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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always as a man who is known in the OTR realm as young nasty man here is the
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capital well it's nice to meet you all it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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my friend [Music] today we are still sipping on some Lost Galaxy IPA by Lost Nation Brewing this
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is a wheat sessions IPA with a crisp silky malt body some hop bitterness and loads of tropical fruit to finish garage
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grade four out of five bottle caps and let's give some cheers and thanks to our good friends for helping us out first up
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a big Ron Swanson please and thank you goes out to Denise and Deval Washington and a big we like egyptu Aaron and
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Vancouver Washington here we go Captain we got a cheers to Eric LeClaire and Parts Unknown and last but certainly not
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least we have Jake hello also in Parts Unknown everyone we just mentioned well they went to True Crime garage.com and
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around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] [Music] we can go
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get away tonight 10 News sources are revealing new details to us about the desert crime
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scene where the bodies of the mcstay family from Fallbrook were discovered we have been breaking every development on
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this case since yesterday and new tonight 10 news reporter Preston Phillips reveals what was done to one of
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the bodies before it was buried in a shallow grave two sets of remains primarily intact and
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clothing found in two different shallow Graves here just off the 15 North of Victorville confirmed by authorities
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through dental records it's the mcstays a Fallbrook family of four who mysteriously disappeared back in
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February of 2010 at a Friday morning news conference mcstay family members fought to hold back tears my family
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appreciates all the support and the love that we've been chill authorities would
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not say how Joseph's summer and their two sons were killed and wouldn't speculate as to who may have killed them
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law enforcement expert John Carman says the shallow Graves the mcstays were found in and their close proximity to a
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busy 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 enemies
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maybe a couple were they the kind of enemy that would want to kill him I I didn't see that Rick Baker author of no
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goodbye is the mysterious disappearance of the mcstay family says even his law enforcement source is close to the
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mcstay case are keeping the details of their deaths close to the vest but says one did tell him one thing that was done
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to one of the bodies one of the bodies either summer Joseph their hands have been bound meantime Baker tells 10 News
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he's pulled his book from amazon.com and taken down his online blog all of that was to find the next days it's strange
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for me I'm almost in a grieving process I always believed that there would be one day that I would meet at least one
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of them and be able to talk to them and see the kids Preston Phillips 10 News Sheriff's investigators would not say
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what kind of clothing and other personal items were found inside the graves but they did say the evidence recovered will
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help complete this investigation no place we can go get away [Music] you heard it there from the good people
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of ABC 10 news that unfortunately the mixed days 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 mcstays Joseph
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summer and their sons Gianni H4 and Joseph Jr age three were ruled to have been bludgeoned to death with a
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sledgehammer and buried in Shallow graves in the high desert outside of Victorville which is northeast of Los
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Angeles I would say the best way to describe this location is it's a desert Valley basically very vast but also
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connected pretty close to a major highway and the whole valley is overlooked by this Hillside it looks to me Captain
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like the grave sites if you will were located what about a quarter of a mile off of this Main Highway and when you
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look at the area and the way that you described it I think is perfect it makes total sense to me why people on dirt
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bikes or off-road motorcyclists would want to be out in this area cruising around having a good time
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it's wide open spaces out there and the call to authorities to let them know that they found
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some human remains they're asking well what's the location and the guy says man there's no paved roads out here
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this is a location that law enforcement said there is no reason to be out here authorities would tell us that in
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November of 2013 when the mixed day 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 Gianni were found in
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grave b as investigators dubbed it in grave a were found Joseph and Joseph Jr grave B also held what
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authorities say was the murder weapon a three pound Stanley sledgehammer this is one of the short handle Sledge
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hammers yeah law enforcement believes that this murder weapon came from inside the family's home Joseph in summers
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skulls had been smashed multiple times the boy's skulls were fractured as well Gianni as many as seven times
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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 learned right away is the mcstage didn't
