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[Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size organ models help to map out complex
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subject to credit approval see store or ashley.com for details [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage Wherever
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You Are whatever you're doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
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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
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it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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a [Music] friend today we are still sipping on some Lost Galaxy IPA by Lost Nation
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Brewing this is a wheat sessions IPA with with a crisp silky malt body some hop bitterness and loads of tropical
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fruit to finish garage grade four out of five bottle caps and let's give some cheers and thanks to our good friends
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for helping us out first up a big Ron Swanson please and thank you goes out to Denise and Deval Washington and a big we
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big shout out to Kathy and Vancouver Washington here we go Captain we got a cheers to Eric lir in Parts Unknown and
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last but certainly not least we have Jake Alo also in Parts Unknown everyone we just mentioned well they went to True
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Crim garage.com and they helped us out with this week's beer fund for the beer run and the fridge is full and for that
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we thank you yeah BW you in beerun get you some make sure you go to our website sign up on the mailing list we like to
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tell a friend and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true [Music] crime more place we can go get away we can take the long way
00:03:31
home anywhere you want to go no place we can [Music] go tonight 10 News sources are revealing
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new details to us about the desert crime scene where the bodies of the MC family
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from Fall Brook were discovered we have been breaking every development on this case since yesterday and new tonight 10
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news reporter Preston Phillips reveals what was done to one of the bodies before it was buried in a shallow
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grave two sets of remains primarily intact and clothing found in two different shallow Graves here just off
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the 15 North of Victorville confirmed by authorities through dental records it's
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the m a FBR family of four who mysteriously disappeared back in February of 2010 at a Friday morning
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news conference MC family members fought to hold back tears my family appreciates
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all the support and the love that we've been shown authorities would not say how Joseph summer and
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their two sons were killed and wouldn't speculate as to who may have killed them
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law enforcement expert John kman says the shallow Graves the MC were found in and their close proximity to a busy
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freeway tells him it wasn't a professional hit if it was real important they'd probably go deeper or
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do worse they were in a hurry and once they're on 15 North or South they're out of there did Joey have
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enemies maybe a couple were they the kind of enemy that would want to kill him I I didn't see that Rick Baker
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author of no goodbyes is the mysterious disappearance of the mcst family says even his law enforcement sources close
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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
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done to one of the bodies they're one of the bodies either summer or Joseph the hands had been bound meantime tells 10
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News he's pulled his book from amazon.com and taken down his online blog all of that was to find the mix
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days it's strange for me I'm almost in a grieving process I always believed that
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there would be one day that I would meet at least one of them and be able to talk
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to them and see the kids Preston Phillips 10 News Sheriff's investigators would not say what kind of clothing and
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other personal items were found inside the graves but they did say the evidence recovered will help complete this
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investigation we can take the way home any you want to no we can go you heard it there from the good
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people at ABC 10 news that unfortunately the mix dayss were found and they were not found alive and well they were found
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buried in Shallow Graves to add a little more context to what it was that was found and how it was located in the
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state in which these bodies were found we have some information from fox8.com which says the mix Joseph
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summer and their sons Giani H4 and Joseph Jr age3 were ruled to have been bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer
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and buried in Shallow graves in the high desert outside of Victorville which is northeast of Los Angel Angeles I would
