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

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You Are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
as always is a man who is known in the OTR realm as young nasty man here is the captain well it's nice to meet you all
it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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talk some true [Music] crime more place we can go get away we can take the long way
home anywhere you want to go no place we can [Music] go tonight 10 News sources are revealing
new details to us about the desert crime scene where the bodies of the MC family
from Fall Brook 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 m a FBR family of four who mysteriously disappeared back in February of 2010 at a Friday morning
news conference MC family members fought to hold back tears my family appreciates
all the support and the love that we've been shown authorities would not say how Joseph summer and
their two sons were killed and wouldn't speculate as to who may have killed them
law enforcement expert John kman says the shallow Graves the MC 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 goodbyes is the mysterious disappearance of the mcst family says even his law enforcement sources close
to the MC 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 they're one of the bodies either summer or Joseph the hands had been bound meantime tells 10
News he's pulled his book from amazon.com and taken down his online blog all of that was to find the mix
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 we can take the way home any you want to no we can go you heard it there from the good
people at ABC 10 news that unfortunately the mix dayss 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 mix Joseph
summer and their sons Giani H4 and Joseph Jr age3 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 Angel 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 in the way that you described it I think as perfect it makes total sense to me why people on
dirt bikes or off-road motorcyclist would want to be out in this area cruising around having a good time it's
wide openen spaces out there and they 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 mixe 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 Giani were found in grave b as
investigators dubbed it in grave a a were found Joseph and Joseph Jr grave B also held what authorities say was the
murder weapon a 3B Stanley Sledgehammer this is one of the short handle sledgehammers yeah and law
enforcement believes that this murder weapon came from inside the family's home Joseph and Summer's skulls had been
smashed multiple times the boys skulls were fractured as well Giani 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 learn right away is the mades 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 mix
going across the border right and at this time it would be very difficult for us to believe that it was in fact the
mix days 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 eth 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 Mi were attacked and killed in their home for being transported their 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 lb 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 Mix day when she was Unearthed when her body was found and
Unearthed she was not wearing a top or a shirt her bra was found spattered with paint that paint color matched paint
found in the miay home and that Sledgehammer that was found in the grave with the victims contain smears of that
same paint so there's a lot lot of things kind of tying victim murder weapon back to the mstay 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 advant AG they know what
happened to the mixe family they don't know who's responsible or how it happened but they do know that the four
were murdered and then 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 cons
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 Johansson Michael mcfaden Dan Kavanaugh Michael mstay and Charles Chase marit
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 Johansson who
is he well he is a former boyfriend of Summer M 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 M 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 M 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 mixe family and you the boys are little they're young boys so the beef
probably didn't happen with Giani 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 Johansson 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 a record and had you know when you're looking at this horrible crime you go well it's 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 mcfaden 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 M 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
mcfaden is now Joseph ex-wife's husband and The Stepfather to Joseph M's oldest son now Joseph mstay is still very much
in the life of his oldest son 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
mcfaden decided maybe he didn't like Joseph too much maybe he didn't like summer too much there's an altercation a
verbal altercation where Michael mcfaden 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 mcfaden 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 100 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 we we're in an argument with somebody the other thing though Captain some does not strike me as the person
who would have taken a backseat to anybody so we also don't know what she may have said to this Michael mcfaden
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 mixs were attacked and killed in their home so that brings us to number three and I'm going to I'm
going to leap frog somebody on my list here no not go in 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 mstay and I 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 question 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 MX day 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 M he's interested for a couple 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 have this
weird situation of when he's interviewed he tells police when asked did you go over to their home on the 4th he gives a
vague answer of yeah I was around their home I went by their home it was either February 4th or February 6
2010 right so that by his own admission puts him in the area puts them in puts him in the area of their home around the
time of the attack well we also have neighborhood surveillance that puts a white truck or utility type truck or a
white SUV it's it's look the the video footage is absolutely dog [ __ ] it's worse than the video of the four people
seen walking across the board me 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 so forth this will later be called the mitchley video or refer to as the
mitchley video and this on this surveillance footage the footage comes from February 4th 2010 again this is the
day that 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 not the colonel here not old eagle eyes here here what others say is a white truck or SUV driving past
this neighbor's home exiting from the miay family home now there's been plenty of people to say
we cannot confirm that it was exiting the mix family home at one point when they were still simply missing it was
thought that this could be Joseph M's Isuzu Trooper it could have been his vehicle mhm 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 mixed stay's
family vehicle I agree with you because somebody has to transport that vehicle they 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 them drop you off a block or two from the miay 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 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 mixs 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 M and so that
is his business associate Charles Chase Meritt who is the Builder and manufacturer of these water features as
well as Dan Kavanaugh who is his onetime business partner who's being in the process of being bought out from the
company more we can go get away we take the long way home any you want to no place we can
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s a n everyday.com on November 11th 2013 skeletal remains were recovered in the county area of