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go missing on their own accord and with the evidence of possibly this family going across the Mexican border that
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that's not true either and we also had family members at this time saying that they didn't believe that that was the
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mcstays going across the border right and at this time it would be very difficult for us to believe that it was
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in fact the mcstays that were spotted on camera going across the border because it would be awfully hard to believe that
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they up and left their home in a state where it looks like they just left in the middle of all this action and
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activity going on food on the counter uneaten food out half eaten food out the dogs tethered in the backyard and unfed
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and that they went across the border parked their vehicle illegally it was later towed on the 8th and then they
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walked back across the border unnoticed and then somebody murdered them and buried them in the desert it
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just seems too far-fetched for that to be the scenario so what we will be told by authorities is that they say that
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they have reason to believe that the mcstays were attacked and killed in their home before being transported
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there remains transported out to the desert and then buried in those two shallow Graves labeled grave a and Grave
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B now one point of evidence that they say points to that is the sledgehammer itself that three pound Sledgehammer so
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the sledgehammer they say they believe it came from the family home or the thought is that at least at one point it
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was at the home and their reason for stating that is that summer mcstay when she was Unearthed when her body was
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found in on Earth she was not wearing a top or a shirt her bra was found spattered with paint
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that paint color matched paint found in the mcstay home and that Sledgehammer that was found in
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the grave with the victims contained smears of that same paint so there's a lot of things kind of tying
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victim murder weapon back to the mcstay family home yeah and so what we can surmise from that is the
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last known Communications would have happened around the 4th of February they believe the murder took place close to
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the 4th of February and that's absolutely correct and the thing here though Captain is we got a situation
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where we just went from a missing person's investigation with no leads dead ends really an investigation that
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had gone cold by this point to now boom we got a quadruple homicide investigation that we are working and
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San Diego county is going to transfer all of their information and all of their missing persons investigation to
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San Bernardino County where the bodies were recovered so now we have a new agency with fresh eyes taking a new look
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at this and they have one added Advantage they know what happened to the mixtape a family they don't know who's
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responsible or how it happened but they do know that the four were murdered and that they just didn't get up and leave
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on their own well now that we have four murder victims we have something that you don't have in a voluntary missing
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person case we now have suspects that's correct and I have a list of people here
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captain and I can't say to what varying degree that these individuals would be considered to be suspects by law
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enforcement but I know that these are people that were interviewed and looked at and their movements in February early
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February of 2010 their activities their cell phone records all of this stuff became very important to law enforcement
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when interviewing all of these air quotes potential suspects so I can read these off to you the list that I've
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created in no particular order we have Vic Johansen Michael McFadden Dan Kavanaugh Michael mcstay
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and Charles Chase Merritt and I do know that we're going to have to fill in the listeners on some of these individuals
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as we've not introduced them to the listeners yet these are new names so starting at the top of my list we
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have Vic Johansen who is he well he is a former boyfriend of Summer mcstay and someone that had reached out to her on
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occasion over the years 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
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situation where Joseph mcstay he's he's regarded by everybody as this super nice
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casual guy he's kind of the laid-back surfer dude and it's said over and over again by multiple people this guy didn't
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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
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unfortunately when you find a guy murdered and buried in the desert you know that that statement is not exactly
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true there's at least one person that would have wanted to hurt Joseph mcstay for one reason or another right that's a
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fact Jack now the flip side of that coin is his wife summer who does not share the same personality as her husband
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Joseph she's a little more forward she's a little more aggressive she's a little
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more protecting her own and so there were people that said you know what there were people out there
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that had a problem with Summer but nobody seemed to have a problem with Joseph so now you got to look at this
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thing and go okay well I don't believe and until we have a situation where we have an aurora Hammer