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say the best way to describe this location is it's a Desert Valley basically very vast but
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also connected pretty close to a major highway and the whole valley is overlooked by this Hillside it looks to
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me Captain like the grave sites if you will were located what about a quarter of a mile off of this Main Highway and
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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
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dirt bikes or off-road motorcyclist would want to be out in this area cruising around having a good time it's
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wide openen spaces out there and they call to authorities to let them know that they found some human remains
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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
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law enforcement said there is no reason to be out here authorities would tell us
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that in November of 2013 when the mixe family's skeletal remains were found in two shallow graves in the desert that
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none of the victims were wearing shoes all died from blunt force trauma summer and Sun Giani were found in grave b as
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investigators dubbed it in grave a a were found Joseph and Joseph Jr grave B also held what authorities say was the
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murder weapon a 3B Stanley Sledgehammer this is one of the short handle sledgehammers yeah and law
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enforcement believes that this murder weapon came from inside the family's home Joseph and Summer's skulls had been
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smashed multiple times the boys skulls were fractured as well Giani as many as seven
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times Joseph had a broken leg and broken rib he was tied with an extension cord and wrapped in a futon cover which again
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believed to be taken from the Fallbrook house a few things that law enforcement learn right away is the mades didn't go
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missing on their own accord and with the evidence of possibly this family going across the Mexican border that that's
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not true either and we also had family members at this time saying that they didn't believe that that was the mix
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going across the border right and at this time it would be very difficult for us to believe that it was in fact the
00:09:40
mix days that were spotted on camera going across the border because it would be awfully hard to believe that they up
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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
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food on the counter uneaten food out half eaten food out the dogs tethered in the backyard and unfed and that they
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went across the border parked their vehicle illegally it was later towed on the eth and then they walked back across
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the border unnoticed and then somebody murdered them and buried them in the desert it just seems too far-fetched for
00:10:18
that to be the scenario so what we will be told by authorities is that they say that they have reason to believe that
00:10:25
the Mi were attacked and killed in their home for being transported their remains
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transported out to the desert and then buried in those two shallow Graves labeled grave a and Grave B now one
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point of evidence that they say points to that is the sledgehammer itself that three lb Sledgehammer so the
00:10:48
sledgehammer they say they believe it came from the family home or the thought is that at least at one point it was at
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the home and their reason for stating that is that Summer Mix day when she was Unearthed when her body was found and
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Unearthed she was not wearing a top or a shirt her bra was found spattered with paint that paint color matched paint
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found in the miay home and that Sledgehammer that was found in the grave with the victims contain smears of that
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same paint so there's a lot lot of things kind of tying victim murder weapon back to the mstay family home
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yeah and so what we can surmise from that is the last known Communications would have happened around the 4th of
00:11:42
February they believe the murder took place close to the 4th of February and that's absolutely correct and the thing
00:11:49
here though Captain is we got a situation where we just went from a missing person's investigation with no
00:11:56
leads dead ends really an investigation that had gone cold by this point to now boom we got a quadruple homicide
00:12:05
investigation that we are working and San Diego county is going to transfer all of their information and all of
00:12:14
their missing persons investigation to San Bernardino County where the bodies were recovered so now
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we have a new agency with fresh eyes taking a new look at this and they have one added advant AG they know what
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happened to the mixe family they don't know who's responsible or how it happened but they do know that the four
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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
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something that you don't have in a voluntary missing person case we now have suspects that's correct and I have
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a list of people here captain and I can't say to what varying degree that these individuals would be cons
