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[audio logo] [unsettling music] NARRATOR: Every fraud
begins with a promise, but most don't end in a murder.
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MAN (ON PHONE): I'm out
here on a motorcycle, and I found what looks
like a human skull.
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NARRATOR: A quick fortune, easy
money, or a life torn apart. - The killing of the McStay
family was not an accident.
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NARRATOR: But behind
these illusions lie calculated deceptions. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO):
Why would your phone
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show you at the gravesite? NARRATOR: Carefully
hidden in plain sight. - I have no clue.
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- How could something like this
happen in a place like this? NARRATOR: Sometimes
these criminals
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are backed into a corner
and feel their only way out is to kill. BRITT IMES: He went
to that house that night,
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and the worst of the worst
got the best of him. He turned to violence. [exhilarating music]
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[unsettling music] - My name is Britt Imes. I'm a chief deputy district
attorney for the County
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of San Bernardino. Fallbrook is a fairly
rural, small town in Northern San Diego County.
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It sits in the rolling hills
east of the Pacific Ocean. Given that somewhat rural
nature and small-town feel,
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crime just didn't
seem to be an issue. NARRATOR: For 40-year-old
Joseph McStay and his wife
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Summer, Fallbrook
was the perfect place to raise their young family. - The McStay family was your
typical young upstart family.
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Summer and Joseph had
originally lived over on the Coast, but when
the kids started coming up,
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they bought a house
in which they could raise a family in Fallbrook. SUMMER MCSTAY (ON VIDEO): He
can watch the movie, yeah.
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- Yeah. SUMMER MCSTAY (ON
VIDEO): Eastwood. BRITT IMES: With room
enough for them to grow
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and for him to run
his business, and they chose a very sleepy
neighborhood of Fallbrook that
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was hundreds houses
or so, nestled amongst avocado
groves and the hills to the west
of the busy freeway.
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- I'm Scott Kraft,
and I'm editor at large at the Los Angeles Times. Certainly, that neighborhood
is quiet, middle class.
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It feels fairly private, kind
of a nice suburban community. BRITT IMES: Joseph McStay
was a self-made businessman,
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small entrepreneur. He focused initially
in a drop-in ship company for desktop water features,
like little fountains
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you would put on your desk. And he slowly
grew that business into custom-made
features for businesses,
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like a waterfall in a lobby
of a doctor's office, or a restaurant, or a mall. In that, he grew to have
a larger internet presence
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utilizing a webmaster. Summer was a free spirit. - Oh, G. Come on, G. JOSEPH MCSTAY: Whew.
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- She was a life force
and energy in Joseph's life. When Gianni came along
and then Joe Junior,
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she really focused on being
a stay-at-home mom, taking care
of the boys and really
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focusing on their family life. NARRATOR: The McStays
story was a happy one of a successful family
living the dream.
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Until early February 2010,
when that dream was shattered. - Starting
on February 9 of 2010,
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certain things occur that
lead to the reporting of the McStay
family is missing.
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Joseph's mother, Susan,
inquires about the fact that she's not been able
to get a hold of Joseph.
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Almost simultaneously,
the other business partner, Dan Kavanaugh,
who is in Hawaii,
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has been trying to reach
Joseph repeatedly. Mike McStay, Joseph's
brother, gets involved.
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Initially, his response was,
well, give it a few days. Maybe they went surfing. Maybe they went
to the mountains.
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Summer had a house up
in the mountain area. Maybe they just needed
to get away for a few days.
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At some point, Mike McStay
ends up going into the house. And realizes something's
not right here.
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And that's when the Sheriff's
Department is notified. Patrol deputy comes out and
does kind of a welfare check,
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and he takes
the initial half dozen photographs of the condition
of the house at the time.
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They find the window to
Joseph's office slightly ajar. There was no dead bodies.
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There was no blood
all over the place. And it just kind of looked
like the house had
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been empty for several days. SCOTT KRAFT: The way
the house was left, it seemed like they were not
intending to be gone long.
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It also seemed that they had
left in a bit of a hurry. - There's uneaten food,
a bowl of popcorn,
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some scrambled eggs. There's actually
an apple on the stairs with a couple bites out of it.
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SCOTT KRAFT: Leaving
things behind like that, stuff on the counter that could
spoil just seemed so unusual.
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It felt like they must have
left with a sense of urgency. BRITT IMES: When it came to the
condition of the bedrooms or
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the closets and clothing,
it was quite disheveled and it looked
a little out of place.
