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[Music] [Music] % [Music] welcome to True crab garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for
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the answer is 544 here is the captain it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime
00:03:30
more place we can go get away we can take the long way home you want to no place we can
00:03:42
go get away we can take Fallbrook California February 2010 most of the following comes from an
00:03:59
article written written by Robert jablin for the Associated Press the article headline says what
00:04:06
everyone was thinking disappearance of family of four is all a mystery and that was the truth the
00:04:15
article was just days after a very normal and happy family of four disappeared by the looks of it they just
00:04:24
vanished in fact given the state of their home it would appear that the family was here one minute and then the
00:04:31
next poof they were gone the home was found empty of people but everything still very much in an
00:04:40
everyday living mode with rooms freshly painted blue painters tape still covering the ceiling
00:04:47
corners and woodwork eggs sitting out on the kitchen counter bowls of half eaten food and the
00:04:55
family's two dogs out in the backyard so so yeah by the looks of it they just vanished and now for the aformentioned
00:05:06
news article which states the details of The Disappearance clearly and concisely and reads the MC haven't been
00:05:16
seen since February 4th their car was found at a mall 70 mi from home a middle class family of four
00:05:25
vanishes leaving their dogs unattended and rotting food in their San Diego C home their abandoned car is later found
00:05:32
near the Mexico border it might sound like a TV mystery but the reality has relatives of the MC family pleading for
00:05:41
help and law enforcement searching both sides of the border for Clues Joseph m 40 his wife summer 43 and
00:05:51
their sons Giani 4 and Joseph Jr 3 are the missing the family has not been seen or heard from since February 4th their
00:06:01
white 1996 Isuzu Trooper was found 4 days later in a strip mall about 70 mi from their home San Diego County Sheriff
00:06:12
Lieutenant bgos says it's all a mystery is the vehicle down by the border a ploy
00:06:19
were they voluntarily missing were they taken against their will just for a family of four to disappear I've never
00:06:27
seen anything like it Joseph's brother Michael went to the home on February 14th to check on the family but only
00:06:36
found the dogs he called authorities the next day and investigators found no signs of a
00:06:42
struggle still Michael M said he fears for the lives of his family members and feels
00:06:49
helpless neighbors said they had been feeding the animals but had heard nothing from the family acquaintances
00:06:57
told investigators the mday never would have left on vacation for any other reason without telling someone relatives
00:07:05
have set up a website seeking information about the family's whereabouts at ww. mixay
00:07:14
family.com this week's True Crime Story is about the miay family's disappearance
00:07:20
and the investigation to locate them this is true crime garage more place we can
00:07:32
go get away we can take the long way you want to go no place we can go get away we
00:07:47
can as you heard it was February of 2010 when a family of four went missing this
00:07:53
is the mstay family from Fallbrook California now what I would like to do here Captain is start off by going
00:08:01
through a timeline this is a timeline of the general events that were taking place before and after their
00:08:08
disappearance and this is considered to be agreed upon as a factual timeline and
00:08:14
we will kind of read these as bullet points here captain and fill in the blanks as we go along but like the
00:08:20
sheriff's office said in that article it was all a mystery a family of four to go
00:08:27
missing all at once with no leads as to potentially where they could have gone or what could have happened to them was
00:08:33
all a mystery let's start off with late 2009 so this would be November before they went missing we have the whole
00:08:43
family the miay family of four they move from San Clemente to Fall Brook this is
00:08:50
around Thanksgiving weekend now keep in mind they will go missing in February the following year so the home home that
00:08:59
they were living in at the time of their disappearance they're relatively new to
00:09:04
this home and from my understanding this was a property or home that was once foreclosed on which makes sense when you
00:09:12
see the year 2009 remember we had the market crash the housing market crash around that same time this is a home
00:09:19
that had been foreclosed on that the mstay family moved into for their growing family into a nice area a very
00:09:28
quiet safe neighborhood but also they're going to be doing some Renovations and cleaning up the place and updating the
00:09:35
place probably in hopes to make a little bit of money right we have Joseph M who
00:09:41
