Man Slain Sunday Night Described as 'Gentle Giant'

Christopher Chastain had spent all day Sunday with his 3-year-old son.

He had such a good time with his son, also named Chris, that he decided to call his grandmother, Annamay May, to tell her about the day.

“He called me later in the evening talking about all the fun they had,” said May, 78, of San Bruno.

Sometime between that phone call and about 10:26 p.m. that evening, something went tragically wrong. Chastain, 23, of San Bruno was on the 400 block of Cypress Avenue when officers discovered him lying unresponsive on the ground. Officers said he appeared to have sustained "traumatic injuries."

Police have ruled Chastain’s death a homicide and have arrested Nicholas Vargas, 24, also of San Bruno in connection with the slaying. The murder is the city’s first this year and the first since a 20-year-old man was found shot to death in the Belle Air neighborhood in June 2010—such a rarity in the city, let alone in the Huntington Park neighborhood where families describe the area as quiet and peaceful.

Now, Chastain’s family, just like police, are trying to piece together how something so vicious could happen to such a nice guy.

May described the 23-year-old as a gentle, family-loving man with a beautiful smile.

He had been struggling to find steady work in the recovering economy, working at odd jobs over the years just to get by. While he didn’t go to college, he had ambitions of going back to school to pursue a career in repairing computers—one of his hobbies.

And he was always willing to help out around the family house.

He stood tall at 6-foot-5, but his father called him a “gentle giant,” May said, because “he was like a teddy bear.”

So it is puzzling to family members why someone would want to harm him.

“He wasn’t one who would start a fight,” May said. “But he was so big. Why would anyone want to fight him?”

It is even more surprising that Vargas has been charged with the murder since Vargas and Chastain go way back to their childhood days, May said.

An autopsy was scheduled today, but the results aren’t likely to be available for at least a few weeks, said the San Mateo County coroner’s office.

Still reeling from Sunday’s incident, May said the family has been staying prayerful and steadily accepting the fact that Chastain is in a better place now.

“It breaks my heart to be losing a grandson,” May said. “But it breaks my heart even more to know that another family’s grandson killed someone. I really feel bad for whoever that might be.”