’s mother, “is committed to raising community awareness about domestic violence” through “outreach programs” and “helping individuals recognize and navigate potentially dangerous situations,” the foundation’s website says.
The foundation carries on Rybicki’s legacy by creating a safe space where his warmth and kindness live on, bringing people together to remember him and keep his spirit alive through acts of compassion and purpose.
“It was very cool to see how quickly everyone jumped into action, just to make it known because the loss of Hayden and everyone else was tragic, but it’s such a bigger problem,” Tucker said of the foundation’s work to educate about situations like Eary and Garvey’s. “And it’s not something you realize until it happens to you . . . I just admire the way everyone was like, ‘Okay, where do we go from here? Like how do we make the best of an awful situation?’ And they’re doing amazing.”
Jackson Hemingway • Jun 12, 2025 at 2:33 pm
Amazing piece! Glad I got to speak with Ava!