is an entrepreneur at the time of his disappearance he is 40 years old he owns his own company and the company has had
00:09:48
some success so that takes us to February of 2010 on February 3rd we have a friend
00:09:56
that comes over to the m family home this friend comes by to help paint and help do some general remodeling inside
00:10:06
the home this is believed to be the last or one of the last known face-to-face interactions with Summer Mix day and the
00:10:17
two young boys the two young sons of the family so this is someone that they knew
00:10:23
a personal friend that comes over and is physically there at the mix Day family home and like you said this house is
00:10:31
under construction they're doing painting they're going to be replacing the flooring they don't have a lot of
00:10:37
furniture in the house and they don't have it decorated that's correct now that takes us to the next day which is
00:10:45
Thursday February 4th 2010 on this morning we have summer who speaks with her sister and they are
00:10:54
making plans for a future visit and I underline that part in our timeline because we know at some point based off
00:11:04
of our trailer that this whole family is going to go missing and when they go missing the Sheriff's
00:11:12
Office labels the case or the investigation as an voluntary missing investigation which I think is a mistake
00:11:22
it is a mistake but there's reasons why they would label it or categorize it as such now for this portion though it's
00:11:31
key to know that we do have a situation that's leading up to their disappearance where we have someone
00:11:40
saying I'm making future plans with one of the members of the family her sister is saying hey I have a newborn Summer's
00:11:50
got two young Sons we were planning a visit to so that so that my newborn child could meet their aunt so that
00:11:58
summer can meet my newborn child so they're making plans for a future visit together now around noon on that same
00:12:07
day on the 4th Joseph the Father Joseph M he leaves the family home in his Isuzu
00:12:15
Trooper this is for a meeting with his business associate Charles Chase Merritt so we need to kind of fill in everybody
00:12:23
on what it is that Joseph M does for a living and his company so he owns he's the owner operator of a company that is
00:12:33
called Earth inspired products and they make these custom waterfalls and if you were to go into a law office or a fancy
00:12:45
business or a business building that houses multiple businesses yeah fancy hotel fancy hotel you may have seen one
00:12:55
of their products and this is the the products that I've seen and I'm sure that they make all kinds of different
00:13:02
products being that they are in the custom water feature custom waterfall business but the ones that I have seen
00:13:10
are these fancy glass kind of sealing to floor straight down waterfalls where the
00:13:18
water falls and Cascades down the glass and on the glass you may have your company logo right looks very impressive
00:13:25
when you walk into the lobby of a building we have one in the lobby of the garage of the garage that's right and
00:13:31
the the lobby which leads to the West and East wing of the garage Studio here we'd be lucky if we could afford a
00:13:40
chicken wing so around noon Joseph leaves his home in his vehicle which is an Isuzu Trooper to meet his business
00:13:48
associate Charles Chase Merritt now for simplification purposes as we continue along we will just refer to him as Chase
00:13:56
Meritt or chase now Chase works for Joseph M right Joseph he's the owner and operator of this business he's the sales
00:14:08
guy he's also in the designing portion of what the business does but we also have Chase who is the Builder the
00:14:17
manufacturer of these custommade waterfalls so he works with Joseph in the designing stages but he's the one
00:14:26
that's in charge of actually constructing these custommade water features everybody would say that chase is
00:14:34
Joseph's right-hand man they become friends some would say best friends through the process of working together
00:14:41
and growing this business and again the business has had some success it doesn't
00:14:46
sound to me like they were just a complete success you know falling over each other successful with just success
00:14:53
month after month after month but we also have a third assoc it and I'm not going to sit here captain and pretend to
00:15:02
know all of the ins and outs and everything about Joseph M's business there could have been other individuals
00:15:10
that worked with them maybe as a contractor or maybe even part-time or full-time seasonal employee that I don't
00:15:17
know but there's going to be three major figures in this earth inspired Products
00:15:23
company and again it's Joseph M owner operator Chase Merritt who is the Builder SL manufacturer but then we also
00:15:32
have a third individual and his name is Dan Kavanaugh and he is involved more behind the scenes and we'll get into Dan
00:15:40
Kavanaugh as we go a little bit further down the road here this meeting with Joseph mstay and his business associate
00:15:48
