The McStay Family /// Part 2 /// 582 | Forensic Files

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get away tonight 10 News sources are revealing new details to us about the desert crime
scene where the bodies of the mcstay family from Fallbrook were discovered we have been breaking every development on
this case since yesterday and new tonight 10 news reporter Preston Phillips reveals what was done to one of
the bodies before it was buried in a shallow grave two sets of remains primarily intact and
clothing found in two different shallow Graves here just off the 15 North of Victorville confirmed by authorities
through dental records it's the mcstays a Fallbrook family of four who mysteriously disappeared back in
February of 2010 at a Friday morning news conference mcstay family members fought to hold back tears my family
appreciates all the support and the love that we've been chill authorities would
not say how Joseph's summer and their two sons were killed and wouldn't speculate as to who may have killed them
law enforcement expert John Carman says the shallow Graves the mcstays were found in and their close proximity to a
busy freeway tells him it wasn't a professional hit if it was real important they'd probably go deeper or
do worse they were in a hurry and once they're on 15 North or South they're out of there did Joey have enemies
maybe a couple were they the kind of enemy that would want to kill him I I didn't see that Rick Baker author of no
goodbye is the mysterious disappearance of the mcstay family says even his law enforcement source is close to the
mcstay case are keeping the details of their deaths close to the vest but says one did tell him one thing that was done
to one of the bodies one of the bodies either summer Joseph their hands have been bound meantime Baker tells 10 News
he's pulled his book from amazon.com and taken down his online blog all of that was to find the next days it's strange
for me I'm almost in a grieving process I always believed that there would be one day that I would meet at least one
of them and be able to talk to them and see the kids Preston Phillips 10 News Sheriff's investigators would not say
what kind of clothing and other personal items were found inside the graves but they did say the evidence recovered will
help complete this investigation no place we can go get away [Music] you heard it there from the good people
of ABC 10 news that unfortunately the mixed days were found and they were not found alive and well they were found
buried in Shallow Graves to add a little more context to what it was that was found and how it was located in the
state in which these bodies were found we have some information from fox8.com which says the mcstays Joseph
summer and their sons Gianni H4 and Joseph Jr age three were ruled to have been bludgeoned to death with a
sledgehammer and buried in Shallow graves in the high desert outside of Victorville which is northeast of Los
Angeles I would say the best way to describe this location is it's a desert Valley basically very vast but also
connected pretty close to a major highway and the whole valley is overlooked by this Hillside it looks to me Captain
like the grave sites if you will were located what about a quarter of a mile off of this Main Highway and when you
look at the area and the way that you described it I think is perfect it makes total sense to me why people on dirt
bikes or off-road motorcyclists would want to be out in this area cruising around having a good time
it's wide open spaces out there and the call to authorities to let them know that they found
some human remains they're asking well what's the location and the guy says man there's no paved roads out here
this is a location that law enforcement said there is no reason to be out here authorities would tell us that in
November of 2013 when the mixed day family's skeletal remains were found in two shallow graves in the desert that
none of the victims were wearing shoes all died from blunt force trauma summer and Sun Gianni were found in
grave b as investigators dubbed it in grave a were found Joseph and Joseph Jr grave B also held what
authorities say was the murder weapon a three pound Stanley sledgehammer this is one of the short handle Sledge
hammers yeah law enforcement believes that this murder weapon came from inside the family's home Joseph in summers
skulls had been smashed multiple times the boy's skulls were fractured as well Gianni as many as seven times
Joseph had a broken leg and broken rib he was tied with an extension cord and wrapped in a futon cover which again
believed to be taken from the Fallbrook house a few things that law enforcement learned right away is the mcstage didn't
go missing on their own accord and with the evidence of possibly this family going across the Mexican border that
that's not true either and we also had family members at this time saying that they didn't believe that that was the
mcstays going across the border right and at this time it would be very difficult for us to believe that it was
in fact the mcstays that were spotted on camera going across the border because it would be awfully hard to believe that
they up and left their home in a state where it looks like they just left in the middle of all this action and
activity going on food on the counter uneaten food out half eaten food out the dogs tethered in the backyard and unfed
and that they went across the border parked their vehicle illegally it was later towed on the 8th and then they
walked back across the border unnoticed and then somebody murdered them and buried them in the desert it
just seems too far-fetched for that to be the scenario so what we will be told by authorities is that they say that
they have reason to believe that the mcstays were attacked and killed in their home before being transported
there remains transported out to the desert and then buried in those two shallow Graves labeled grave a and Grave
B now one point of evidence that they say points to that is the sledgehammer itself that three pound Sledgehammer so