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Slayer guy or a family Annihilator that just happened to come in in the middle of the night and wipe out a whole family
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which those scenarios are rare and few and far between thank God unless you have one of those situations you have
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somebody that had a beef with somebody in this mcstay family and you the boys are little they're young boys so the
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beef probably didn't happen with Gianni or Joey Jr no it was with one of the parents and likely you have a scenario
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where something happened to one of them and then somebody had to wipe out the rest of the family and so when you look
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at this you go okay who could have had a beef with Summer who could have had a beef with Joseph well this Vic Johansen
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former boyfriend was somebody that was considered to have a beef and to be weird
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and potentially violent and somebody that came onto the police's radar via friends and family well he was
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also arrested in a building that was connected to Joseph's business yeah Joseph's business and so he did have a
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record and had you know when you're looking at this horrible crime you go well somebody with a temper
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it's somebody that is capable of committing a crime like this and and he had a bunch of red flags that you have
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to put him on the list yeah and he had other things of being kicked out of bars for
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you know vulgar or loud activity where he's getting aggressive with people and he was he was known to be in the
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area living somewhat in the area at the time of their disappearance but the problem with him is
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they don't seem to have a whole lot to move on this guy and so let's keep him in the back of our mind let's keep him
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on our list and continue on down our list of suspects next we have Michael McFadden he too is another individual
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that we've not yet introduced to our story how does he fit in well he is Joseph's ex-wife's husband
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so Joseph mcstay was previously married to another woman before he was married to Summer
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and the two of them had a son together well this man Michael McFadden is now Joseph ex-wife's husband and The
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Stepfather to Joseph mcstay's oldest son now Joseph mcstay is still very much in
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the life of his oldest son and there are outings and Gatherings where both couples will be present mom
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and her new husband are present and dad and his new wife are present and at some
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point something happened where this Michael McFadden decided maybe he didn't like Joseph too
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much maybe he didn't like summer too much there's an altercation of verbal altercation where Michael McFadden tells
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Joseph if you don't muzzle your wife I will gladly come to your house and kick your ass and muzzle her for you
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yeah if anybody ever said that about my wife they would be walking around with no teeth anybody ever said that about my
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wife I would remove the muzzle and let her go yeah she can take care of herself so Michael McFadden is looked at he's
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interviewed but the problem is similar with him I don't think they could put him in the area it's not that they it's
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not that they can say he wasn't in the area it's more of a well we can't put him in the area around the time that we
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believe that they went missing or that they were attacked well and you have to think about this law enforcement has
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something to their advantage you have two locations you need to put that individual roughly
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at that house on the fourth and then you have to put them in a whole separate location a hundred
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miles away so this guy does have a history but like he States in his interview with
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law enforcement that history is that criminal history is from long ago and when I was younger when I was
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Dumb and and my life is different now I'm a businessman I'm a family man I'm not the same person as I was I think his
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comments are out of line but we've all said stupid things when we get heated and when we're in an argument with
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somebody the other thing though Captain summer does not strike me as the person who would have taken a back seat to
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anybody so we also don't know what she may have said to this Michael McFadden character in fact it could be worse than
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what he said about her later but yes you're exactly right that's the situation that we have we have to be
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able to put our suspect or suspects remember we got four victims here and I I have a hard time in this case
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looking at it and going there's only one person that could pull this off but we have to be able to put our
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suspect or suspects at their home around the time that we believe that they were
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attacked or went missing and then put them 70 roughly 70 miles away where we know that the bodies were eventually
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recovered somebody moved them to that spot if in fact the authorities are correct in their statement that we
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believe that the mcstays were attacked and killed in their home so that brings us to number three and I'm gonna I'm
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gonna LeapFrog somebody on my list here no not going the exact same order and that'll be clear as to the reason why
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here in just a minute but my next suspect that would be on the list is the brother Mike mcstay and and I hate this