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SCOTT KRAFT: It was
very difficult to tell if there had been
any kind of struggle
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or any kind of violence
in that house, because the house had just
been purchased by Summer and
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Joseph a few months before. There were open
paint cans all over. The family seemed to be
living out of suitcases.
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BRITT IMES: Upon a first
look, an investigator go, OK, they got up and left. Maybe they were in a hurry
for an appointment
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and didn't finish
their breakfast and didn't have
time to clean up. Mine goes, OK, let's
give it a couple days.
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Let's see what happens. Let's see if they just
went on a quick getaway. So come the 15, Mike calls
the Sheriff's Department
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and officially
reports them missing. NARRATOR: As the police
began their investigation
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into the missing family, the
case made national headlines. - There was
an outpouring of concern.
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I mean, these were
two young children and then their parents. No one had heard from them.
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There was grave concern
over where they had gone, what had happened to them. SCOTT KRAFT: No one
really knew what happened.
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It seemed to be
from the stories that had been written that-- I mean, it's just so unusual
for a family of four
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to disappear into thin air. KERI NIXON: My name
is Dr. Keri Nixon, and I'm a consultant
forensic psychologist.
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When somebody is missing,
there's always a question mark and there's always
an element of hope.
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We know from many missing
cases the psychological impact on families is horrific.
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When it's unknown, it's utter
daily hell to experience that. NARRATOR: Police
began by looking
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at their last known movements. - The initial
investigation by San Diego developed a timeline
of Joseph's kind of comings and
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goings around the time
or right before the time they were reported
missing by the family.
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NARRATOR: It was discovered
that on the day he disappeared, Joseph McStay met one of his
contractors for lunch,
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a man known as Charles
"Chase" Merritt. SCOTT KRAFT: Chase
Merritt was the person
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who did the construction. BRITT IMES: Charles
Merritt was a fabricator of these water features.
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He would do the plumbing,
the glass work. It was learned that
Charles Merritt was
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kind of the last
person maybe to have been in contact with him
beyond the immediate family
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of Summer and the boys. And that developed
into what was believed to be a meeting
between Charles Merritt
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and Joseph McStay on February
4, roughly midday. NARRATOR: On February
17, 2010, 13 days
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after the McStays
were last seen alive, police interviewed
Charles Merritt. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO): Let's
start with your name, Charles.
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CHARLES RAY MERRITT (ON
AUDIO): Charles Ray Merritt. BRITT IMES: During
that interview,
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Merritt puts forth a picture
of the relationship in the business-- personal
and business relationship
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with Joseph as one
of everything is all right. It's sunshine and rainbows. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO):
I mean, obviously you
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have a business relationship,
were you also friends or was it-- CHARLES RAY MERRITT
(ON AUDIO): Joseph
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was one of my best friends. I can't remember a day that
I haven't talked to him.
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Everybody loves Joseph. Everybody. He has no financial problems. I mean, over the last
couple of months,
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things have started
picking up and everything was looking really promising. NARRATOR: During
the interview, Merritt
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described his warm
relationship with Joseph and the successful state
of the business.
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BRITT IMES: So one of the
documents that Merritt provides during the interview
to San Diego Sheriff
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is an email between
him and Joseph, and it was from February 1. CHARLES RAY MERRIT
(ON AUDIO): He
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had emailed me
this on the first, and we were going
over these numbers, but these are the last
emails, the last few emails
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that I got from Joseph. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO):
And your overpaid amount, this Chase paid $173,000.
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CHARLES RAY MERRIT (ON AUDIO):
$173,000 is what he's paid me? $158,000 is what he owed
me, so I owed him $15,000.
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- In that email, Joseph lays
out the fact that Merritt has not only been overpaid
about $15,000, but in fact,
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owes Joseph $42,000 based
on several bad construction projects that occurred
that were attributed
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to Merritt's fault.
So in the end, while he's telling
investigators on the one hand,
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you know, business is great,
our relationship's great. He's showing them an email
that on February 1,
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it says, you owe me $42,000. The investigators
did a forensic exam of a couple different computers
that Joseph McStay had.