the sledgehammer they say they believe it came from the family home or the thought is that at least at one point it
was at the home and their reason for stating that is that summer mcstay when she was Unearthed when her body was
found in on Earth she was not wearing a top or a shirt her bra was found spattered with paint
that paint color matched paint found in the mcstay home and that Sledgehammer that was found in
the grave with the victims contained smears of that same paint so there's a lot of things kind of tying
victim murder weapon back to the mcstay family home yeah and so what we can surmise from that is the
last known Communications would have happened around the 4th of February they believe the murder took place close to
the 4th of February and that's absolutely correct and the thing here though Captain is we got a situation
where we just went from a missing person's investigation with no leads dead ends really an investigation that
had gone cold by this point to now boom we got a quadruple homicide investigation that we are working and
San Diego county is going to transfer all of their information and all of their missing persons investigation to
San Bernardino County where the bodies were recovered so now we have a new agency with fresh eyes taking a new look
at this and they have one added Advantage they know what happened to the mixtape a family they don't know who's
responsible or how it happened but they do know that the four were murdered and that they just didn't get up and leave
on their own well now that we have four murder victims we have something that you don't have in a voluntary missing
person case we now have suspects that's correct and I have a list of people here
captain and I can't say to what varying degree that these individuals would be considered to be suspects by law
enforcement but I know that these are people that were interviewed and looked at and their movements in February early
February of 2010 their activities their cell phone records all of this stuff became very important to law enforcement
when interviewing all of these air quotes potential suspects so I can read these off to you the list that I've
created in no particular order we have Vic Johansen Michael McFadden Dan Kavanaugh Michael mcstay
and Charles Chase Merritt and I do know that we're going to have to fill in the listeners on some of these individuals
as we've not introduced them to the listeners yet these are new names so starting at the top of my list we
have Vic Johansen who is he well he is a former boyfriend of Summer mcstay and someone that had reached out to her on
occasion over the years this guy was also not considered to be a saint by anybody out there and so he was
interesting to law enforcement because here's the thing when we talk about the mcstay family right we have the
situation where Joseph mcstay he's he's regarded by everybody as this super nice
casual guy he's kind of the laid-back surfer dude and it's said over and over again by multiple people this guy didn't
have an enemy this guy had nobody that hated him nobody that disliked him nobody that would want to hurt him
unfortunately when you find a guy murdered and buried in the desert you know that that statement is not exactly
true there's at least one person that would have wanted to hurt Joseph mcstay for one reason or another right that's a
fact Jack now the flip side of that coin is his wife summer who does not share the same personality as her husband
Joseph she's a little more forward she's a little more aggressive she's a little
more protecting her own and so there were people that said you know what there were people out there
that had a problem with Summer but nobody seemed to have a problem with Joseph so now you got to look at this
thing and go okay well I don't believe and until we have a situation where we have an aurora Hammer
Slayer guy or a family Annihilator that just happened to come in in the middle of the night and wipe out a whole family
which those scenarios are rare and few and far between thank God unless you have one of those situations you have
somebody that had a beef with somebody in this mcstay family and you the boys are little they're young boys so the
beef probably didn't happen with Gianni or Joey Jr no it was with one of the parents and likely you have a scenario
where something happened to one of them and then somebody had to wipe out the rest of the family and so when you look
at this you go okay who could have had a beef with Summer who could have had a beef with Joseph well this Vic Johansen
former boyfriend was somebody that was considered to have a beef and to be weird
and potentially violent and somebody that came onto the police's radar via friends and family well he was
also arrested in a building that was connected to Joseph's business yeah Joseph's business and so he did have a
record and had you know when you're looking at this horrible crime you go well somebody with a temper
it's somebody that is capable of committing a crime like this and and he had a bunch of red flags that you have
to put him on the list yeah and he had other things of being kicked out of bars for
you know vulgar or loud activity where he's getting aggressive with people and he was he was known to be in the
area living somewhat in the area at the time of their disappearance but the problem with him is
they don't seem to have a whole lot to move on this guy and so let's keep him in the back of our mind let's keep him
on our list and continue on down our list of suspects next we have Michael McFadden he too is another individual
that we've not yet introduced to our story how does he fit in well he is Joseph's ex-wife's husband
so Joseph mcstay was previously married to another woman before he was married to Summer
and the two of them had a son together well this man Michael McFadden is now Joseph ex-wife's husband and The
Stepfather to Joseph mcstay's oldest son now Joseph mcstay is still very much in