Victorville and were confirmed to be that of the mix Day family our homicide investigation began immediately and the
ident 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 4500 pages of investigative material that was
reviewed by our detectives 60 search warrants were served and over 200 interviews were
conducted 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 BS of
the FBI for his assistance in this investigation Charles Chase Merritt was identified as the suspect responsible
for the death of Joseph summer Giani and Joseph M there's no information to suggest there were any other suspects
involved in this crime Chase Merritt was a business associate of Joseph M 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 falbrook 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 [Music] Ramos all right we are back cheers
mates 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 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 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 mix Day 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 exception of Michael M stating that he drove by the fam'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 a 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 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
believ 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 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 4
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 coroporate my
story the 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 no 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 Meritt 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 them 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 spoton not only do we need to put our suspect near
or in the mixay 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 6th 2010 which is believed to be 2 days after the M family was killed his cell
phone pings off of a tower that you can actually see with the naked eye from the
grave site in the desert near Victorville California and let's remember the site
of the grave site is roughly 100 miles from the M 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 Mil away
70 Mi was the distance between where they found the stay 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 MC 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 ER 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 5 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 Merritt 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 and 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 that 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
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 and law enforcement's case makes a lot more
sense against Chase Merritt when you do watch the documentary because you get to
see the visuals and to see when they're filming the detective at the grave site 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
QuickBook QuickBooks activity that took place before Joseph mstay disappeared there was fraudulent
QuickBooks activity in the company somebody was going into their QuickBooks and issuing checks to you
guessed it Chase Merit 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 MI family's murder to the point where he was 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 Merritt and when I say they I mean between Joseph and
Chase now what's even more difficult is after it's believed that the M family was killed this fraudulent activity
continues on QuickBooks where checks are being issued to chase Meritt 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 M 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
M is calling from Chase Merritt's cell phone well that don't look so good that looks awful I think 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 Meritt is issuing checks to chase Merritt Chase
Merritt is cashing those checks before Joseph M is killed and after Joseph M is killed and then trying to delete all of
the activity on 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 M 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
school girls but it's like watching people like freshman 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 a
circumstance stantial 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 M 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 Merritt 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 gravite 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 AR 4th I
actually think what happened is we have Joseph mstay 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 Meritt I think that Joseph mstay
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 mstay 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 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 say
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 miay
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 I'm going 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 it's because on Joseph's phone they have a call that Joseph made to chase on the
4th 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 Merritt'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 Merritt's call logs is
that chase Merritt was off the grid that either his phone was turned off it was an 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 M's end 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 Merritt his phone is off and knowing that his phone is off attempted to cover his tracks by using Joseph M'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 well and 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 and 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 most of most
of us I think would air on the side of caution of okay yeah I if I can't remember it 100% I'm going to air 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 Meritt 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 Merritt 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 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 the prosecution thought that they were at some kind of disadvantage which I
don't get I think that th 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 this documentary I'd be
embarrassed and if I was 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 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 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 and formative 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 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 Merrick guilty of murdering the mix family as we said earlier in
this case we had jury recommendations for punishment for Chase Merritt and the jury recommended life imprisonment for
the murder of Joseph M death penalty for the murder of Susan M death penalty for
the murder of Giani M death penalty for the murder of Joseph Jr m in the end Meritt was in fact sentenced to
death can go get away we can take the way home anywh you want to go a tricky case here we want to hear
from you make sure you go to True Crim 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 to 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 true Crim garage.com and until next week be
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The McStay Family /// Part 2 /// 582

Part 2 of 2

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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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Brief Summary

The McStay family was murdered in 2010; Charles Chase Merritt was arrested and convicted for the crime.

Key points

The MC Family Disappearance. New details emerge about the MC family found in shallow graves, raising questions about their fate.
Shocking Discovery. The MC family's remains were discovered, leading to a quadruple homicide investigation.
Suspects in the Spotlight. Potential suspects are identified, including a former boyfriend and a contentious ex-husband.
Discovery of the McStay Family. Skeletal remains of the McStay family were found in Victorville, 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 in QuickBooks. Evidence shows fraudulent QuickBooks activity linked to Chase Merritt before and after the murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I always believed that I would meet at least one of them.

5:42WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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