Charles Chase Merritt is in Rancho Cucamonga now later what we are told is this meeting is going to take place at a
00:15:57
Chick-fil-A and it's going to be an hours long meeting several hours long a casual meeting checks are going to be
00:16:06
exchanged plans are going to be made they're going to be working and discussing business related items at
00:16:12
this Chick-fil-A at this Rancho Cucamonga location this brings us to about 4:25 p.m. when we have an outgoing
00:16:21
call from the home phone to Joseph's cell phone which pings from a Fall Brook cell tower this is reported as the last
00:16:30
outgoing call from the home phone around 5 and up to about 6:00 p.m. there are several text messages that take place
00:16:43
between Joseph and his wife summers cell phones and just so we can get a better picture of what's going on Joseph is the
00:16:51
bread winner at this moment in their lives they have a young family a three and a four-year-old and summer is
00:17:00
Raising her kids yeah she's a stay-at-home mother at this time while Joseph is running his company now we
00:17:08
have 8:28 p.m. that evening Joseph calls or his cell phone calls Chase's cell phone and Joseph's cell phone pings off
00:17:19
of a Fallbrook Tower cell phone tower that's important because remember their home is in Fallbrook and this to me
00:17:27
would indic that either a Joseph M's phone is at his home at this time or near his home at this time rather than
00:17:38
being in Rancho kukamonga at the Chick-fil-A right this activity and these phone calls will all be very
00:17:46
important because it's generally believed that February 4th may be the day when the mixe family vanished when
00:17:56
something happened to change the events of their life and their timeline and they essentially go missing there's
00:18:05
going to be a little confusion on exactly when this family went missing if we all knew exactly when they went
00:18:12
missing well this probably would not have been such a mystery and they probably would have
00:18:20
been a better investigation to take place what we have next on our timeline Captain is February 10th and this is the
00:18:28
San Diego County Sheriff's office that is doing a welfare check on the M family there's a little confusion as to
00:18:37
how the San Diego County Sheriff's Office was notified that there could be something wrong at the mstay family home
00:18:46
we would later hear from Joseph M's Father Patrick who would say that I received an email from business
00:18:59
partner Dan Kavanaugh who says hey I can't get a hold of Joseph I've been trying to reach him via phone via email
00:19:09
I can't get a hold of him and this Dan Kavanaugh tries to call Patrick Joseph's Father Patrick doesn't answer the phone
00:19:17
for whatever reason and then ultimately gets an email telling him hey I can't get a hold of your son so Patrick has a
00:19:25
son that lives in the area this is Mike M or Michael M who is Joseph's brother he asked his brother Mike would you go
00:19:35
by and check on your brother I can't get a hold of him myself his business partner says he can't get a hold of him
00:19:42
to which Mike gives a little push back he's too busy to go over there so what we have happened is actually a couple
00:19:49
days go by before Mike mstay is at the home checking in on his brother now he's also checking in on his brother at the
00:19:58
request of his other business associate Chase Merritt right and Chase Merritt is
00:20:04
actually there with him for one of these visits this takes place prior to anyone
00:20:11
calling and notifying San Diego County Sheriff's Office and Chase Merritt says that when me and Mike m were there Mike
00:20:19
climbed through a window this would be the office Joseph's office window in the home to enter the home enter the
00:20:27
premises and goes to the front door unlocks the front door allowing Chase to come in the two of them walk the home
00:20:35
together they don't see any obvious signs of a struggle or a Breakin but the other thing is they don't see any of the
00:20:41
miay either the family of four poof gone no blood no sign of a struggle there's some debate on this
00:20:49
conversation the way that it has been told and reported is that chase Merritt says to Michael M day we need to call
00:21:00
the police we need to call the authorities and report them missing this doesn't feel right something feels wrong
00:21:04
here right again we have Mike mstay who offers a little more push back and says no it looks like everything's fine they
00:21:11
probably just took off for a few days I'm sure they'll be back so we have some people that are on kind of high alert at
00:21:19
this point Dan Kavanagh Patrick Joseph's father and the other business associate Chase Merritt they seem to be
00:21:28
on high alert but Mike mstay he's pretty casual about this and we don't know I don't know personally a
00:21:37
lot of his personality Mike M's personality but his brother Joseph is described as super casual guy super nice
00:21:49
very laidback doesn't get stressed easily so maybe the maybe this is just how it is
00:21:56
in their family and they share a similar personality and Mike is going well maybe
00:22:00