the life of his oldest son and there are outings and Gatherings where both couples will be present mom
and her new husband are present and dad and his new wife are present and at some
point something happened where this Michael McFadden decided maybe he didn't like Joseph too
much maybe he didn't like summer too much there's an altercation of verbal altercation where Michael McFadden tells
Joseph if you don't muzzle your wife I will gladly come to your house and kick your ass and muzzle her for you
yeah if anybody ever said that about my wife they would be walking around with no teeth anybody ever said that about my
wife I would remove the muzzle and let her go yeah she can take care of herself so Michael McFadden is looked at he's
interviewed but the problem is similar with him I don't think they could put him in the area it's not that they it's
not that they can say he wasn't in the area it's more of a well we can't put him in the area around the time that we
believe that they went missing or that they were attacked well and you have to think about this law enforcement has
something to their advantage you have two locations you need to put that individual roughly
at that house on the fourth and then you have to put them in a whole separate location a hundred
miles away so this guy does have a history but like he States in his interview with
law enforcement that history is that criminal history is from long ago and when I was younger when I was
Dumb and and my life is different now I'm a businessman I'm a family man I'm not the same person as I was I think his
comments are out of line but we've all said stupid things when we get heated and when we're in an argument with
somebody the other thing though Captain summer does not strike me as the person who would have taken a back seat to
anybody so we also don't know what she may have said to this Michael McFadden character in fact it could be worse than
what he said about her later but yes you're exactly right that's the situation that we have we have to be
able to put our suspect or suspects remember we got four victims here and I I have a hard time in this case
looking at it and going there's only one person that could pull this off but we have to be able to put our
suspect or suspects at their home around the time that we believe that they were
attacked or went missing and then put them 70 roughly 70 miles away where we know that the bodies were eventually
recovered somebody moved them to that spot if in fact the authorities are correct in their statement that we
believe that the mcstays were attacked and killed in their home so that brings us to number three and I'm gonna I'm
gonna LeapFrog somebody on my list here no not going the exact same order and that'll be clear as to the reason why
here in just a minute but my next suspect that would be on the list is the brother Mike mcstay and and I hate this
is a person that I hate to put on the list he's somebody that if in fact he's innocent then he is hurting he's a
victim's family member he was very close with his brother or at least at one time
I questioned how close he was at the time of the disappearance but he was close with them and then we
have his father Patrick who does not seem to get along real well with Michael mcstay but is quick to defend his son
and saying hey he would never hurt his brother he loved his brother always loved his brother
but furthermore I don't think he could hurt anyone I don't think he could kill a potential enemy let alone somebody
that he was once close with so Michael mcstay he's interesting for a couple of reasons and we've already
pointed some of them out one The Taking of the computer two being able to access
their locked home and then we had this weird situation of when he's interviewed he tells police when asked did you go
over to their home on the fourth he gives a vague answer of yeah I was around their home I went by their home
it was either February 4th or February 6th 2010. right so that by his own admission puts him in
the area puts them in it puts them in the area of their home around the time of the attack
well and we also have neighborhood surveillance that puts a white truck or utility type truck or a white SUV it's a
it's look the the video footage is absolutely dog [ __ ] it's worse than the video of the four people seen walking
across the port I mean we can find doorways on Mars but we can't get decent surveillance footage
on here on Earth so well let's let's give a better description of that shall we no since
we're in the moment this comes from surveillance footage from a neighbor's home security camera and the neighbor
provides this to police this is after police go around and canvas the area asking has anybody seen anything do you
have any home security cameras could we take a take a look at it so on and so forth this will later be called the
mitchley video or referred to as the mitchley video and this on this surveillance footage
the footage comes from February 4th 2010 again this is the day that it's believed
that they were attacked and killed at 7 47 p.m just like the captain said this video shows what others knocked the
kernel here not old eagle eyes here what others say is a white truck or SUV driving past this neighbor's home
exiting from the mcstay family home now there's been plenty of people to say we cannot confirm that it was exiting the
mcstay family home at one point when they were still simply missing it was thought that this could be Joseph
mcstay's Isuzu Trooper it could have been his vehicle and they say that you see a white truck or a white SUV I'll
tell you what I watched that damn clip it's it's a real quick clip it's in the dark I can't see anything it's it's all
black and white from what I can tell and all I see are headlights and reflectors I don't see anything other
than headlights and reflectors I couldn't make out a color of a vehicle a shape of a vehicle anything
I actually think it's very possible that it's the mcstays family vehicle I agree with you
because somebody has to transport that vehicle they yes at some point they have to take that vehicle but meaning that at