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considered to be suspects by law enforcement but I know that these are people that were interviewed and looked
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at and their movements in February early February of 2010 their activities their
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cell phone records all of this stuff became very important to law enforcement when interviewing all of these air
00:13:18
quotes potential suspects so I can read these off to you the list that I've created in no particular order we have
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Vic Johansson Michael mcfaden Dan Kavanaugh Michael mstay and Charles Chase marit
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and I do know that we're going to have to fill in the listeners on some of these individuals as we've not
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introduced them to the listeners yet these are new names so starting at the top of my list we have Vic Johansson who
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is he well he is a former boyfriend of Summer M and someone that had reached out to her on occasion over the years
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this guy was also not considered to be a saint by anybody out there and so he was
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interesting to law enforcement because here's the thing when we talk about the mcstay family right we have the
00:14:16
situation where Joseph M he's he's regarded by everybody as this super nice casual guy he's kind of the laid-back
00:14:24
surfer dude and it's said over and over again by multiple people this guy didn't
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have an enemy this guy had nobody that hated him nobody that disliked him nobody that would want to hurt him
00:14:36
unfortunately when you find a guy murdered and buried in the desert you know that that statement is not exactly
00:14:43
true there's at least one person that would have wanted to hurt Joseph M for one reason or another right that's a
00:14:50
fact Jack now the flip side of that coin is his wife summer who does not share the same personality as her husband
00:14:58
Joseph she's a little more forward she's a little more aggressive she's a little
00:15:02
more protecting her own and so there were people that said you know what there were people out there that had a
00:15:08
problem with Summer but nobody seemed to have a problem with Joseph so now you got to look at this thing and go okay
00:15:15
well I don't believe and until we have a situation where we have an aurora Hammer
00:15:21
Slayer guy or a family Annihilator that just happened to come in in the middle of the night and wipe out a whole family
00:15:28
which those scenarios are rare and few and far between thank God unless you have one of those situations you have
00:15:36
somebody that had a beef with somebody in this mixe family and you the boys are little they're young boys so the beef
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probably didn't happen with Giani or Joey Jr no it was with one of the parents and likely you have a scenario
00:15:52
where something happened to one of them and then somebody had to wipe out the rest of the family
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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
00:16:05
well this Vic Johansson former boyfriend was somebody that was considered to have
00:16:10
a beef and to be weird and potentially violent and somebody that came onto the police's radar via friends and family
00:16:21
well he was also arrested in a building that was connected to Joseph's business yeah Joseph's business
00:16:29
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
00:16:37
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
00:16:47
you have to put him on the list yeah and he had other things of being kicked out
00:16:51
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
00:17:01
the area living somewhat in the area at the time of their disappearance but the problem with him is they don't seem to
00:17:09
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
00:17:16
continue on down our list of suspects next we have Michael mcfaden he too is another individual that we've not yet
00:17:24
introduced to our story how does he fit in well he is Joseph's ex-wife's husband so Joseph M was previously
00:17:35
married to another woman before he was married to Summer and the two of them had a son together well this man Michael
00:17:44
mcfaden is now Joseph ex-wife's husband and The Stepfather to Joseph M's oldest son now Joseph mstay is still very much
00:17:56
in the life of his oldest son son and there are outings and Gatherings where both couples will be present mom and her
00:18:05
new husband are present and dad and his new wife are present and at some point something happened where this Michael
00:18:15
mcfaden decided maybe he didn't like Joseph too much maybe he didn't like summer too much there's an altercation a
00:18:22
verbal altercation where Michael mcfaden tells Joseph if you don't muzzle your wife I
00:18:31
will gladly come to your house and kick your ass and muzzle her for you yeah if anybody ever said that about my wife
00:18:37
they would be walking around with no teeth anybody ever said that about my wife I would remove the muzzle and let
00:18:43
her go yeah she can take care of herself so Michael mcfaden is looked at he's interviewed but the problem is similar
00:18:52
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
00:18:58
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
00:19:06
they were attacked well and you have to think about this law enforcement has something to their advantage you have
00:19:11
two locations you need to put that individual roughly at that house on the fourth and then you have to put them in
00:19:21
a whole separate location 100 miles away so this guy does have a history but like
00:19:28
he States in his interview with law enforcement that history is that criminal history is from long ago and
00:19:38
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
00:19:46
same person as I was I think his comments are out of line but we've all said stupid things when we get heated
00:19:53
and we we're in an argument with somebody the other thing though Captain some does not strike me as the person
00:19:59
who would have taken a backseat to anybody so we also don't know what she may have said to this Michael mcfaden
00:20:06