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And towards the end of 2009,
the spreadsheet indicated at one point that Merritt
was indebted to Joseph
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to the tune of it
varied from $64,000 up to approximately $200,000. NARRATOR: During the interview,
police also discovered
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Charles Merritt had
access to Joseph McStay's financial records
through an accounting
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software known as QuickBooks. CHARLES RAY MERRIT
(ON AUDIO): Joseph and I sat down and talked about
QuickBooks because Summer
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didn't know how much
money Joseph actually made, and she never did. One of Summer biggest
problems is credit cards.
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She spends a lot of money. It become a big
thing with Joseph. Not letting her know exactly
how much money he's making.
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BRITT IMES: Merritt
contended in his interview that Joseph was delegating that
authority to him in an attempt
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to hide the business
transactions from Summer. But that was the reason
that Merritt gave.
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So he at least conceded
that he had the access. It didn't make sense
for a small businessman
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to actually turn over control
to finances to a contractor. That just did not make sense.
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So a lot of anecdotal examples
of the financial mismanagement, possible embezzlement, or
fraudulent activity by Merritt,
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but nothing overly concrete. FIONA HOTSTON MOORE: My name
is Fiona Hotston Moore,
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and I'm a forensic accountant
and an expert witness. When we're looking
at perhaps an employee fraud,
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we would look at the history
of the company's records and what sort of moneys had
been spent by the company.
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And then we will look for any
unusual transactions, things that we might not have
expected to have seen.
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And we will look at those
unusual transactions and see if actually they
are legitimate transactions.
00:14:09
SCOTT KRAFT:
Detective DuGal told me that he had looked at the
bank accounts of the business.
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He felt that the transactions
that had taken place after Joseph and Summer
and their family went missing
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seemed to be in line
with things that kind of business partners would do. The accounts weren't cleaned
out or anything like that,
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that the transactions that
he saw in their QuickBooks and in their accounting
seemed, at that time,
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to be kind of normal--
they didn't raise too many suspicions with him. NARRATOR: There
was, however, one
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aspect of Merritt's
interview that the police found intriguing. BRITT IMES: One
of the investigators
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noticed when Merritt
was answering questions, he repeatedly said-- or referred to Joseph
and Summer and the boys
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in the past tense. And it was significant
enough that the investigator even questioned him about it.
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INVESTIGATOR (ON
AUDIO): Do you have any knowledge or information
which indicates
00:15:17
to you that they're dead? CHARLES RAY MERRIT
(ON AUDIO): No. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO): OK.
00:15:21
And the reason that
I ask is because you have used the past tense
about Joe a couple of times.
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Any explanation as to why
he may have done that? CHARLES RAY MERRIT (ON
AUDIO): I mean, I really--
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I just want to know. INVESTIGATOR (ON AUDIO):
Understand why I'm asking? CHARLES RAY MERRIT
(ON AUDIO): Of course.
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No, of course. I completely understand. - He had no
explanation for that. He just claimed he didn't
realize he was saying it.
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NARRATOR: Police decided
to take a closer look at Merritt and his finances. BRITT IMES: Merritt is a hard
working, blue collar craftsman.
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His confidence exceeded his
ability to run a business, be financially stable. He regularly ran bank accounts
into negative balances or
00:16:04
zero balances, incurred huge
amounts of overdraft fees, all while apparently
funding his love of being
00:16:14
a professional poker player. Merritt did come
to the investigation with a criminal history.
00:16:22
He has a criminal history
dating back to the early-- or late '70s. - Chase was not
a reputable guy.
00:16:28
He had a history
of small crimes. He had served time for petty
theft and things like that.
00:16:35
And that it was Detective
DuGal's understanding that Joseph knew who Chase was. He knew about his background
when he hired him.
00:16:46
NARRATOR: During
the initial investigation, police discover one
of the McStay family vehicles
00:16:51
abandoned close
to the Mexican border. - There's a parking
lot in a kind of a strip mall within walking
distance of the border.
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A lot of people park there
and walk in across the border, maybe go, you know,
into Tijuana and shop a bit
00:17:10
and then come out. And what had happened was
this vehicle had arrived between 5:00 and 9:00 PM.
00:17:15
And then they-- after 9:00,
I think about 11:00 PM, they had ordered it to be towed.
00:17:20
Detective DuGal went and looked
at the car, studied it. Everything seemed normal.
00:17:26
There was like a coffee cup. There was a bottle of water. There were two child
seats in the back.
00:17:32
And he said, it appeared to him
that if the four of them went, there really wasn't
room for another person.