some point they have to drive a vehicle and then they have to get back somehow so a tandem driver either they had some
help as I pointed out earlier I have a hard time believing that only one person carried out this these horrific crimes
and all the methods and and ways to try to cover it up or got an Uber driver had him drop you
off a block or two from the mcstay home if it were me and I had to do this thing
solo not that I ever would but if I did do something like this I probably would put my vehicle in their garage to
conceal it and I'm with you I would use their own vehicle knowing that I'm going to ditch
it someplace later elsewhere that I would use their vehicle to transport them out to that spot in the
desert so it's really hard to say what it is that we are seeing there I don't know what I'm seeing I don't see
anything of evidentiary value other than it looks like some type of vehicle is leaving from the mcstays at 7 47 p.m on
the day that it's believed that they were attacked that leaves us with two more suspects here captain that we
didn't get to and I leapfrogged one of them simply because these other two fall into a similar basket to me and that's
because they're both involved and they both work with Joseph mcstay and so that is his business associate Charles Chase
Merritt who is the Builder and manufacturer of these water features as well as Dan Kavanaugh who is his
one-time business partner who's being in the process of being bought out from the company
[Music] on November 11 2013 skeletal remains were recovered in the County area of Victorville
and we're confirmed to be that of the mcstay family our homicide investigation began
immediately and the identity to find the identity of the suspect of this horrible crime and
bring that responsible person to Justice the San Diego County Sheriff's Department turned over nearly 4 500
pages of investigative material that was reviewed by our Detectives 60 search warrants were served and over
200 interviews were conducted investigators received about 250 tips and anonymous calls and followed up on
every one of them as the investigation progressed the District Attorney's office was involved
and consulted investigators from our department would like to make a special thank you to
special agent Kevin Bowles of the FBI for his assistance in this investigation Charles Chase Merritt was identified as
the suspect responsible for the death of Joseph summer Gianni and Joseph mcstay there's no information to suggest there
were any other suspects involved in this crime Chase Merritt was a business associate
of Joseph mcstay the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma and based on the
entire investigation and the evidence obtained investigators believe these murders occurred at their residence in
Fallbrook investigators are not disclosing the motive for the murder at this point
Merritt was arrested on Wednesday November 5th without incident transported and booked at our West
Valley Detention Center where he is currently being held I want to thank all the investigators
who spent countless hours in this case less than a year ago I made a promise to the family that our department would do
everything in our power to solve this case and although we can never bring them back I hope that this provides some
level of closure it's now my honor to introduce the district attorney of San Bernardino County Mike Ramos
[Music] all right we are back cheers mate cheers to you Colonel cheers to you captain and just a quick reminder to
everyone out there that's listening to this on Wednesday May 25th today is National missing Children's Day
President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25th 1983 the first national missing Children's Day in memory of Eaton Pats
and very fitting that this case is being reviewed by us this week here Captain as
we heard in part one the national Center for missing and exploited children were
involved in this investigation because we did have two missing children and they helped with viewing the Border
camera footage so in honor of their good work half of this week's beer fund will
be donated to the National Center for missing and exploited children that clip right there Captain very clear very
concise well delivered by the sheriff by Sheriff McMahon there to tell us about the very general stages of the
investigation leading up to the point of the discovery of the bodies San Bernardino County taking over the
investigation which then led to the arrest of Charles Chase Merritt and the bodies were found in November of 2013
mean and the press conference where they tell us that we have identified the two
adult bodies as that of Joseph and summer mcstay took place on November 15th the press conference clip that you
just heard was almost exactly one year later November 7th 2014 is when they announced to the public hey two days ago
we just arrested business associate Chase Merritt for the murders of the entire mcstay family in a lot of these
cases it's hard to get one good suspect in this one we have a handful of people that really need to be looked into what
separates Chase from the rest of these other suspects I think it's the specific information that they have on Chase
where the others look like potentially good suspects however we can't place them with one or any of the victims
around the time that they are attacked and killed with the the exception of Michael mcstay stating that he drove by
the family's home either on the 4th or the 6th of February what we do know is that chase Merritt is saying I had a
meeting with my boss Joseph that day we met at a Chick-fil-A and we had a several hours
long meeting that was all about business we exchanged some checks and it was a very casual meeting however when police
do their due diligence and they start looking into that meeting that took place on the same day that they believed
that the family was attacked and killed they can't find any evidence that such a