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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
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victim's family member he was very close with his brother or at least at one time
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I questioned how close he was at the time of the disappearance but he was close with them and then we
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have his father Patrick who does not seem to get along real well with Michael mcstay but is quick to defend his son
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and saying hey he would never hurt his brother he loved his brother always loved his brother
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but furthermore I don't think he could hurt anyone I don't think he could kill a potential enemy let alone somebody
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that he was once close with so Michael mcstay he's interesting for a couple of reasons and we've already
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pointed some of them out one The Taking of the computer two being able to access
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their locked home and then we had this weird situation of when he's interviewed he tells police when asked did you go
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over to their home on the fourth he gives a vague answer of yeah I was around their home I went by their home
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it was either February 4th or February 6th 2010. right so that by his own admission puts him in
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the area puts them in it puts them in the area of their home around the time of the attack
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well and we also have neighborhood surveillance that puts a white truck or utility type truck or a white SUV it's a
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it's look the the video footage is absolutely dog [ __ ] it's worse than the video of the four people seen walking
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across the port I mean we can find doorways on Mars but we can't get decent surveillance footage
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on here on Earth so well let's let's give a better description of that shall we no since
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we're in the moment this comes from surveillance footage from a neighbor's home security camera and the neighbor
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provides this to police this is after police go around and canvas the area asking has anybody seen anything do you
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have any home security cameras could we take a take a look at it so on and so forth this will later be called the
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mitchley video or referred to as the mitchley video and this on this surveillance footage
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the footage comes from February 4th 2010 again this is the day that it's believed
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that they were attacked and killed at 7 47 p.m just like the captain said this video shows what others knocked the
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kernel here not old eagle eyes here what others say is a white truck or SUV driving past this neighbor's home
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exiting from the mcstay family home now there's been plenty of people to say we cannot confirm that it was exiting the
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mcstay family home at one point when they were still simply missing it was thought that this could be Joseph
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mcstay's Isuzu Trooper it could have been his vehicle and they say that you see a white truck or a white SUV I'll
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tell you what I watched that damn clip it's it's a real quick clip it's in the dark I can't see anything it's it's all
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black and white from what I can tell and all I see are headlights and reflectors I don't see anything other
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than headlights and reflectors I couldn't make out a color of a vehicle a shape of a vehicle anything
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I actually think it's very possible that it's the mcstays family vehicle I agree with you
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because somebody has to transport that vehicle they yes at some point they have to take that vehicle but meaning that at
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some point they have to drive a vehicle and then they have to get back somehow so a tandem driver either they had some
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help as I pointed out earlier I have a hard time believing that only one person carried out this these horrific crimes
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and all the methods and and ways to try to cover it up or got an Uber driver had him drop you
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off a block or two from the mcstay home if it were me and I had to do this thing
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solo not that I ever would but if I did do something like this I probably would put my vehicle in their garage to
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conceal it and I'm with you I would use their own vehicle knowing that I'm going to ditch
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it someplace later elsewhere that I would use their vehicle to transport them out to that spot in the
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desert so it's really hard to say what it is that we are seeing there I don't know what I'm seeing I don't see
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anything of evidentiary value other than it looks like some type of vehicle is leaving from the mcstays at 7 47 p.m on
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the day that it's believed that they were attacked that leaves us with two more suspects here captain that we
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didn't get to and I leapfrogged one of them simply because these other two fall into a similar basket to me and that's
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because they're both involved and they both work with Joseph mcstay and so that is his business associate Charles Chase
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Merritt who is the Builder and manufacturer of these water features as well as Dan Kavanaugh who is his
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one-time business partner who's being in the process of being bought out from the company
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[Music] on November 11 2013 skeletal remains were recovered in the County area of Victorville
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and we're confirmed to be that of the mcstay family our homicide investigation began
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immediately and the identity to find the identity of the suspect of this horrible crime and