00:17:39
If someone had abducted
them in some way, there didn't seem to be room
back there for a fifth person
00:17:45
in that vehicle. NARRATOR: With no hard
evidence suggesting foul play, police kept an open mind
as to the family's whereabouts.
00:17:55
BRITT IMES: At some
point, investigators uncover, with the help
of the federal government,
00:18:01
evidence that fed
into a story that it was possible the McStays had
left for a Mexican vacation.
00:18:12
It was somewhat
amplified by the fact that during a search
of Summer's laptop, she had in her browser
history a search
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for vacationing in Mexico. SCOTT KRAFT: Joseph's
father, Patrick, had done his own research,
and he had somehow gotten
00:18:32
into Summer's email account. And he had found that she had
purchased a Spanish language
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course, another factor
suggesting that they had wanted to visit Mexico. NARRATOR: With the case drawing
national media attention,
00:18:51
police had to investigate
hundreds of potential leads and sightings. - One 3 inch binder alone of
tips where they were last seen,
00:19:03
who was last seen them. And just the public's theory of
the case or what had happened,
00:19:10
but they had to run
all of them down and dispel every single one
of them, or prove them true.
00:19:16
SCOTT KRAFT: One,
I remember was a waiter in a restaurant
in Mexico had said that this
family had come in.
00:19:23
They were looking at-- they
had left a map on the table after eating--
a map of the area,
00:19:30
swore that was
the family because had seen pictures and stuff. The investigators
went down there.
00:19:38
They checked
fingerprints on the map. None of the family's
fingerprints were on it.
00:19:49
NARRATOR: After checking
surveillance cameras on the US border,
police discovered
00:19:54
further potential
evidence that the family may have crossed into Mexico. BRITT IMES: Customs
and border protection
00:20:01
after scanning hours
and hours and hours of video within a time frame
that they went missing,
00:20:06
discovered a video
of what appeared to be a family of four
roughly the same stature,
00:20:13
roughly the same age for the
children crossing into Mexico. Wearing clothes
that one could say
00:20:21
would be consistent
with Summer, especially. Unfortunately, it was at night. It's not the clearest video.
00:20:30
You don't see their faces. And while investigators
were willing to explore the possibility that it was
them and had gone to Mexico,
00:20:38
there was no other
evidence that they had. The family was not
convinced it was them.
00:20:45
They believed strongly that
there was no way Summer, the protective mama
bear of that family
00:20:50
would take her kids into Mexico
at such a young age. If it was, in fact,
a surfing vacation,
00:20:55
it was the wrong time
of year and no surfboards, and why wouldn't
they just drive.
00:21:01
SCOTT KRAFT: I think the theory
that they might have gone to Mexico was interesting
to ordinary people,
00:21:07
but to the family, it
seemed not very plausible. I mean, they did know that
Summer searched for travel
00:21:15
documents to Mexico, but I
think the family thought that they wouldn't do that. And one of the reasons
was that Joseph
00:21:25
had a son from
an earlier relationship, and he was very
close to that boy. And his family said,
there is no way
00:21:34
he would disappear
voluntarily and lose touch completely with his son. BRITT IMES: A missing
persons investigation
00:21:44
is a lot more difficult than
a homicide investigation. With a homicide investigation,
you know a crime occurred.
00:21:51
So you have certain legal
tools available to you to get certain
pieces of evidence.
00:21:55
You have the ability to
actually get a search warrant. You have the ability
to actually detain people and
00:22:02
interrogate them
differently than you would if they were just
witnesses and trying
00:22:07
to get background information
on a disappearance. So San Diego faced
an uphill battle,
00:22:13
even getting bank
records, or phone records, or even a search warrant
to search the house,
00:22:20
which they ultimately did. But that becomes a huge factor. The second factor is
you're talking about 2010.
00:22:27
The technology
that exists today did not necessarily exist then. The tools that law enforcement
have now didn't exist then.
00:22:37
Nowadays, that data
is much more in depth and complex, including
geolocation data and more.
00:22:43
- It just seemed
highly unlikely that four people could
disappear like that and never be found.