they took off for a few days on an adventure to have some fun as a family I don't see a big deal here well I think
00:22:07
there's a couple issues when you're in the house you have food left out but one of the other issues is that the house
00:22:15
has never been put together they never made the house a home yet so everything looks a little out of place and
00:22:24
everything looks a little disorganized so one can make the argument of well doesn't seem like there
00:22:31
was a struggle here the other person could make an argument well this house was never really put together at this
00:22:39
time their dogs are outside when the brother is sitting there when Michael is saying well I'm hopeful that they just
00:22:46
went on vacation you just went on vacation for 7 to 10 days or or maybe even 2 weeks and you're going to leave
00:22:54
your dogs outside that doesn't make a lot of sense to me no and in fact being a dog guy I get furious at people that I
00:23:01
hear tell me oh you know they're out staying the night somewhere they go straight from work out with their
00:23:08
friends and then stay the night somewhere and never went home to let the dog out or never went home to feed the
00:23:13
dog I get furious when I hear that I would have been on high alert I'm with you the the the home to me I don't know
00:23:20
that any regular person or even somebody that knows them well could walk through
00:23:25
the home and decide if there's been a struggle or if things are out of place or disturbed or disrupted what have you
00:23:33
but the dog thing would really put me on high alert and the other thing too that
00:23:37
that rubbed me the wrong way about Michael M's thoughts and feelings was I get what you're saying maybe they took
00:23:44
off for a couple days okay maybe they're being negligent with their dogs for whatever reason or made arrangements
00:23:50
with neighbors to feed the dogs and we'll just leave them out back right not being able to get a hold of them not
00:23:57
being able to get touch with them is what would concern me Heck on the way here I text my brother-in-law said hey I
00:24:04
think I just saw you down the street wanted to say hello he goes nope that's not me I'm in Louisville so it's it I
00:24:12
think that it's odd that that someone's gone and you can't get in touch with them and that's what would put me on
00:24:17
high alert now these other individuals convinced Mike mstay to contact the Sheriff's Office and this will lead to a
00:24:24
visit on February 15th when we have Mike m there with deputies from the Sheriff's
00:24:30
Office to do a quick sweep inside the home now note here that Mike miay once again has to climb in the window and go
00:24:39
and unlock the front door of the home because technically the Sheriff's Office does not have a search warrant at this
00:24:47
time they're just going to Simply go in take a look around see if they see any obvious signs of a
00:24:54
crime and if they do not they're going to live leave but officially the mix family is reported missing by this time
00:25:04
note the date February 15th later we would be told that we believe that they went missing or something happened to
00:25:12
the mix family on the fourth I can't say with 100% certainty when Mike m was notified of this we do have several
00:25:22
family members who are aware that something is wrong we do have several business associates that are aware that
00:25:28
something is wrong but to me that seems like a lot of time that has passed from when authorities later believe something
00:25:37
happened to the mix Day family to When anybody is actually reporting this and people are on scene looking for the
00:25:46
family looking to see if there's any obvious signs of a crime place we can go get away can take way
00:26:04
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anywh you want to go and we are back to the windows to the walls cheers mimes cheers K like you were stating the
00:28:10
mcstay family they rule it involuntary disappearance I think this is a huge mistake you hear law enforcement state
00:28:20
that when we get to a scene of a crime if we have bodies and we don't know what happened we assume the worst why not in
00:28:29
this situation why wouldn't law enforcement assume the worst and then work backwards that's a good question
00:28:37
and I'm not going to go down the road of of what a job what kind of job that they
00:28:42
did on this case early on I don't really have a strong opinion either way I'm pretty down the- middle on on my
00:28:51
thoughts on that whether they did a good job or a bad job what I will say is this
00:28:54
though is a good detective should be working off of fact and factual information and unfortunately at this
00:29:04
time when deputies go to the home and detectives get involved what they have here is missing people that's the fact
00:29:12
they see nothing at their home that would indicate to them that there was Foul Play or an abduction or a Breakin
00:29:20
or anything of that going on and so they have to categorize it something so that
00:29:27
is the category that was given to it based off of the facts that were known to law enforcement at that time now we