character in fact it could be worse than what he said about her later but yes you're exactly right that's the
00:20:13
situation that we have we have to be able to put our suspect or suspects remember we got four victims here and I
00:20:22
I have a hard time in this case looking at it and going there's only one person that could pull this off
00:20:28
but we have to be able to put our suspect or suspects at their home around the time that we believe that they were
00:20:34
attacked or went missing and then put them 70 roughly 70 miles away where we know that the bodies were eventually
00:20:43
recovered somebody moved them to that spot if in fact the authorities are correct in their statement that we
00:20:49
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
00:20:57
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
00:21:03
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
00:21:11
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
00:21:18
victim's family member he was very close with his brother or at least at one time
00:21:23
I question how close he was at the time of the disappearance but he was close with them and then we
00:21:30
have his father Patrick who does not seem to get along real well with Michael MX day but is quick to defend his son
00:21:39
and saying hey he would never hurt his brother he loved his brother always loved his brother but furthermore I
00:21:46
don't think he could hurt anyone I don't think he could kill a potential enemy let alone somebody that he was once
00:21:54
close with so Michael M he's interested for a couple reasons and we've already pointed some of them out one The Taking
00:22:02
of the computer two being able to access their locked home and then we have this
00:22:07
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
00:22:17
vague answer of yeah I was around their home I went by their home it was either February 4th or February 6
00:22:23
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
00:22:34
time of the attack well we also have neighborhood surveillance that puts a white truck or utility type truck or a
00:22:45
white SUV it's it's look the the video footage is absolutely dog [ __ ] it's worse than the video of the four people
00:22:54
seen walking across the board me I mean we can find doorways on Mars but we can't get decent surveillance footage on
00:23:04
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
00:23:12
from surveillance footage from a neighbor's home security camera and the neighbor provides this to police this is
00:23:19
after police go around and canvas the area asking has anybody seen anything do you have any home security cameras could
00:23:25
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
00:23:34
mitchley video and this on this surveillance footage the footage comes from February 4th 2010 again this is the
00:23:44
day that that it's believed that they were attacked and killed at 7:47 p.m. just like the captain said this video
00:23:53
shows what others not the colonel here not old eagle eyes here here what others say is a white truck or SUV driving past
00:24:04
this neighbor's home exiting from the miay family home now there's been plenty of people to say
00:24:13
we cannot confirm that it was exiting the mix family home at one point when they were still simply missing it was
00:24:20
thought that this could be Joseph M's Isuzu Trooper it could have been his vehicle mhm and they say that you see a
00:24:29
white truck or a white SUV I'll tell you what I watched that damn clip it's it's
00:24:34
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
00:24:43
see are headlights and reflectors I don't see anything other than headlights and reflectors I couldn't make out a
00:24:50
color of a vehicle a shape of a vehicle anything I actually think it's very possible that it's the mixed stay's
00:24:58
family vehicle I agree with you because somebody has to transport that vehicle they at some point they have to take
00:25:07
that vehicle but meaning that at some point they have to drive a vehicle and then they have to get
00:25:15
back somehow so a tandem driver either they had some help as I pointed out earlier I have a hard time believing
00:25:23
that only one person carried out this these horrific crimes and all the methods and and ways to try to cover it
00:25:30
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
00:25:39
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
00:25:47
conceal it and I'm with you I would use their own vehicle knowing that I'm going
00:25:52
to ditch it someplace later elsewhere that I would use their their vehicle to transport them out to that
00:26:00
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
00:26:08
don't see anything of evidentiary value other than it looks like some type of vehicle is leaving from the mixs at
00:26:16
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
00:26:24
we didn't get to and I leapfrogged one of them simply because these other two fall into a similar basket to me and
00:26:31
that's because they're both involved and they both work with Joseph M and so that
00:26:38
is his business associate Charles Chase Meritt who is the Builder and manufacturer of these water features as
00:26:48
well as Dan Kavanaugh who is his onetime business partner who's being in the process of being bought out from the
00:26:56
company more we can go get away we take the long way home any you want to no place we can
00:27:19
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s a n everyday.com on November 11th 2013 skeletal remains were recovered in the county area of
00:29:28
Victorville and were confirmed to be that of the mix Day family our homicide investigation began immediately and the
00:29:36
ident to find the identity of the suspect of this horrible crime and bring that responsible person to
00:29:42
Justice the San Diego County Sheriff's Department turned over nearly 4500 pages of investigative material that was
00:29:50
reviewed by our detectives 60 search warrants were served and over 200 interviews were
00:29:57
conducted conducted investigators received about 250 tips and anonymous calls and
00:30:03
followed up on every one of them as the investigation progressed the District Attorney's office was involved
00:30:10
and consulted investigators from our department would like to make a special thank you to special agent Kevin BS of
00:30:17
the FBI for his assistance in this investigation Charles Chase Merritt was identified as the suspect responsible
00:30:27
for the death of Joseph summer Giani and Joseph M there's no information to suggest there were any other suspects