00:22:50
I thought it was likely
there would be an answer, but I also realized
in doing stories like this
00:22:58
that it could be 10 years. It could be 20 years. - Three years, nine months and
seven days after the McStays
00:23:14
were last seen alive. A motorcyclist was enjoying
his three-day weekend-- Veterans Day,
riding his dirt bike
00:23:22
through the Mojave Desert,
which he's done dozens, if not hundreds of times. As he was driving,
he noticed what
00:23:28
appeared to be initially
like a desert tortoise shell, so he stopped. And he flipped it
over with his boot
00:23:36
and realized it was actually
the top of a human skull. So he calls 911. MAN (ON PHONE): I'm out
here on a motorcycle,
00:23:47
and I found what looks
like a human skull. BRITT IMES: A deputy
responds, and it clearly
00:23:52
is the top of a human skull. And so they preserve the scene. A full forensic team,
homicide investigators
00:24:00
descend on the area and begin
a two-day excavation of what ends up being
two shallow graves
00:24:08
located in the desert. NARRATOR: It was established
that in the graves were the remains of Joseph,
Summer, and their two children.
00:24:21
SCOTT KRAFT: I just learned
about it through a news alert that these remains
had been found.
00:24:25
And very quickly, I think,
they were identified. And maybe the announcement
came at the same time
00:24:30
that they were
the McStay family. And I've got to say
that probably most people who had covered
that story did not expect that.
00:24:40
That's not where or how we
expected them to be found. BRITT IMES: There
was a quick belief
00:24:50
that it was the McStays
because that was the most obvious conclusion based. You had a family of four, two
adults and two kids missing,
00:24:57
and all of a sudden,
they're found. It's consistent with it. It ultimately was determined
through DNA testing
00:25:04
that the male
remains were Joseph and the female
remains were Summer. It was deduced from that
that the other child remains
00:25:13
must be Gianni and Joseph. Unfortunately,
of Joe Junior, there was insufficient remains left
to do any type of testing.
00:25:23
SCOTT KRAFT: When you
think about the logistics of that crime, you would
think multiple people
00:25:29
would be involved. Like, how could
that have happened? How could they be lured
into a situation where
00:25:35
they would all be killed? How could they all be
killed in this way together? NARRATOR: Now with multiple
homicides to solve,
00:25:52
police began
reviewing the evidence from the initial investigation
three years earlier.
00:25:58
- It became apparent from
Joseph's computer and phone activity that he
was searching out
00:26:05
other fabricators, other supply
companies, to not only expand his business, but what really
became obvious is to eventually
00:26:16
get rid of Merritt. The investigation leads to a
series of interviews and pieces
00:26:24
of evidence that shows
that Merritt not only was a bad financial
manager, but clearly
00:26:30
was taking advantage
of the relationship with Joseph McStay. There was some untoward
activity when it came to money,
00:26:42
cheques being delivered,
cheques not being delivered, supplies going missing, or even
Merritt not doing the work.
00:26:51
Joseph was becoming
aware of it. - Normally, when
we're investigating a business
or employee fraud, we
00:27:02
talk about the fraud triangle. That is, the opportunity
to commit that fraud is there,
00:27:09
the opportunity is
there, the motivation. And quite often,
the motivation to commit fraud
00:27:16
would be something like
perhaps gambling, debts, and perhaps financial
pressures that they're
00:27:22
under, perhaps some change in
their personal circumstances. And then we talk about
the rationalization.
00:27:30
So typically, when people are
undertaking business fraud, they may try and rationalize
that in their minds.
00:27:36
They may think that actually
it's part of their package, perhaps they think they're
actually due the money.
00:27:43
BRITT IMES: Merritt
portrayed several times in interviews that he was
the reason behind the success
00:27:49
of this part
of the business, that it was his artistry
and his craftsmanship that made Joseph successful.
00:27:57
And if you couple that ego
perspective with wait a minute, now, I'm not getting
paid as much.
00:28:03
Wait a minute, now, I'm
getting paid extremely little. And, oh, he's shopping
around using other people.
00:28:10
I'm about to be out of a job. That could create desperation
in a lot of people. KERI NIXON: He was getting
less work from the mixed days,
00:28:21
and this created resentment
and anger in him. And he wanted to take
that anger out.
00:28:29
It wouldn't be
understandable, but it would be a little bit more
understandable if he only
00:28:36
took out that anger
and resentment on the man that he has the issue with. NARRATOR: After identifying
a possible motive to murder,
00:28:47
police took a closer look at
the activity on the accounting software around February
4, 2010, the day
00:28:54
the McStays disappeared. - When they dug into and did
a forensic audit of QuickBooks,
00:29:01
that's where they found
the concrete evidence of fraudulent activity
being conducted.
00:29:08
They actually had checks. They could actually
go to the banks and see which
checks were cashed,
00:29:14
which checks were
forged, which checks were mysteriously deleted
from their accounting system.