meeting took place let alone several hours long meeting at a Chick-fil-A there's no Financial evidence that backs
up that the two had lunch together and had this casual long meeting at Chick-fil-A nothing in Chase's records
nothing in Joseph's records from their credit cards we also don't find any receipts that somebody paid cash for
that day we can't find anybody at Chick-fil-A that says we saw the two guys having a meeting here there's no
proof of them being at the Chick-fil-A on surveillance footage so right away what we have here just
from that one particular spot in our timeline is we have one guy telling us a story
that we cannot verify with anyone else and we can't use any of Joseph's information to verify that that that
actually took place and went down the way that he says it went down what we do know that took place is that we have
several Communications between Chase and Joseph on February 4th we do know that that took place
but we can't say that this long meeting took place and in fact once you start to
hear the prosecution and law enforcement's Narrative of how they believe that all of this went down
uh you can figure out very quickly that they think that a whole lot of different
stuff was happening rather than what Chase Merritt was telling them took place and to reiterate
it was a huge mistake in my mind to not take their disappearance more seriously from the get-go and because we have this
time gap of about four years this really ties law enforcement's hands but I also think that it ties the hands
of suspects as well because if you start asking me questions about something that
happened a year ago I'm going to have a difficulty remembering certain details or remembering certain things that maybe
could corroborate my story big problem for Chase is there will be evidence against him that cannot be changed that
cannot be just one person's opinion or one person telling you this is what happened
now because they know that based off of computer evidence and off of financial records and cell phone activity that
some of what Chase is telling them is not truthful and not factual and those things are taking place on or near
February 4th and then again on February 6th and so his story gets very weird and
very wonky and looks very bad for him right away once they start digging into this information so what do they find
here they find that Charles Chase Merritt is an ex-felon and he was actually on probation at the time and
there was a warrant out for his violation of that probation now what was his charges against him his previous
charges none of them were violent Acts or for a violent act but these included but were not limited to stolen property
I'm sorry receiving stolen property burglary petty theft Grand Theft and then other crimes
and then when they're interviewing him he's talking about Joseph in the past tense saying Joseph was a great guy
Joseph was one of my best friends Joseph was the kind of guy that would give you
the shirt off of his back now that looks pretty incriminating because when he's making these statements to law
enforcement the family's still missing nobody's been found nobody's been recovered
none of that has happened yet and so this all looks very bad for merit yeah just to play Devil's Advocate because
they were missing for a time period I think a lot of people that were close to him kind of started to expect the worst
the other thing that is going to look real bad for him is the QuickBooks activity
the phone calls and cell phone activity now Captain pointed out something very interesting and something that is
exactly spot on not only do we need to put our suspect near or in the mcstay family home on the day that they were
attacked and killed but we also need to put our suspect at the location where their bodies are later recovered
and we have a situation here that chase Merritt's cell phone on February 6 2010 which is believed to be two days
after the mcstay family was killed his cell phone pings off of a tower that you can actually see with the naked
eye from the gravesite in the desert near Victorville California and let's remember the sight of the
grave site is roughly a hundred miles from the mcstay family house and thank you for reminding us and thank you
Captain for reminding us of that because I believe earlier I said 70 miles away when in fact it is nearly 100 miles away
70 miles was the distance between where they found the mcstay family vehicle from their
home near the border and look by Chase Merritt's own admission here's something that he says that is
very insightful but this is a man that he's going to say that he is not guilty he's not going to plead guilty to this
he's going to have to go to trial he says I didn't kill the mcstay family he says Joseph was one of my best friends
if not my best friend at the time I would never do that I'm not a violent man I'm not a killer but he also says
that cell phone tower information is not 100 accurate we know that from several other cases that we've reviewed here in
the garage but by his own admission he says Tower info isn't so inaccurate that it's going to put you in the wrong City
this puts him 100 miles away from their home and it puts him many many miles away from his own home he has an excuse
he says that he has family that lives in the general area and that he may be visiting family however when we hear
from his sister we get two completely different stories one I never see my brother I think the last time I've seen
him was about five years ago she lives in this Victorville area and then later when he has to go to
trial several years later says well no I would see my brother all of the time all the time I saw my brother
well Chase mayor they have a unique family history when it comes to Crime because his brother was actually
arrested and they were going to charge him with being the Hillside Strangler so his argument is well we had a family
member that once was accused of a horrible crime and so when they were asking my sister about if I ever visited
or when's the last time she saw me she just kind of made up nonsense because she wasn't going to give answers to