00:30:36
involved in this crime Chase Merritt was a business associate of Joseph M the cause of death was determined to
00:30:45
be blunt force trauma and based on the entire investigation and the evidence obtained investigators believe these
00:30:52
murders occurred at their residence in falbrook investigators are not disclosing the motive for the murder at
00:31:00
this point Merritt was arrested on Wednesday November 5th without incident transported and booked at our West
00:31:09
Valley Detention Center where he is currently being held I want to thank all the
00:31:14
investigators who spent countless hours in this case less than a year ago I made
00:31:19
a promise to the family that our department would do everything in our power to solve this case and although we
00:31:25
can never bring them back I hope that this provides some level of closure it's now my honor to introduce the district
00:31:32
attorney of San Bernardino County Mike [Music] Ramos all right we are back cheers
00:31:51
mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to you captain and just a quick reminder to everyone out there that's listening to
00:31:59
this on Wednesday May 25th today is National missing Children's Day President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May
00:32:08
25th 1983 the first national missing Children's Day in memory of Eaton Pats and very fitting that this case is being
00:32:18
reviewed by us this week here Captain as we heard in part one the national Center
00:32:24
for missing and exploited children were involved in this investigation because we did have two missing children and
00:32:31
they helped with viewing the Border camera footage so in honor of their good work half of this week's beer fund will
00:32:39
be donated to the National Center for missing and exploited children that clip right there Captain very clear very
00:32:48
concise well delivered by the sheriff by Sheriff McMahon there to tell us about the very general stages of the the
00:32:57
investigation leading up to the point of the discovery of the bodies San Bernardino County taking over the
00:33:03
investigation which then led to the arrest of Charles Chase Merritt and the bodies were found in November of
00:33:14
2013 and the press conference where they tell us that we have identified the two
00:33:21
adult bodies as that of Joseph and summer mcstay took place on November 15th the press conference clip that you
00:33:30
just heard was almost exactly one year later November 7th 2014 is when they announced to the public hey two days ago
00:33:38
we just arrested business associate Chase Merritt for the murders of the entire mix Day family in a lot of these
00:33:47
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
00:33:55
separates Chase from the rest of these other suspects I think it's the specific information that they have on Chase
00:34:04
where the others look like potentially good suspects however we can't place them with one or any of the victims
00:34:12
around the time that they are attacked and killed with the exception of Michael M stating that he drove by the fam's
00:34:19
home either on the 4th or the 6th of February what we do know is that chase Merritt is saying I had a meeting
00:34:27
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
00:34:38
we exchanged some checks and it was a very casual meeting however when police do their due diligence and they start
00:34:47
looking into that meeting that took place on the same day that they believed that the family was attacked and killed
00:34:54
they can't find any evidence that such a meeting took place let alone a several hours long meeting at a Chick-fil-A
00:35:03
there's no Financial evidence that backs up that the two had lunch together and had this casual long meeting at
00:35:10
Chick-fil-A nothing in Chase's records nothing in Joseph's records from their credit cards we also don't find any
00:35:19
receipts that somebody paid cash for that day we can't find anybody at Chick-fil-A that says we saw the two
00:35:25
guys having a meeting here there's no proof of them being at the Chick-fil-A on surveillance footage so right away
00:35:34
what we have here just from that one particular spot in our timeline is we have one guy telling us a story that we
00:35:45
cannot verify with anyone else and we can't use any of Joseph's information to verify that that that actually took
00:35:52
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
00:35:59
Communications between Chase and Joseph on February 4th we do know that that took place but we can't say that this
00:36:08
long meeting took place and in fact once you start to hear the prosecution and law enforcement's Narrative of how they
00:36:17
believ that all of this went down uh you can figure out very quickly that they think that a whole lot of different
00:36:24
stuff was happening rather than what Chase was telling them took place and to reiterate it was a huge mistake in my
00:36:32
mind to not take their disappearance more seriously from the get-go and because we have this time gap of about 4
00:36:42
years this really ties law enforcement's hands but I also think that it ties the
00:36:49
hands of suspects as well because if you start asking me questions about something that happened a year ago I'm
00:36:56
going to have a difficulty remembering certain details or remembering certain things that maybe could coroporate my
00:37:05
story the big problem for Chase is there will be evidence against him that cannot
00:37:09
be changed that cannot be just one person's opinion or one person telling you this is what happened no because
00:37:16
they know that based off of computer evidence and off of financial records and cell phone activity that some of
00:37:25
what Chase is telling them is not truthful and not factual and those things are taking place on or near
00:37:32
February 4th and then again on February 6th and so his story gets very weird and
00:37:40
very wonky and looks very bad for him right away once they start digging into this information so what do they
00:37:49
find here they find that Charles Chase Merritt is an ex-felon and he was actually on probation at the time and
00:37:56
there was a warrant out for his violation of that probation now what was his charges against him his previous
00:38:05
charges none of them were violent Acts or for a violent act but these included but were not limited to stolen property
00:38:14