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bring that responsible person to Justice the San Diego County Sheriff's Department turned over nearly 4 500
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pages of investigative material that was reviewed by our Detectives 60 search warrants were served and over
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200 interviews were conducted investigators received about 250 tips and anonymous calls and followed up on
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every one of them as the investigation progressed the District Attorney's office was involved
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and consulted investigators from our department would like to make a special thank you to
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special agent Kevin Bowles of the FBI for his assistance in this investigation Charles Chase Merritt was identified as
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the suspect responsible for the death of Joseph summer Gianni and Joseph mcstay there's no information to suggest there
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were any other suspects involved in this crime Chase Merritt was a business associate
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of Joseph mcstay the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma and based on the
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entire investigation and the evidence obtained investigators believe these murders occurred at their residence in
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Fallbrook investigators are not disclosing the motive for the murder at this point
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Merritt was arrested on Wednesday November 5th without incident transported and booked at our West
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Valley Detention Center where he is currently being held I want to thank all the investigators
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who spent countless hours in this case less than a year ago I made a promise to the family that our department would do
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everything in our power to solve this case and although we can never bring them back I hope that this provides some
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level of closure it's now my honor to introduce the district attorney of San Bernardino County Mike Ramos
00:28:57
[Music] all right we are back cheers mate cheers to you Colonel cheers to you captain and just a quick reminder to
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everyone out there that's listening to this on Wednesday May 25th today is National missing Children's Day
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President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25th 1983 the first national missing Children's Day in memory of Eaton Pats
00:29:28
and very fitting that this case is being reviewed by us this week here Captain as
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we heard in part one the national Center for missing and exploited children were
00:29:39
involved in this investigation because we did have two missing children and they helped with viewing the Border
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camera footage so in honor of their good work half of this week's beer fund will
00:29:53
be donated to the National Center for missing and exploited children that clip right there Captain very clear very
00:30:01
concise well delivered by the sheriff by Sheriff McMahon there to tell us about the very general stages of the
00:30:10
investigation leading up to the point of the discovery of the bodies San Bernardino County taking over the
00:30:17
investigation which then led to the arrest of Charles Chase Merritt and the bodies were found in November of 2013
00:30:28
mean and the press conference where they tell us that we have identified the two
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adult bodies as that of Joseph and summer mcstay took place on November 15th the press conference clip that you
00:30:43
just heard was almost exactly one year later November 7th 2014 is when they announced to the public hey two days ago
00:30:52
we just arrested business associate Chase Merritt for the murders of the entire mcstay family in a lot of these
00:31:00
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
00:31:09
separates Chase from the rest of these other suspects I think it's the specific information that they have on Chase
00:31:17
where the others look like potentially good suspects however we can't place them with one or any of the victims
00:31:25
around the time that they are attacked and killed with the the exception of Michael mcstay stating that he drove by
00:31:32
the family's home either on the 4th or the 6th of February what we do know is that chase Merritt is saying I had a
00:31:40
meeting with my boss Joseph that day we met at a Chick-fil-A and we had a several hours
00:31:48
long meeting that was all about business we exchanged some checks and it was a very casual meeting however when police
00:31:58
do their due diligence and they start looking into that meeting that took place on the same day that they believed
00:32:05
that the family was attacked and killed they can't find any evidence that such a
00:32:10
meeting took place let alone several hours long meeting at a Chick-fil-A there's no Financial evidence that backs
00:32:19
up that the two had lunch together and had this casual long meeting at Chick-fil-A nothing in Chase's records
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nothing in Joseph's records from their credit cards we also don't find any receipts that somebody paid cash for
00:32:35
that day we can't find anybody at Chick-fil-A that says we saw the two guys having a meeting here there's no
00:32:41
proof of them being at the Chick-fil-A on surveillance footage so right away what we have here just
00:32:49
from that one particular spot in our timeline is we have one guy telling us a story
00:32:58
that we cannot verify with anyone else and we can't use any of Joseph's information to verify that that that
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actually took place and went down the way that he says it went down what we do know that took place is that we have
00:33:11
several Communications between Chase and Joseph on February 4th we do know that that took place
00:33:20
but we can't say that this long meeting took place and in fact once you start to
00:33:25
hear the prosecution and law enforcement's Narrative of how they believe that all of this went down
00:33:33
uh you can figure out very quickly that they think that a whole lot of different
00:33:37
stuff was happening rather than what Chase Merritt was telling them took place and to reiterate
00:33:44
it was a huge mistake in my mind to not take their disappearance more seriously from the get-go and because we have this
00:33:53
time gap of about four years this really ties law enforcement's hands but I also think that it ties the hands
00:34:03
of suspects as well because if you start asking me questions about something that
00:34:08
happened a year ago I'm going to have a difficulty remembering certain details or remembering certain things that maybe
00:34:16
could corroborate my story big problem for Chase is there will be evidence against him that cannot be changed that
00:34:24