00:29:36
do have the detective who is on record saying yes when I saw the home I only knew one thing that I had
00:29:46
four missing people now in my mind because of my job and because of my experience I am always concerned with a
00:29:55
potential homicide so while he he can categorize it as voluntary missing because there's no other indication that
00:30:05
it is anything other than that he also states that the thing he was majorly concerned with is not so much the
00:30:13
missing adults we have missing children here and they're young children with no explanation from anybody in the family
00:30:21
as to why they may be missing or even hints as to what was going on with the family as to why the kids would be
00:30:30
missing you know he says that often in his line of work what he sees when we have missing children is a parent may
00:30:39
take off that there's some kind of fight and one parent leaves and the other parent takes the children and goes
00:30:44
looking for them however in this situation they have everybody on summer side of the family and everybody on
00:30:52
Joseph's side of the family saying everything's great they loved each other the family was great business was
00:30:57
wonderful their home was great their lives were great you know everything's great so he has no explanation or even
00:31:04
no hint as to why the children would be missing now we talked a little bit about
00:31:09
the home and you gave a good description of that but I think that we should go a
00:31:13
little more in depth with that to take a look at what the police what the authorities were seeing when they walk
00:31:21
through the home for the first time and this is from a San Diego news out let this is NBC San
00:31:30
diego.com where in March okay so they're Officially Missing by February 15th according to the timeline that we just
00:31:39
went through but this is from an article from March of 2010 this is Mike m Joseph's brother who is going through
00:31:49
the events as well as what the home situation was like when they found it with reporters they lived in the 3 400
00:31:58
block of avocado Vista Lane the brother says that the home had been cleaned and vacuumed since the family had
00:32:05
disappeared cleaned by his mother Susan Susan Blake who is no longer with Patrick cleaned the home after the
00:32:15
family had disappeared and before this interview took place and I'll read directly from the interview it says
00:32:23
inside the house is a moderate level of disarray mostly because the home was in the process of being remodeled according
00:32:30
to Mike four upstairs bedrooms are for the most part empty several children's toys including a large Playhouse remain
00:32:38
in the home the master bedroom is empty Furniture had yet to be delivered said Mike mstay in a walk-in closet Mike m
00:32:46
said several purses were found but not but did not appear to be currently being used downstairs strips of masking tape
00:32:54
protect the edging of several walls the kitchen was being repainted two sets of sunglasses one of which has prescription
00:33:02
lenses were found on a counter in the garage a double stroller sits with several wet suits resting on top of it
00:33:10
Mike mstay said his brother would always take the stroller on planned trips I don't want to throw the mother under the
00:33:16
bus but this is another huge mistake and and probably what happened and what she
00:33:21
was thinking in her mind is they're gone they went on vacation I came over to their house
00:33:27
it's in a little bit of a disarray I'm worried about my son I'm worried about my daughter-in-law I'm worried about my
00:33:34
grandchilden so to keep myself occupied instead of worrying I'm going to go over
00:33:40
there and and she cleans and not only cleans but she deep cleans using bleach in the kitchen and using bleach in the
00:33:49
bathrooms whatever happened to this family whether it happened at the home or otherwise this house does not look
00:33:55
the same when police are able to get a search warrant to officially search the home and I'm with you Captain I get it
00:34:03
it's a very motherly thing to do she's probably just over there doing what she thinks she can do trying to stay busy in
00:34:10
the time of being nervous and worried about the family but this is yes this is a misstep by her mother or sorry this is
00:34:20
a misstep by the mother another thing that I found that was odd too was Mike mstay took Joseph's comp computer around
00:34:28
the same time that the house was being cleaned and the Sheriff's Office basically says that you know this family
00:34:35
yeah they're nervous they're concerned I'm not in a position where I'm going to tell you what you cannot do what you
00:34:41
should not do don't you dare do this I'm in the process of trying to get a search
00:34:45
warrant so I can look through the home as quickly as possible before they disrupt what could be a potential crime
00:34:52
scene but at this point in the investigation they didn't feel that they needed to instruct the family what to do
00:35:00
other than asking them for help help us to help you tell us everything about the
00:35:05