police she didn't want to put her brother in the area when she's originally asked but it
doesn't matter because his cell phone puts him in the area well she didn't know that it it benefits him to be put
in the area you see what I'm saying when they go well have you seen your brother lately
uh no but really the correct answer to protect your brother is yeah I see him all the time no that's what I'm saying
it's it's however she wants it to be when she needs it to be that way right when she is unaware that it benefits him
to have been in the area frequently she says no he's never in the area and when she does find out for certain
and is told by his defense team it benefits your brother if you say that he was in the area all the time that's when
her story changes and like the San Bernardino sheriff's office detective says this is one of the most powerful
statements that I have seen in any of this case and in this case it took several years one to find the victims
and then several more years to bring this thing to trial and to see it through this is one of the most powerful
statements where the detective says quote there is no other business to be done out here he's talking about that
stretch of desert where there is nothing out there there's no reason to be out there there's no business that can be
done can be conducted out there he's basically saying the only reason why somebody would come out here might be to
bury some bodies well prosecution's case makes a lot more sense in law enforcement's case makes a lot more
sense against Chase Merit when you do watch the documentary because you get to see the visuals and to see when they're
filming the detective at the gravesite there's nothing around right it's just miles and miles of desert and that's not
all that's going to tie Chase to this case um a large part of it will be these quick book
Quick Books activity that took place before Joseph mcstay disappeared there was fraudulent QuickBooks activity
in the company somebody was going into their QuickBooks and issuing checks to you guessed it
Chase Merritt and then deleting those checks from the QuickBooks records and we find out that
not only is he an ex-felon but he's also an individual with a gambling problem and that he was struggling financially
for months leading up to Joseph's murder yeah it makes a family's murder to the point where he's having so much
difficulty financially that they would close his account out correct he had lost thousands of dollars
at the casinos they were already having what would appear to me based off of the
QuickBooks information that I reviewed that they were already having some discussions probably arguments and
disagreements about money leading up to this money and these fake checks fraudulent checks being issued for Chase
Merit and when I say they I mean between Joseph and Chase now what's even more difficult is after
it's believed that the mcstay family was killed this fraudulent activity continues on QuickBooks
where checks are being issued to chase Merit backdated to the fourth of February
cashed and then the information deleted from QuickBooks then what we have is on at least two
occasions somebody calls QuickBooks demanding that all of the information for Earth inspired products for the
company all of the QuickBooks information be deleted scrubbed from their servers
the person on the phone says that he is Joseph mcstay the owner and operator of the company the person that has the
administrator rights to QuickBooks for the company however all of this stuff is recorded
all of this information is recorded for customer service quality purposes right and so when they record this information
what they figure out is the person calling claiming to be Joseph mcstay is calling from Chase Merritt's cell
phone well that don't look so good that looks awful that's something that you need to
put a pin in because to be impersonating somebody that's missing so someone's hacking into
QuickBooks writing themselves checks Chase Merit is issuing checks to chase Merit Chase Merit is cashing those
checks before Joseph mcstay is killed and after Joseph mcstay is killed and then trying to delete all of the
activity on QuickBooks which ultimately will be his undoing when it comes to the
trial and comes to court the person calling in is calling from Chase Merritt's cell phone claiming to be the
now vanished the now dead and murdered Joseph mcstay I mean this stuff is this guy claims to be innocent I don't
think that you can have this activity happening at the same time and him be innocent if you do watch this
documentary I think the people that are going to frustrate you the most is the way the prosecutors act during the trial
it's very childish it's almost like they forgot that there was four people murdered and that this case is very
serious I mean they giggle like little schoolgirls but it's like watching people like
freshmen in high school chuckling in study hall but I can state that I think their opening statements made the most
sense this case is all based off of circumstantial evidence there is no smoking gun in this case
so they have to build a mountain of evidence and I think they they do that pretty
well against Chase Merritt the other thing that's going to frustrate you if you watch the documentary is Dan
Kavanaugh because there's plenty of reasons to go this guy's a creep he's a weirdo he's a strange bird and oh it
looks like he was trying to cash in on Joseph mcstay being missing as well so he's somebody that will frustrate you
but I think that once you look at everything the totality of the evidence and information against Chase Merit
personally and I know that a lot of people may disagree with me I think they got the right guy we did not go through
some of his cell phone information right we we mentioned that his cell phone pinged at that Tower near the gravesite
out in the middle of the desert right but his other cell phone information is he's off the grid for several hours on