00:29:22
That's where we moved from
anecdotal Merritt was stealing from Joseph to actual
provable evidence
00:29:30
that Merritt was
stealing from Joseph. - We don't have checks anymore. I haven't written a check.
00:29:36
I haven't seen a check
written by a client for many, many years. On the one hand, I
think written checks
00:29:42
made a fraudster's
life slightly easier. I think things have now changed
and fraudsters try to do
00:29:48
things with electronic means. BRITT IMES: On February
8, several checks were written, edited to change
that date back to the fourth,
00:29:59
and then printed
and then attempted to be deleted from the audit trail. The user didn't realize that
even though you delete it,
00:30:07
it actually still maintains
a digital footprint and is still
logged as activity.
00:30:12
One of those, in fact,
was like a $6,500 check for a project that didn't
appear to have been finalized.
00:30:19
So all of that, while it leaves
some questions unanswered, like a lot of things,
in this case,
00:30:26
it overwhelmingly
established that it was Merritt who had access
and forged checks to himself
00:30:37
and then deposited him
in his own accounts. And then attempted
to destroy evidence of such.
00:30:50
- Money typically now
moves electronically. It is easier to hide
money in a digital era.
00:30:56
However, forensic
technology also means that it is very difficult
to hide money forever,
00:31:03
but people try. NARRATOR: Police
also discovered a call was made to QuickBooks
customer services
00:31:10
on February 9, 2010. BRITT IMES: Someone asked
the customer service rep to basically delete
the QuickBooks account and
00:31:19
all record of it. And this caught the customer
service rep off guard because in all
of his experience,
00:31:26
no one had ever wanted
an entire account deleted. So he made very detailed
notes about that call.
00:31:35
And the process, though,
was OK, Mr. McStay, I will send you a confirmatory
email with a hyperlink in it
00:31:43
for you to then log
in and confirm that that's the action you want to take. Until that's done, we
can't delete the account.
00:31:50
And that ended the call. It also logged the phone number
from which that call was made.
00:31:57
That call came from Charles
Merritt's cell phone. NARRATOR: Police began focusing
on Charles Merritt's cell
00:32:05
phone activity around the time
of the family's murder. On October 22, 2014,
Merritt was brought
00:32:14
back in for questioning. INVESTIGATOR (ON VIDEO):
Where did you go February 6? - I don't remember.
00:32:20
- Where do your phone records
show you're at on February 6? - Got no clue. INVESTIGATOR (ON
VIDEO): High desert.
00:32:24
- OK. - Where are the key
areas in the high desert that we've discussed? - Where Joseph was
buried, you mean?
00:32:31
- Why would your phone show you
at the gravesite on February 6? - Not possible.
00:32:38
I wasn't there. - Why would your phone
records show you there? - Couldn't have.
00:32:44
- Oh, they do. NARRATOR: On November
5, 2014, police arrested Charles
Merritt for the murder
00:32:55
of the McStay family. BRITT IMES: The killing
of the McStay family was not an accident.
00:33:02
In California, to be guilty
of first-degree murder, it has to be done
willfully, deliberately,
00:33:07
and premeditatedly. It is not uncommon
for any defendant, especially in a murder
case, to not admit guilt,
00:33:14
so it was not surprising
that Merritt did not. He's presumed innocent. He has to be proven guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:33:26
NARRATOR: While Charles "Chase"
Merritt was not separately charged with financial crimes
such as fraud, forgery,
00:33:32
or embezzlement, his
fraudulent financial activity was central to the
prosecution's murder case.
00:33:39
- You link these
activities to Merritt multiple different ways. One, he had made
an admission to having
00:33:47
access to the QuickBooks. Second, who would create a
vendor account and write checks
00:33:52
to Charles Merritt, when they
write checks to themselves. And then the QuickBooks
call to delete the account
00:34:00
came from Merritt cell phone. Could it have been some
co-conspirator of Merritt?
00:34:05
Sure. But it was still
Merritt's phone. NARRATOR: In January
2019, after four years
00:34:12
of preliminary hearings,
Charles Merritt's murder trial began in San Bernardino County.
00:34:18
SCOTT KRAFT: Defense
tried to make the case that Dan Kavanaugh,
the other partner who
00:34:23
was the web master
effectively of the business, had more of an incentive
to get rid of Joseph.