cannot be just one person's opinion or one person telling you this is what happened
00:34:29
now because they know that based off of computer evidence and off of financial records and cell phone activity that
00:34:37
some of what Chase is telling them is not truthful and not factual and those things are taking place on or near
00:34:45
February 4th and then again on February 6th and so his story gets very weird and
00:34:54
very wonky and looks very bad for him right away once they start digging into this information so what do they find
00:35:02
here they find that Charles Chase Merritt is an ex-felon and he was actually on probation at the time and
00:35:10
there was a warrant out for his violation of that probation now what was his charges against him his previous
00:35:18
charges none of them were violent Acts or for a violent act but these included but were not limited to stolen property
00:35:28
I'm sorry receiving stolen property burglary petty theft Grand Theft and then other crimes
00:35:36
and then when they're interviewing him he's talking about Joseph in the past tense saying Joseph was a great guy
00:35:43
Joseph was one of my best friends Joseph was the kind of guy that would give you
00:35:48
the shirt off of his back now that looks pretty incriminating because when he's making these statements to law
00:35:56
enforcement the family's still missing nobody's been found nobody's been recovered
00:36:01
none of that has happened yet and so this all looks very bad for merit yeah just to play Devil's Advocate because
00:36:10
they were missing for a time period I think a lot of people that were close to him kind of started to expect the worst
00:36:18
the other thing that is going to look real bad for him is the QuickBooks activity
00:36:25
the phone calls and cell phone activity now Captain pointed out something very interesting and something that is
00:36:32
exactly spot on not only do we need to put our suspect near or in the mcstay family home on the day that they were
00:36:39
attacked and killed but we also need to put our suspect at the location where their bodies are later recovered
00:36:46
and we have a situation here that chase Merritt's cell phone on February 6 2010 which is believed to be two days
00:36:57
after the mcstay family was killed his cell phone pings off of a tower that you can actually see with the naked
00:37:06
eye from the gravesite in the desert near Victorville California and let's remember the sight of the
00:37:19
grave site is roughly a hundred miles from the mcstay family house and thank you for reminding us and thank you
00:37:27
Captain for reminding us of that because I believe earlier I said 70 miles away when in fact it is nearly 100 miles away
00:37:35
70 miles was the distance between where they found the mcstay family vehicle from their
00:37:42
home near the border and look by Chase Merritt's own admission here's something that he says that is
00:37:50
very insightful but this is a man that he's going to say that he is not guilty he's not going to plead guilty to this
00:37:58
he's going to have to go to trial he says I didn't kill the mcstay family he says Joseph was one of my best friends
00:38:04
if not my best friend at the time I would never do that I'm not a violent man I'm not a killer but he also says
00:38:12
that cell phone tower information is not 100 accurate we know that from several other cases that we've reviewed here in
00:38:20
the garage but by his own admission he says Tower info isn't so inaccurate that it's going to put you in the wrong City
00:38:29
this puts him 100 miles away from their home and it puts him many many miles away from his own home he has an excuse
00:38:38
he says that he has family that lives in the general area and that he may be visiting family however when we hear
00:38:45
from his sister we get two completely different stories one I never see my brother I think the last time I've seen
00:38:53
him was about five years ago she lives in this Victorville area and then later when he has to go to
00:39:00
trial several years later says well no I would see my brother all of the time all the time I saw my brother
00:39:09
well Chase mayor they have a unique family history when it comes to Crime because his brother was actually
00:39:17
arrested and they were going to charge him with being the Hillside Strangler so his argument is well we had a family
00:39:29
member that once was accused of a horrible crime and so when they were asking my sister about if I ever visited
00:39:37
or when's the last time she saw me she just kind of made up nonsense because she wasn't going to give answers to
00:39:45
police she didn't want to put her brother in the area when she's originally asked but it
00:39:52
doesn't matter because his cell phone puts him in the area well she didn't know that it it benefits him to be put
00:40:00
in the area you see what I'm saying when they go well have you seen your brother lately
00:40:04
uh no but really the correct answer to protect your brother is yeah I see him all the time no that's what I'm saying
00:40:12
it's it's however she wants it to be when she needs it to be that way right when she is unaware that it benefits him
00:40:21
to have been in the area frequently she says no he's never in the area and when she does find out for certain
00:40:30
and is told by his defense team it benefits your brother if you say that he was in the area all the time that's when
00:40:37
her story changes and like the San Bernardino sheriff's office detective says this is one of the most powerful
00:40:46
statements that I have seen in any of this case and in this case it took several years one to find the victims
00:40:54
and then several more years to bring this thing to trial and to see it through this is one of the most powerful
00:41:03
statements where the detective says quote there is no other business to be done out here he's talking about that
00:41:09
stretch of desert where there is nothing out there there's no reason to be out there there's no business that can be
00:41:16
done can be conducted out there he's basically saying the only reason why somebody would come out here might be to
00:41:24
bury some bodies well prosecution's case makes a lot more sense in law enforcement's case makes a lot more
00:41:30
sense against Chase Merit when you do watch the documentary because you get to see the visuals and to see when they're
00:41:38
filming the detective at the gravesite there's nothing around right it's just miles and miles of desert and that's not
00:41:48
all that's going to tie Chase to this case um a large part of it will be these quick book
00:41:55
Quick Books activity that took place before Joseph mcstay disappeared there was fraudulent QuickBooks activity
00:42:07
in the company somebody was going into their QuickBooks and issuing checks to you guessed it
00:42:17
Chase Merritt and then deleting those checks from the QuickBooks records and we find out that
00:42:25
not only is he an ex-felon but he's also an individual with a gambling problem and that he was struggling financially
00:42:34
for months leading up to Joseph's murder yeah it makes a family's murder to the point where he's having so much
00:42:41
difficulty financially that they would close his account out correct he had lost thousands of dollars
00:42:48
at the casinos they were already having what would appear to me based off of the
00:42:54
QuickBooks information that I reviewed that they were already having some discussions probably arguments and