family about their home give us everything that you got so we can create some kind of investigation and try to
00:35:12
locate this family of four well in the process of that they learn something that is very interesting and is going to
00:35:20
be a kind of a strange part in this case they locate the USU Trooper so this is Joseph M's vehicle and we know that he
00:35:32
was driving that vehicle on the 4th but it's on February 8th this is before that
00:35:39
they are officially missing on February 8th around 11:00 p.m. the family's trooper that vehicle was towed from a
00:35:47
parking lot which was about two blocks away from the US Mexico border and no one by this point has reported the
00:35:55
family missing yet the detective then says that knowing this area and knowing that people often will park their
00:36:04
vehicles there illegally and then leave and go across the border that became their number one
00:36:11
concern we found their vehicle in an area where that's typical Behavior so we must investigate that Avenue and see if
00:36:19
there is any evidence to back that thought up again my eyebrows rais when you hear about the computer being
00:36:28
removed from the home but it could be a situation just like the mother cleaning the house that there's a easy
00:36:35
explanation for it I just don't know what that is other than there is a business that needs to be run and now at
00:36:44
this point Michael has said that he's worried that his brother and his family is not going to return so there is talk
00:36:52
within the family on how or if they're going to try to continue his business because he has contracts for 6 months to
00:37:01
a year out yes and I'm glad that you went back to that Captain because that is correct right and that is something
00:37:08
where I look at it and go wow I think it's a little fishy that one would take one's computer but what we do know by
00:37:14
this point in the investigation is Chase Merritt has access to Michael M we know
00:37:19
that because they are at the home together they go through the mix family home together at some point it's a
00:37:25
little blurry to me right if Mike m is involved Loosely or in some form or fashion with his brother's
00:37:33
company but you're exactly right we have a company that needs to be run and now we have Dan Kavanaugh who's saying hey
00:37:41
I'm trying to do my thing and Chase Merritt who is saying I'm trying to do my thing to keep this company going
00:37:48
while Joseph is gone and hopefully he returns soon and we'll be it'll be business as usual but
00:37:55
in the meantime somebody needs needs to access that computer and someone needs to be able to relay information or do
00:38:01
things for us we need someone that we can get it in touch with that can act as Joseph in the meantime so I guess when
00:38:10
you look at it that way you go okay Mike mstay has two options either he takes the computer and helps out Dan and helps
00:38:18
out Chase and return he's obviously helping his brother while his brother's gone run his business Earth inspired
00:38:26
products or he could give it to one of the business associates and be hands off and
00:38:31
let them take take the Reigns and so I guess given those two options if I'm Mike I'm taking the computer myself well
00:38:39
the other reason that he might have taken this computer Joseph which is missing has a very close relationship
00:38:46
with Patrick his father and so Patrick knows that Dan Kavanagh has made some threats before
00:38:57
they actually call him the hacker and so it is possible that they have some kind
00:39:04
of conversation about well we might need to take his computer because we don't want one of his business associates to
00:39:15
hack into the system yes and so a little clarification on Dan Kavanagh from my understanding he's a partner at one
00:39:23
point in this business now what his role was exactly is not clearly defined however what we do know is he did set up
00:39:31
the website for the company for their products and that is one method that they use to sell their products to gain
00:39:39
potential customers and he also figured out some kind of search engine algorithm
00:39:46
that he tapped into to make it so that when you search for custom water features or water features or water
00:39:53
fountains that Earth inspired products may be the first one or one of the first ones that come up in your search it's
00:40:01
the same as back when we were little kids and everybody relied on the Yellow Pages or the phone book for a lot of
00:40:09
business or to find vendors that could do work at their home or at their business and so a lot of businesses
00:40:16
would call themselves double a concrete or triaa woodworking or my favorite ABC Liquor it makes it puts at the top of
00:40:27
the list when people go looking for you and then likely would drum up more business like you said it's not very
00:40:33
clear what his role was defined as but from the information I gathered like you said he set up this website now business
00:40:40
websites can cost a lot of money and maybe the thought process is I'm not going to give you this money upfront but
00:40:47