00:34:33
NARRATOR: The defense
team maintained that as an employee
of the McStays, Merritt had no reason
to murder the family.
00:34:41
SCOTT KRAFT: The things that
remain a bit of a mystery are why any of his
business partners
00:34:47
would find it
advantageous to themselves to kill an entire family. KERI NIXON: There was
a high level of violence.
00:34:59
Violence that we
usually see when there's a very personal reason. When we see that
level of violence,
00:35:10
there's usually
an interpersonal connection taking out the rage
to do that on children
00:35:18
who had nothing to do
with this, shows what this kind of man this was. NARRATOR: Despite a lack of
forensic evidence at the murder
00:35:31
scene, police were able
to build a strong case based on circumstantial evidence.
00:35:37
- The house, from
a forensic standpoint for criminal investigators,
was surprisingly clean.
00:35:44
11 days had passed
from the time that we know that
they were last known to exist on February 4.
00:35:55
We know that during that time,
Merritt went to the house based on his cell phone pings,
at least two to three times
00:36:02
by himself. And then ultimately, during San
Diego's initial investigation, they were able to get a
neighbor's surveillance camera
00:36:12
footage of a vehicle
leaving the McStay's house on February 4
in the evening hours
00:36:19
that we contended was
consistent with Merritt's truck. NARRATOR: Crucially, Charles
Merritt's phone records also
00:36:27
showed his cell phone was
switched off the night the McStay family disappeared.
00:36:32
- Merritt had left Fallbrook
his phone on pinging on towers headed southbound
on the interstate
00:36:40
to McStay's house suddenly goes
off the grid, off the network, whether it's powered off,
turned into airplane mode,
00:36:49
battery removed, whatever. Goes off the grid
for several hours, and then mysteriously
popping back
00:36:56
on the radar on the network
after that several hours of disappearance. While it's circumstantial,
it's a significantly
00:37:06
overwhelming
circumstantial case that pointed only to Merritt. No other individual.
00:37:11
He had the motive,
the loss of their cash cow. Some people would
characterize jumping to murder
00:37:21
is a very far leap. However, when you
look at an individual like Charles Merritt, one could
imagine he went to that house
00:37:30
that night to confront
Joseph McStay. And the worst of the worst
got the best of him.
00:37:38
He turned to violence. NARRATOR: Despite the lack
of incriminating DNA at the McStay's
home, the prosecution
00:37:48
were able to present some
forensic evidence to the jury. - What emerged in the trial
was that the detectives
00:37:56
had found his DNA
in the trooper that had been parked in the
parking lot near the border.
00:38:05
BRITT IMES: When detectives
seized the Isuzu Trooper from the tow yard,
it's taken and
00:38:12
it's processed at the time
for fingerprints, for DNA swabs, inventory
of the contents.
00:38:19
San Marino County tested those
and developed a DNA profile consistent with
Merritt on a couple
00:38:27
different locations in the car,
including the steering wheel and the gear shifter controls.
00:38:34
While it wasn't enough
to say he was a usual driver, it was so overwhelming, it was
there on the steering wheel.
00:38:44
He claimed to have never
driven that vehicle, so why would his DNA be
on the steering wheel?
00:38:50
- It was a circumstantial
case, though. There was no blood
in the house, no indication of where
the actual killings took place.
00:39:02
Although, I guess they could
have taken place at the site where the remains were found.
00:39:08
NARRATOR: While there was
mounting evidence pointing to Charles Merritt being
responsible for the killing,
00:39:13
one huge question still
hung over the case. - How did they die? What had lured them out
of the house that night
00:39:22
February 4, 2010? NARRATOR: Towards the end
of the trial, the prosecution presented a picture
of what they believed
00:39:36
happened that night. BRITT IMES: There is a theory,
a hypothetical theory of what
00:39:41
happened in that house, that
at least the initial killing of Joseph may have been
in a heated dispute
00:39:49
about the business and being
sidelined, and he lost his cool and disabled
Joseph in some way.
00:40:02
But when it comes to Summer
and Gianni and Joseph, there is no explanation
or justification or mitigation
00:40:13
of why you would destroy
the skulls of those three individuals other
than they were witnesses
00:40:22
to your crime or crimes. A defenseless four-year-old
and just turning three-year-old
00:40:30
bashed in the head
with a purportedly with a sledgehammer. Summers face shattered
into dozens of pieces,
00:40:40
is a lot of deliberate anger
being taken out on that person. KERI NIXON: The fact that he
was able to use a sledgehammer,
00:40:50
which is a weapon
that he would have had to have been
in close proximity, shows the level
of anger involved.