I'm sorry receiving stolen property burglary petty theft Grand Theft and then other crimes and then when they're
00:38:23
interviewing him he's talking about Joseph in the past tense saying Joseph was a great guy Joseph was one of my
00:38:32
best friends Joseph was the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off of his
00:38:36
back now that looks pretty incriminating because when he's making these statements to law enforcement the
00:38:43
family's still missing nobody's been found nobody's been recovered none of that has happened yet
00:38:50
and so this all looks very bad for Meritt yeah just to play Devil's Advocate because they were missing for a
00:38:58
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
00:39:06
going to look real bad for him is the QuickBooks activity the phone calls and cell phone activity now Captain pointed
00:39:16
out something very interesting and something that is exactly spoton not only do we need to put our suspect near
00:39:23
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
00:39:29
location where their bodies are later recovered and we have a situation here that chase Merritt's cell phone on
00:39:39
February 6th 2010 which is believed to be 2 days after the M family was killed his cell
00:39:46
phone pings off of a tower that you can actually see with the naked eye from the
00:39:54
grave site in the desert near Victorville California and let's remember the site
00:40:05
of the grave site is roughly 100 miles from the M family house and thank you for reminding us and thank you Captain
00:40:14
for reminding us of that because I believe earlier I said 70 miles away when in fact it is nearly 100 Mil away
00:40:22
70 Mi was the distance between where they found the stay family vehicle from their home near the border and look by
00:40:33
Chase Merritt's own admission here's something that he says that is very insightful but this is a man that he's
00:40:40
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
00:40:46
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
00:40:54
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%
00:41:03
accurate we know that from several other cases that we've reviewed here in the garage but by his own admission he says
00:41:10
Tower info isn't so inaccurate that it's going to put you in the wrong City this
00:41:16
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
00:41:25
says that he has family that lives in the general area and that he may be visiting family however when we hear
00:41:32
from his sister we get two completely different stories one I never see my brother I think the last time I've seen
00:41:39
him was about 5 years ago she lives in this Victorville area and then later when he has to go to trial several years
00:41:49
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
00:41:59
unique family history when it comes to Crime because his brother was actually arrested and they were going to charge
00:42:08
him with being the Hillside Strangler so his argument is well we had a family member that once was accused of a
00:42:17
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
00:42:25
just kind of made up nonsense because she wasn't going to give answers to police she didn't want to put her
00:42:34
brother in the area when she's originally asked but it doesn't matter because his cell phone puts him in the
00:42:42
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
00:42:50
have you seen your brother lately uh no but really the correct answer to protect
00:42:55
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
00:43:03
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
00:43:12
he's never in the area and when she does find out for certain and is told by his
00:43:18
defense team it benefits your brother if you say that he was in the area all the
00:43:23
time that's when her story changes and like the San Bernardino sheriff's office detective says this is one of the most
00:43:32
powerful statements that I have seen in any of this case and in this case that took several years one to find the
00:43:41
victims and then several more years to bring this thing to trial and to see it through this is one of the most powerful
00:43:49
statements where the detective says quote there is no other business to be done out here he's talking about that
00:43:56
stretch of desert where there is nothing out there there's no reason to be out there there's no business that can be
00:44:03
can be conducted out there he's basically saying the only reason why somebody would come out here might be to
00:44:11
bury some bodies well prosecution's case makes a lot more sense and law enforcement's case makes a lot more
00:44:17
sense against Chase Merritt when you do watch the documentary because you get to
00:44:21
see the visuals and to see when they're filming the detective at the grave site there's nothing around right it's just
00:44:31
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
00:44:41
QuickBook QuickBooks activity that took place before Joseph mstay disappeared there was fraudulent
00:44:51
QuickBooks activity in the company somebody was going into their QuickBooks and issuing checks to you
00:45:03
guessed it Chase Merit and then deleting those checks from the QuickBooks records and we find
00:45:11
out that not only is he an ex-felon but he's also an individual with a gambling problem and that he was struggling
00:45:20
financially for months leading up to Joseph's murder MI family's murder to the point where he was having so much
00:45:28
difficulty financially that they would close his account out correct he had lost thousands of dollars at the casinos
00:45:36
they were already having what would appear to me based off of the QuickBooks information that I reviewed that they
00:45:43
were already having some discussions probably arguments and disagreements about money leading up to this money and
00:45:51
these fake checks fraudulent checks being issued for Chase Merritt and when I say they I mean between Joseph and
00:45:59
Chase now what's even more difficult is after it's believed that the M family was killed this fraudulent activity
00:46:10
continues on QuickBooks where checks are being issued to chase Meritt backdated to the fourth
00:46:19
of February cashed and then the information deleted from QuickBooks then what we have is on at
00:46:28
least two occasions somebody calls QuickBooks demanding that all of the information for Earth inspired products
00:46:41
for the company all of the QuickBooks information be deleted scrubbed from their
00:46:48