based on sales I'll pay you and so maybe in the long run you would make more money but at some point this is not the
00:40:57
typical situation when you have a website built for a company they build the website they get paid for it bye-bye
00:41:05
you don't get a check every time an order comes in and it seems like for years that Dan Kavanagh was getting a
00:41:12
check when he possibly shouldn't have but a guy makes agreement with a business owner I put some of this onus
00:41:23
on the owner of the business because it's up to the he should have done his research to say well this is not how it
00:41:31
normally works and also when you buy a domain name you as the business owner should own that domain name so that
00:41:39
domain name in the website could have been completely owned by Kavanagh and that's what he would be holding hostage
00:41:47
over Joseph's head and you're exactly right it we should point out that these are all moves that Joseph mcstay either
00:41:57
made or created or was reacting to in reaction to what Dan Kavanagh is saying to him and their dealings together
00:42:06
because the way that it's been explained to me and the way I understand it is that at one point Dan Kavanaugh was an
00:42:13
actual partner again not clearly Define what his role was it could just be maintaining and running the website but
00:42:21
at some point the two start to part ways at the time of Joseph's disappearance they were ready to part
00:42:30
way so much so that Joseph was buying Dan Kavanagh out as a partner and he had already paid him thousands of dollars to
00:42:39
buy him out and they were taking on a new role and Dan kavanagh's future role will be to receive a monthly check for
00:42:48
simply running and maintaining the website going forward he will no longer be a partner he will now become
00:42:55
basically a vendor for Earth inspired products this discovery of the Isuzu Trooper being towed on February 8th this
00:43:06
is going to be a breadcrumb trail that is going to lead detectives right to the border of Mexico and they want to know
00:43:14
could we have a situation where one two or all four of the family members pared illegally and just walked off into the
00:43:22
sunset right into Mexico never to be seen again to live happily ever after they want to figure out is this a
00:43:30
possibility here in this case this will be at the Sedro Border Crossing into the
00:43:38
Tijana area on February 8th the same day that the vehicle was towed that's the day that they're going to start
00:43:46
reviewing surveillance footage at the border and they're going to look at that surveillance footage from that day
00:43:53
leading up to this point in their investigation when they know that the mix Day family is officially reported
00:43:58
missing this is quite the task because there's like thousands if not 100,000 people that cross to and from that
00:44:07
border at that point daily yeah so you're going to be reviewing this and let's talk about this for a second we've
00:44:14
already kind of pointed out that it's a bit of a needle and a hstack situation right you're looking for four people
00:44:20
crossing the border on that day or subsequent days afterwards however we need to point out something that makes
00:44:28
it even much more difficult you don't have to be looking for four people you could be looking for a situation where
00:44:37
it's Joseph and the two boys maybe he did something to Summer you could be looking for summer and the two boys
00:44:45
maybe she fled or maybe she did something to Joseph or maybe the parents did something to the children and
00:44:51
they're fleeing the area and now you're just looking for Joseph and summer right
00:44:55
so out of all these people we have a needle and a hay stack it's kind of a needle in a stack of needles at this
00:45:02
point in my opinion so the sheriff's office they get the national Center for missing and exploited children that come
00:45:10
to their aid and provide volunteers to help them watch and put Eagle Eye volunteers on this surveillance footage
00:45:19
looking for Joseph for summer for either of the boys or all four this is going to
00:45:26
take some time for them to sort through this but in fact what they end up saying
00:45:30
is hey on the same day that the vehicle was parked on February 8th on the same day that the ve vehicle was towed from
00:45:37
that parking lot two blocks away from the border we did spot something at a portion of the surveillance footage that
00:45:44
called into question if we were seeing the family crossing the border and the description is at the bottom left corner
00:45:51
of the video of their video screen they say that they can see a man walking hand
00:45:55
in hand with a child following him is a woman in a white jacket holding the hand
00:46:01
of another child and they wondered if this could possibly be Joseph Summer and the two boys have you seen this video
00:46:09
yourself I've seen stills of it 100% recently actually but when this case was fairly new in 2010 2011 and so on I had
00:46:20
seen quite a bit of news media that was on this case from Jump Street and I believe that I had seen an actual video
00:46:30