February 4th I actually think what happened is we have Joseph mcstay who is calling his bank repeatedly and he's
checking in and out of QuickBooks repeatedly on February 4th who else is he calling on February 4th Chase Merit I
think that Joseph mcstay discovered what Chase was up to the missing money the checks that were being issued and then
deleted from QuickBooks I think he discovered this and figured out this guy is ripping
me off and I think he confronted him about that I'm not going to take it any steps
further to say that oh he fired him or he put him on notice or they had a physical altercation I don't know
because just like the prosecution pointed out in their opening statement they don't have all the answers
they're not going to be able to answer every single thing for you other than we believe and have evidence to prove it
that chase Merrick killed this family of four and we believe that the motive was
simple it was greed and it was fraud and that he was trying to cover those up and
that for whatever reason maybe he was confronted by summer at the home we talked about her being aggressive and
standing up for her family and not holding back when it comes to talking with people and confronting people right
maybe she said something to him and he flipped out and smacked her in the head with the sledgehammer and then he had to
kill the rest of the family maybe he went after Joseph mcstay because he was fired and figured out summer she's a
pretty smart woman she knows that I was supposed to be meeting with her husband today she knows that I'm at the home
meeting with her husband this evening and for me I kind of throw the the video the security video out the window
anytime we have a situation a scenario where at trial we have One X expert for the prosecution telling us this is what
I see this is what my experience tells me and then we have a witness for the defense saying well this is what I see
and this is what my experience tells me and one is for the prosecution one is for the defense I look at that I toss
them both out the window because if they both were 100 experts they should have the same opinion at the
end of the day I'm not saying that one is better than the other maybe one is right and the other is wrong I don't
know I couldn't see anything in that damn video to tell me anything different so I think you can throw that out it's
interesting too that there are more than there are plenty of people that have a white SUV or a white truck yeah well and
we both think that it's more likely that it was the mcstay family vehicle yes but
here's a couple things to to to argue that chase is innocent you could look at his history he's not a violent person
not known to be violent he might have had some issues financially but that doesn't make you a murderer like oh I'm
gonna have a gambling problem also now he's a murderer of four individuals I also think that this cell phone records
and this cell phone ping technology I actually think it's a load of malarkey and here's why
is because on Joseph's phone they have a call that Joseph made to chase on the fourth
it's in Joseph's call log it never shows up on Chase's call log so therefore we have we have evidence
that this log doesn't match this log so how much information is each cell phone log
missing because we have proof that there are missing items from cell phone logs but only on Chase merit's end so here's
the problem the reason for the explanation for why you would have a call that is logged on Joseph's but not
merits call logs is that chase Merit was off the grid that either his phone was turned off it was in airplane mode or it
was in a location where he could not receive phone calls and so the call never registered on his end because his
phone never received the call the call registered on Joseph mcstazen because his phone made that call and so the
disconnect is the call not actually going through and it's the belief of the prosecution that by this point the
attack had already occurred and Chase Merit his phone is off and knowing that his phone is off attempted
to cover his tracks by using Joseph mcstay's phone to call his phone to make it look like Joseph was still alive
right at that time now again his phone is off or unavailable airplane mode or not able to be reached
by any cell phone towers for several hours that day the other thing that's happening in this scenario is the fact
that his wife or common law wife at the time is calling him repeatedly looking for him or trying to get in contact with
him and again her call log shows that those calls were made from her phone his call
log does not register any of those calls because his phone never received the calls come on she also later it tries to
become his Alibi and I don't think she's a bad person by any means I think she's
just misremembering again the the time difference really kind of handcuffs law enforcement but it also
handcuffs the suspect and any of their eyewitnesses because for her to remember that one day
so vividly with so many details um I don't think she's lying necessarily I think that she is misremembering and I
think she wants to believe what she's telling law enforcement because it makes her it makes the father of her children
not this horrible monster well in in her defense too if look we all want to do the right thing or at least most of us
do clearly somebody or someone's in this situation didn't want to do the right thing but you know in a world where
you're going I don't know if I remember this correctly or not most of us most of
us I think would err on the side of caution of okay yeah I if I can't remember it 100 I'm going to
err on the side of caution that benefits my loved one right the person that I have believed and I am telling you could
not be responsible for this and it's unclear when she's being asked to deliver this information to the
authorities we don't know if it's days after they went missing years after they went missing or years after they you
know or even after they had arrested Chase Merit yeah which would be roughly what five-year difference four and a