00:40:57
He wants to take
revenge on the man, but he takes his anger
out on the entire family.
00:41:02
And that's the bit
that's really difficult to understand here. BRITT IMES: If you interpret
the evidence another way,
00:41:09
which was they were disabled,
removed from the house, and then even killed
at the burial site.
00:41:15
That's what 100 mile
drive from Fallbrook to the high desert with four
people being held captive
00:41:25
in some disabled state. And then to only be murdered
at the gravesite inside of each other.
00:41:34
No matter how you
looked at the evidence, those killings were willful,
deliberate, and premeditated,
00:41:40
based on the nature-- just
the nature of the injuries inflicted. NARRATOR: On June
10, 2019, a jury
00:41:52
found Charles "Chase"
Merritt guilty on four counts of murder. Despite strong evidence
of embezzlement,
00:42:03
he was not charged or convicted
of any financial crimes. - Ultimately, Merritt
is responsible
00:42:10
because he's the one
with the means, the motive, and the opportunity
to commit these crimes.
00:42:15
No one else did. In fact, he boasted
to local news reporters that he knows that he's the
last person to see them alive.
00:42:28
Well, the last person
to see them alive is the actual killer. It was an interesting
turn of phrase,
00:42:35
just like when he referred
to him in the past tense. KERI NIXON: He very nearly
got away with murder.
00:42:41
It was only by a stroke of luck
that the bodies were found. And in that time, the family
had simply disappeared.
00:42:52
He left no trace. That shows that this was a man
who was very, very experienced.
00:43:01
He was a professional criminal. He knew how to get
rid of evidence. And he very, very nearly did
get away with multiple murder.
00:43:12
SCOTT KRAFT: I think
a case like this sort of makes you question whether a
neighbor-- a quiet neighborhood
00:43:18
is really quiet, how
could something like this happen in a place like this? I think that's what
makes this case resonate.
00:43:32
NARRATOR: On January 21,
2020, San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Michael
Smith sentenced
00:43:39
Charles Merritt to death. Merritt maintained
his innocence and continues to lobby appeals.
00:43:48
[somber music] SUMMER MCSTAY (ON
VIDEO): What is it, Joe? Wow.
Show us. JOSEPH MCSTAY (ON
VIDEO): This is
00:43:55
Joe's first Christmas
present ever in his life. SUMMER MCSTAY (ON
VIDEO): Let me see, Joe.
00:43:57
What did you get? BRITT IMES: It's hard
to determine what motivated Merritt to do what he did.
00:44:05
Whether it's his
greed or desire to continue profiting off
Joseph in the business,
00:44:16
or it's his greed
and having to make up the debt that he
found himself in, or even that it spun so out
of control-- he lost control.
00:44:28
Only he can explain that to us. [joyful giggling] JOSEPH MCSTAY (ON VIDEO):
All right, stay tuned.
00:44:38
NARRATOR: Despite
the successful conviction of Charles Merritt,
the McStay murders
00:44:42
cast a long shadow on many
of those involved in the case. KERI NIXON: I work
on a daily basis
00:44:49
with officers who
suffer with PTSD, and there's many
causes of that. But I see often when there is a
particularly devastating case--
00:45:01
the impact that has on police. And in this case,
you've got two children. And the way in which they
were discarded and then found,
00:45:13
I imagine that
the police on that scene would have really been
impacted by that and probably
00:45:20
needed professional help. BRITT IMES: So I first
realized the emotional impact of the case was
in this case, and
00:45:30
I had their crime scene tech
from San Diego on the stand. And we were just going
through pictures,
00:45:35
and we were going
through the processing of the Isuzu Trooper. And I went to show her
a picture, and I almost
00:45:43
lost it and I couldn't-- I just-- I had to stop,
take a deep breath, look away from the damn
cameras in the courtroom.
00:45:50
And I realized what it was. I was showing her a picture
of Joe Jr.'s car seat that was in the Trooper.
00:46:02
It was the exact same car seat
that I had put my kids in. Same model, same
color, same everything.
00:46:09
That personal connection
was the first time ever, and it-- it was heart wrenching.
00:46:17
Because we're not supposed
to make these things personal. They're never personal.
00:46:23
But sometimes they are. [somber music] [music playing]