servers the person on the phone says that he is Joseph M the owner and operator of
00:46:56
the company the person that has the administrator rights to QuickBooks for the company however all of this stuff is
00:47:06
recorded all of this information is recorded for customer service quality purposes right and so when they record
00:47:15
this information what they figure out is the person calling claiming to be Joseph
00:47:20
M is calling from Chase Merritt's cell phone well that don't look so good that looks awful I think that's something
00:47:29
that you need to put a pin in because to be impersonating somebody that's missing
00:47:36
so someone's hacking into QuickBooks writing themselves checks Chase Meritt is issuing checks to chase Merritt Chase
00:47:44
Merritt is cashing those checks before Joseph M is killed and after Joseph M is killed and then trying to delete all of
00:47:54
the activity on on QuickBooks which ultimately will be his undoing when it comes to the trial and comes to court
00:48:03
the person calling in is calling from Chase Merritt's cell phone claiming to be the now vanished the now dead and
00:48:09
murdered Joseph M I mean this stuff is this guy claims to be innocent I don't think that you can have this
00:48:19
activity happening at the same time and him be innocent if you do watch this documentary I think the people that are
00:48:25
going to frustrate you the most is the way the prosecutors act during the trial it's very childish it's almost like they
00:48:34
forgot that there was four people murdered and that this case is very serious I mean they giggle like little
00:48:41
school girls but it's like watching people like freshman in high school chuckling in
00:48:47
study hall but I can state that I think their opening statements made the most sense this case is all based off a
00:48:55
circumstance stantial evidence there is no smoking gun in this case so they have
00:49:00
to build a mountain of evidence and I think they they do that pretty well against Chase Merritt the other thing
00:49:09
that's going to frustrate you if you watch the documentary is Dan Kavanaugh because there's plenty of reasons to go
00:49:16
this guy's a creep he's a weirdo he's a strange bird and oh it looks like he was
00:49:20
trying to cash in on Joseph M being missing as well so he's somebody that will frustrate you but I think that once
00:49:28
you look at everything the totality of the evidence and information against Chase Merritt personally and I know that
00:49:36
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
00:49:42
information right we we mentioned that his cell phone pinged at that Tower near the gravite out in the middle of the
00:49:48
desert right but his other cell phone information is he's off the grid for several hours on February AR 4th I
00:49:57
actually think what happened is we have Joseph mstay who is calling his bank repeatedly and he's checking in and out
00:50:05
of QuickBooks repeatedly on February 4th who else is he calling on February 4th Chase Meritt I think that Joseph mstay
00:50:14
discovered what Chase was up to the missing money the checks that were being issued and then
00:50:21
deleted from QuickBooks I think he discovered this and figured out this guy is ripping me off and I think he
00:50:30
confronted him about that I'm not going to take it any steps further to say that
00:50:34
oh he fired him or he put him on notice or they had a physical altercation I don't know because just like the
00:50:42
prosecution pointed out in their opening statement they don't have all the answers they're not going to be able to
00:50:49
answer every single thing for you other than we believe and have evidence to prove it that Chase Merrick killed this
00:50:56
family of four and we believe that the motive was simple it was greed and it was fraud and that he was trying to
00:51:02
cover those up and that for whatever reason maybe he was confronted by summer at the home we talked about her being
00:51:09
aggressive and standing up for her family and not holding back when it comes to talking with people and
00:51:14
confronting people right maybe she said something to him and he flipped out and smacked her in the head with the
00:51:19
sledgehammer and then he had to kill the rest of the family maybe he went after Joseph mstay because he was fired and
00:51:26
figured out summer she's a pretty smart woman she knows that I was supposed to be meeting with her husband today she
00:51:33
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
00:51:40
video out the window anytime we have a situation a scenario where at trial we have one expert for the prosecution
00:51:48
telling us this is what I see this is what my experience tells me and then we have a witness for the defense say
00:51:55
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
00:52:02
defense I look at that I toss them both out the window because if they both were
00:52:07
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
00:52:14
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
00:52:20
anything different so I think you can throw that out it's interesting too that there are more than there are plenty of
00:52:26
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
00:52:34
family vehicle yes but here's a couple things to to to argue that chase is innocent you could look at his history
00:52:45
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
00:52:51
murderer like oh I I'm going have a gambling problem also now he's a murderer of four individuals I also
00:52:59
think that this cell phone records and this cell phone ping technology I actually think it's a load of
00:53:07
malarkey and here's why it's because on Joseph's phone they have a call that Joseph made to chase on the
00:53:18
4th it's in Joseph's call log it never shows up on Chase's call log so therefore we have we have
00:53:29
evidence that this log doesn't match this log so how much information is each cell phone log missing because we have
00:53:38
proof that there are missing items from cell phone logs but only on Chase Merritt's end so here's the problem the
00:53:48
reason for the explanation for why you would have a call that is logged on Joseph's but not Merritt's call logs is
00:53:58
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
00:54:05
where he could not receive phone calls and so the call never registered on his end because his phone never received the
00:54:13
call the call registered on Joseph M's end because his phone made that call and so the disconnect is the call not
00:54:22