half five year difference uh yes it would be over four years after they disappeared that chase Merit is arrested
and then it takes longer for it to go to trial now one thing here Captain is he is convicted
he is convicted of this and the documentary that we've recommended is out now and from my understanding it was
originally recorded on the request of his defense team and I think this is really interesting
to me because I understand that the prosecution thought that they were at some kind of
disadvantage which I don't get I think that this prosecution crew seems a little like you said a bit childish at
times probably a little more whiny than they need to be if I was part of this prosecution team and I saw this
documentary I'd be embarrassed enough as their family members I'd be embarrassed
the the head prosecutor if I was his wife I would divorce him on how embarrassing he is well that's that's
the thing and maybe that's why they felt like they were at a disadvantage with cameras rolling because maybe this is
their typical Behavior well you have to remember this I'm telling you this is embarrassing and I and I go by a fake
name I don't even own a boat well the thing is here with this documentary I like this idea
you know it turned out to be a really good idea in the west Memphis 3 case the in some other cases they've done this
where rather than going back retroactively and telling you about a True Crime Story and how it played out
in court where they're actually filming it for the purposes of possibly making a
documentary later that will include the True Crime Story plus the trial I think that transparency is key
we know that our system is not perfect I happen to believe that it is it is one of the best in the world and then it
would be impossible to have a perfect system so I think that knowing that I love
having some transparency and let's open up our doors let's open up the communication and let's show the public
what's going on and how it's going down it could only benefit and better us all in the end if you find this case
interesting then I would take the time to watch two shallow Graves which is on Discovery ID
it's pretty quick to get through even though it's seven parts you can fast forward through the
commercials it seems like some of the episodes only feel like they're about 30 minutes long
after you get rid of the commercials you also get to see these individuals on camera how they interact with people
they do a really good job of diving a little bit deeper than we did into the suspects because because the defense
team did we kind of Dove as deep as law enforcement did and law enforcement as they were digging into these individuals
found things that pointed towards their innocent or pointed towards a solid Alibi but I would recommend it I
wouldn't say it's the best documentary I've watched but it's definitely entertaining informative
and I'd give it two thumbs up three and a half bottle caps out of five what would you rate it I don't want to
comment I mean we've already recommended it um in today's recommended reading um but in in the end what we have here
Captain is on in June of 2019 the San Bernardino County jury found Chase Merritt guilty of murdering the mcstay
family as we said earlier in this case we had jury recommendations for punishment for Chase Merit and the
jury recommended life imprisonment for the murder of Joseph mcstay death penalty for the murder of Susan
mcstay death penalty for the murder of Gianni mcstay death penalty for the murder of Joseph Jr mcstay in the end
Merit was in fact sentenced to death [Music] a tricky case here we want to hear from
you make sure you go to True Crime garage.com go to our Blog Page and let us know what you think about this case
Colonel do we have any recommended reading this week let's go with some recommended viewing we would be remiss
if we did not recommend two shallow Graves which was featured on the ID channel also available on Discovery plus
it's seven episodes about this exact case the mcstay family murder case you'll want to check that out two
shallow Graves that's on our website on our recommended page along with other good books other good podcasts other TV
shows True Crime all around for you to watch listen and read check that out at truecrime garage.com and until next week
be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music]

The McStay Family /// Part 2 /// 582

Part 2 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

It was all a mystery. A very normal and happy family of four disappeared. By the looks of it, they just vanished. In February of 2010 the McStay family of four seemingly vanished from their home in Fallbrook California. This week in the Garage we review this strange and bizarre disappearance and the investigation that followed.

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Garage Grade - 4 out of 5 bottle caps

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Brief Summary

The episode details the McStay family murder case, focusing on the investigation and the arrest of Charles Chase Merritt.

Key points

The McStay Family Disappearance. New details emerge about the McStay family's tragic fate, revealing they were found buried.
A Shocking Discovery. Authorities confirm the McStay family was murdered, not missing as previously thought.
Discovery of Remains. On November 11, 2013, skeletal remains of the McStay family were found, leading to a homicide investigation.
Chase Merritt Identified as Suspect. Charles Chase Merritt was identified as the suspect responsible for the McStay family murders.
Fraudulent Activity Uncovered. Evidence of fraudulent QuickBooks activity linked to Chase Merritt was discovered, raising suspicions.
Chase Merit Found Guilty. In June 2019, Chase Merritt was convicted of murdering the McStay family.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

They were found buried in shallow graves.

5:35WatchOct 23, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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