00:43:00
disagreements about money leading up to this money and these fake checks fraudulent checks being issued for Chase
00:43:08
Merit and when I say they I mean between Joseph and Chase now what's even more difficult is after
00:43:18
it's believed that the mcstay family was killed this fraudulent activity continues on QuickBooks
00:43:26
where checks are being issued to chase Merit backdated to the fourth of February
00:43:34
cashed and then the information deleted from QuickBooks then what we have is on at least two
00:43:42
occasions somebody calls QuickBooks demanding that all of the information for Earth inspired products for the
00:43:55
company all of the QuickBooks information be deleted scrubbed from their servers
00:44:03
the person on the phone says that he is Joseph mcstay the owner and operator of the company the person that has the
00:44:12
administrator rights to QuickBooks for the company however all of this stuff is recorded
00:44:20
all of this information is recorded for customer service quality purposes right and so when they record this information
00:44:29
what they figure out is the person calling claiming to be Joseph mcstay is calling from Chase Merritt's cell
00:44:37
phone well that don't look so good that looks awful that's something that you need to
00:44:43
put a pin in because to be impersonating somebody that's missing so someone's hacking into
00:44:51
QuickBooks writing themselves checks Chase Merit is issuing checks to chase Merit Chase Merit is cashing those
00:44:59
checks before Joseph mcstay is killed and after Joseph mcstay is killed and then trying to delete all of the
00:45:08
activity on QuickBooks which ultimately will be his undoing when it comes to the
00:45:15
trial and comes to court the person calling in is calling from Chase Merritt's cell phone claiming to be the
00:45:21
now vanished the now dead and murdered Joseph mcstay I mean this stuff is this guy claims to be innocent I don't
00:45:31
think that you can have this activity happening at the same time and him be innocent if you do watch this
00:45:37
documentary I think the people that are going to frustrate you the most is the way the prosecutors act during the trial
00:45:45
it's very childish it's almost like they forgot that there was four people murdered and that this case is very
00:45:52
serious I mean they giggle like little schoolgirls but it's like watching people like
00:45:58
freshmen in high school chuckling in study hall but I can state that I think their opening statements made the most
00:46:05
sense this case is all based off of circumstantial evidence there is no smoking gun in this case
00:46:13
so they have to build a mountain of evidence and I think they they do that pretty
00:46:19
well against Chase Merritt the other thing that's going to frustrate you if you watch the documentary is Dan
00:46:27
Kavanaugh because there's plenty of reasons to go this guy's a creep he's a weirdo he's a strange bird and oh it
00:46:33
looks like he was trying to cash in on Joseph mcstay being missing as well so he's somebody that will frustrate you
00:46:40
but I think that once you look at everything the totality of the evidence and information against Chase Merit
00:46:48
personally and I know that a lot of people may disagree with me I think they got the right guy we did not go through
00:46:55
some of his cell phone information right we we mentioned that his cell phone pinged at that Tower near the gravesite
00:47:01
out in the middle of the desert right but his other cell phone information is he's off the grid for several hours on
00:47:08
February 4th I actually think what happened is we have Joseph mcstay who is calling his bank repeatedly and he's
00:47:17
checking in and out of QuickBooks repeatedly on February 4th who else is he calling on February 4th Chase Merit I
00:47:26
think that Joseph mcstay discovered what Chase was up to the missing money the checks that were being issued and then
00:47:34
deleted from QuickBooks I think he discovered this and figured out this guy is ripping
00:47:41
me off and I think he confronted him about that I'm not going to take it any steps
00:47:47
further to say that oh he fired him or he put him on notice or they had a physical altercation I don't know
00:47:54
because just like the prosecution pointed out in their opening statement they don't have all the answers
00:48:00
they're not going to be able to answer every single thing for you other than we believe and have evidence to prove it
00:48:07
that chase Merrick killed this family of four and we believe that the motive was
00:48:12
simple it was greed and it was fraud and that he was trying to cover those up and
00:48:17
that for whatever reason maybe he was confronted by summer at the home we talked about her being aggressive and
00:48:23
standing up for her family and not holding back when it comes to talking with people and confronting people right
00:48:29
maybe she said something to him and he flipped out and smacked her in the head with the sledgehammer and then he had to
00:48:34
kill the rest of the family maybe he went after Joseph mcstay because he was fired and figured out summer she's a
00:48:42
pretty smart woman she knows that I was supposed to be meeting with her husband today she knows that I'm at the home
00:48:48
meeting with her husband this evening and for me I kind of throw the the video the security video out the window
00:48:55
anytime we have a situation a scenario where at trial we have One X expert for the prosecution telling us this is what
00:49:03
I see this is what my experience tells me and then we have a witness for the defense saying well this is what I see
00:49:10
and this is what my experience tells me and one is for the prosecution one is for the defense I look at that I toss
00:49:17
them both out the window because if they both were 100 experts they should have the same opinion at the
00:49:24
end of the day I'm not saying that one is better than the other maybe one is right and the other is wrong I don't
00:49:30
know I couldn't see anything in that damn video to tell me anything different so I think you can throw that out it's
00:49:37
interesting too that there are more than there are plenty of people that have a white SUV or a white truck yeah well and
00:49:43
we both think that it's more likely that it was the mcstay family vehicle yes but
00:49:50
here's a couple things to to to argue that chase is innocent you could look at his history he's not a violent person
00:49:59
not known to be violent he might have had some issues financially but that doesn't make you a murderer like oh I'm
00:50:07
gonna have a gambling problem also now he's a murderer of four individuals I also think that this cell phone records
00:50:15
and this cell phone ping technology I actually think it's a load of malarkey and here's why
00:50:22
is because on Joseph's phone they have a call that Joseph made to chase on the fourth
00:50:33
it's in Joseph's call log it never shows up on Chase's call log so therefore we have we have evidence
00:50:43
that this log doesn't match this log so how much information is each cell phone log
00:50:50
missing because we have proof that there are missing items from cell phone logs but only on Chase merit's end so here's
00:51:00
the problem the reason for the explanation for why you would have a call that is logged on Joseph's but not
00:51:08