actually going through and it's the belief of the prosecution that by this point the attack had already occurred
00:54:30
and Chase Merritt his phone is off and knowing that his phone is off attempted to cover his tracks by using Joseph M's
00:54:38
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
00:54:49
unavailable airplane mode or not able to be reached by any cell phone towers for
00:54:54
several hours that day the other thing that's happening in this scenario is the fact that his wife or common law wife at
00:55:05
the time is calling him repeatedly looking for him or trying to get in contact with him and again her call log
00:55:13
shows that those calls were made from her phone his call log does not register any of those calls because his phone
00:55:19
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
00:55:27
any means I think she's just misremembering again the the time difference really kind of handcuffs law
00:55:36
enforcement but it also handcuffs the suspect and any of their eyewitnesses because for her to remember that one day
00:55:46
so vividly with so many details um I don't think she's lying necessarily I think that she is
00:55:55
misremembering and I think she wants to believe what she's telling law enforcement because it makes her it
00:56:02
makes the father of her children not this horrible monster well and in her defense too if look we all want to do
00:56:12
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
00:56:17
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
00:56:25
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
00:56:33
side of caution that benefits my loved one right the person that I have believed and I am telling
00:56:40
you could not be responsible for this and it's unclear when she's being asked to deliver this information to the
00:56:49
authorities we don't know if it's days after they went missing years after they went missing or years after they you
00:56:57
know or even after they had arrested Chase Meritt yeah which would be roughly what five year difference four and a
00:57:04
half five year difference uh yes it would be over four years after they disappeared that chase Merritt is
00:57:10
arrested and then it takes longer for it to go to trial now one thing here Captain is he is convicted he is
00:57:19
convicted of this and the documentary that we've recommended is is out now and from my
00:57:27
understanding it was originally recorded on the request of his defense team and I think this is really
00:57:35
interesting to me because I understand the prosecution thought that they were at some kind of disadvantage which I
00:57:42
don't get I think that th this prosecution crew seems a little like you said a bit childish at times probably a
00:57:49
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
00:57:55
embarrassed and if I was their family members I'd be embarrassed the the head prosecutor if I was his wife I would
00:58:03
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
00:58:09
disadvantage with cameras rolling because maybe this is their typical Behavior well you have to remember this
00:58:14
I'm telling you this is embarrassing and and I go by a fake name I don't even own
00:58:21
a boat well the thing is here with this documentary I like this idea you know it
00:58:29
turned out to be a really good idea in the west Memphis 3 case the in some other cases they've done this where
00:58:36
rather than going back retroactively and telling you about a True Crime Story and
00:58:41
how it played out in court where they're actually filming it for the purposes of
00:58:46
possibly making a documentary later that will include the True Crime Story plus the trial I think that transparency is
00:58:55
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
00:59:04
then it would be impossible to have a perfect system so I think that knowing that I love having some
00:59:12
transparency and let's open up our doors let's open up the communication and let's show the public what's going on
00:59:19
and how it's going down it could only benefit and better us all in the end if you find this case
00:59:27
interesting then I would take the time to watch two shallow Graves which is on Discovery ID it's pretty quick to get
00:59:35
through even though it's seven Parts you can fast forward through the commercials it seems like some of the
00:59:42
episodes only feel like they're about 30 minutes long after you get rid of the commercials you also get to see these
00:59:51
individuals on camera how they interact with with people they do a really good job of diving a little bit deeper than
00:59:59
we did into the suspects because because the defense team did we kind of Dove as deep as law
01:00:07
enforcement did and law enforcement as they were digging into these individuals found things that pointed towards their
01:00:14
innocent or pointed towards a solid Alibi but I would recommend it I wouldn't say it's the best documentary
01:00:21
I've watched but it's definitely entertaining and formative and I'd give it two thumbs up
01:00:28
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
01:00:34
it um in in today's recommended reading um but in in the end what we have here Captain is on in June of
01:00:44
2019 the San Bernardino County jury found Chase Merrick guilty of murdering the mix family as we said earlier in
01:00:52
this case we had jury recommendations for punishment for Chase Merritt and the jury recommended life imprisonment for
01:01:02
the murder of Joseph M death penalty for the murder of Susan M death penalty for
01:01:09
the murder of Giani M death penalty for the murder of Joseph Jr m in the end Meritt was in fact sentenced to
01:01:23
death can go get away we can take the way home anywh you want to go a tricky case here we want to hear
01:01:37
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
01:01:45
Colonel do we have any recommended reading this week let's go with some recommended viewing we would be remiss
01:01:50
if we did not recommend two shallow Graves which was featured on the ID channel also available on Discovery plus
01:01:58
it's seven episodes about this exact case the mcstay family murder case you'll want to check that out to shallow
01:02:06
Graves that's on our website on our recommended page along with other good books other good podcasts other TV shows
01:02:14
True Crime all around for you to watch listen and read check that out at true Crim garage.com and until next week be
01:02:22
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