merits call logs is that chase Merit was off the grid that either his phone was turned off it was in airplane mode or it
00:51:17
was in a location where he could not receive phone calls and so the call never registered on his end because his
00:51:25
phone never received the call the call registered on Joseph mcstazen because his phone made that call and so the
00:51:34
disconnect is the call not actually going through and it's the belief of the prosecution that by this point the
00:51:41
attack had already occurred and Chase Merit his phone is off and knowing that his phone is off attempted
00:51:48
to cover his tracks by using Joseph mcstay's phone to call his phone to make it look like Joseph was still alive
00:51:56
right at that time now again his phone is off or unavailable airplane mode or not able to be reached
00:52:05
by any cell phone towers for several hours that day the other thing that's happening in this scenario is the fact
00:52:14
that his wife or common law wife at the time is calling him repeatedly looking for him or trying to get in contact with
00:52:23
him and again her call log shows that those calls were made from her phone his call
00:52:30
log does not register any of those calls because his phone never received the calls come on she also later it tries to
00:52:37
become his Alibi and I don't think she's a bad person by any means I think she's
00:52:43
just misremembering again the the time difference really kind of handcuffs law enforcement but it also
00:52:51
handcuffs the suspect and any of their eyewitnesses because for her to remember that one day
00:52:59
so vividly with so many details um I don't think she's lying necessarily I think that she is misremembering and I
00:53:10
think she wants to believe what she's telling law enforcement because it makes her it makes the father of her children
00:53:17
not this horrible monster well in in her defense too if look we all want to do the right thing or at least most of us
00:53:27
do clearly somebody or someone's in this situation didn't want to do the right thing but you know in a world where
00:53:33
you're going I don't know if I remember this correctly or not most of us most of
00:53:39
us I think would err on the side of caution of okay yeah I if I can't remember it 100 I'm going to
00:53:46
err on the side of caution that benefits my loved one right the person that I have believed and I am telling you could
00:53:55
not be responsible for this and it's unclear when she's being asked to deliver this information to the
00:54:03
authorities we don't know if it's days after they went missing years after they went missing or years after they you
00:54:10
know or even after they had arrested Chase Merit yeah which would be roughly what five-year difference four and a
00:54:18
half five year difference uh yes it would be over four years after they disappeared that chase Merit is arrested
00:54:24
and then it takes longer for it to go to trial now one thing here Captain is he is convicted
00:54:32
he is convicted of this and the documentary that we've recommended is out now and from my understanding it was
00:54:42
originally recorded on the request of his defense team and I think this is really interesting
00:54:49
to me because I understand that the prosecution thought that they were at some kind of
00:54:54
disadvantage which I don't get I think that this prosecution crew seems a little like you said a bit childish at
00:55:02
times probably a little more whiny than they need to be if I was part of this prosecution team and I saw this
00:55:08
documentary I'd be embarrassed enough as their family members I'd be embarrassed
00:55:12
the the head prosecutor if I was his wife I would divorce him on how embarrassing he is well that's that's
00:55:19
the thing and maybe that's why they felt like they were at a disadvantage with cameras rolling because maybe this is
00:55:25
their typical Behavior well you have to remember this I'm telling you this is embarrassing and I and I go by a fake
00:55:32
name I don't even own a boat well the thing is here with this documentary I like this idea
00:55:42
you know it turned out to be a really good idea in the west Memphis 3 case the in some other cases they've done this
00:55:49
where rather than going back retroactively and telling you about a True Crime Story and how it played out
00:55:55
in court where they're actually filming it for the purposes of possibly making a
00:56:01
documentary later that will include the True Crime Story plus the trial I think that transparency is key
00:56:09
we know that our system is not perfect I happen to believe that it is it is one of the best in the world and then it
00:56:18
would be impossible to have a perfect system so I think that knowing that I love
00:56:24
having some transparency and let's open up our doors let's open up the communication and let's show the public
00:56:31
what's going on and how it's going down it could only benefit and better us all in the end if you find this case
00:56:40
interesting then I would take the time to watch two shallow Graves which is on Discovery ID
00:56:47
it's pretty quick to get through even though it's seven parts you can fast forward through the
00:56:54
commercials it seems like some of the episodes only feel like they're about 30 minutes long
00:56:59
after you get rid of the commercials you also get to see these individuals on camera how they interact with people
00:57:09
they do a really good job of diving a little bit deeper than we did into the suspects because because the defense
00:57:17
team did we kind of Dove as deep as law enforcement did and law enforcement as they were digging into these individuals
00:57:25
found things that pointed towards their innocent or pointed towards a solid Alibi but I would recommend it I
00:57:33
wouldn't say it's the best documentary I've watched but it's definitely entertaining informative
00:57:39
and I'd give it two thumbs up three and a half bottle caps out of five what would you rate it I don't want to
00:57:46
comment I mean we've already recommended it um in today's recommended reading um but in in the end what we have here
00:57:54
Captain is on in June of 2019 the San Bernardino County jury found Chase Merritt guilty of murdering the mcstay
00:58:03
family as we said earlier in this case we had jury recommendations for punishment for Chase Merit and the
00:58:12
jury recommended life imprisonment for the murder of Joseph mcstay death penalty for the murder of Susan
00:58:20
mcstay death penalty for the murder of Gianni mcstay death penalty for the murder of Joseph Jr mcstay in the end
00:58:30
Merit was in fact sentenced to death [Music] a tricky case here we want to hear from
00:58:51
you make sure you go to True Crime garage.com go to our Blog Page and let us know what you think about this case
00:58:58
Colonel do we have any recommended reading this week let's go with some recommended viewing we would be remiss
00:59:04
if we did not recommend two shallow Graves which was featured on the ID channel also available on Discovery plus
00:59:11
it's seven episodes about this exact case the mcstay family murder case you'll want to check that out two
00:59:19
shallow Graves that's on our website on our recommended page along with other good books other good podcasts other TV
00:59:27
shows True Crime all around for you to watch listen and read check that out at truecrime garage.com and until next week
00:59:35
be good be kind and don't litter thank you [Music]