clip back then but leading up to our coverage of it Captain I've only seen stills of this picture I've seen the
00:46:36
Stills and I've seen the video itself if somebody said to me we believe that this
00:46:43
is the family I would say yeah makes sense I think you could make an argument it's not them because you can't see any
00:46:53
of their features in the video is kind of grainy when you put two and two together well you have this vehicle
00:46:59
that's close to the Border where people Park to then cross the border and then we have what we believe is a
00:47:06
representation of this family my little garage brain says it's very possible that's them going across the border I
00:47:16
agree with you 100% here captain now law enforcement was upfront about this stating that they thought the video was
00:47:23
terrible they thought that yes could potentially be them but the video itself the quality of the video they thought
00:47:30
was terrible so they would not say definitively that they thought they were seeing the mix Day family they just said
00:47:36
it was a possibility when they showed it to people that knew the mixs in fact we
00:47:42
have Michael M the brother who says that's not my brother uh on that video I know you can't see pH facial features
00:47:50
but Mike says that's not how Joseph carries himself that's not how he walks I don't believe that to be my brother
00:47:58
and his family and I just want to reiterate not to be Mr noall Mr Captain knows it pants how about Mr
00:48:09
knows it most or knows most of it but it was a mistake I think by law enforcement
00:48:15
to rule this voluntary disappearance it's a mistake to wait as long as they did to call law enforcement it's a
00:48:24
mistake to clean the house it's a mistake to disturb things in the house it's a mistake to take the computer
00:48:33
away there's just a lot of mistakes that happen and again I just don't understand
00:48:42
if somebody called me from one of my siblings work like work relations and said I can't get a hold of your brother
00:48:52
I can't get a hold of your sister whatever I'm I'm driving over there that day even if they live an hour away or
00:49:00
even if they live two hours away I'm texting them I'm calling them and by the time I get to their house and they're
00:49:06
not answering their door police are being called that's how I operate but I'm also a host of a true crime podcast
00:49:14
I agree with what you're saying there Captain I share a lot of those same feelings I do want to point out though
00:49:20
that to stay water that those are all mistakes in sight and if we're sitting in a situation where February 16th 2010
00:49:31
the mxe family shows up alive and well then none of these were mistakes but when we have a situation where months
00:49:38
and months and months go by and they don't come home and nobody can get in touch with them then yes these are all
00:49:44
obvious mistakes now as for the ruling or determination of what we're going to categorize a case all of those things
00:49:51
are are very fluid situations too it doesn't stay uh etched in stone that that's always going to be a
00:49:59
voluntary disappearance it it's only that until they have reason to suspect or evidence of a a different situation
00:50:09
now one thing here that I want to point out is as I said when this case was pretty new and fresh in 2010 and 2011 it
00:50:19
did get a lot of media attention even on a national level so this was a case that
00:50:24
I was aware of and I was following Loosely and when there was something to be watched on TV or something to read on
00:50:30
the internet about it I was tuning in I remember just thinking this would be late 2010 after they had been gone for
00:50:39
several months I I even after seeing the still or the video of what could potentially be the mstay at the border
00:50:49
and even with their vehicle being found near the border the way that their home was left
00:50:55
never once made me think that they just up and left in fact I couldn't find anything or was never presented with any
00:51:04
reason of why they would want to leave unless they just took a Fly by Night two-day vacation to Mexico decided not
00:51:14
to tell anybody and then something terrible happened to them there but the state of the home didn't make any sense
00:51:20
I you go back to the dogs being left outside un there's no preparations made for them to be taken care of and then
00:51:28
the state of the home like you said half eaten food is found laying out around the house there's there's like an apple
00:51:35
core there's uh half bowls of popcorn there's eggs that are sitting on the counter that doesn't look to me like
00:51:43
they up and went somewhere voluntarily so that's where we kind of circle back to the idea of well there must be
00:51:50
something else going on here and in 2010 man I was very concerned about the movements the statements and the lack of
00:52:00
the lack of effort on the behalf of Michael M of his brother he seemed kind of tuned out like I don't see any
00:52:10
problem here I don't want to raise any red flags don't want to make any waves don't want to report him missing don't
00:52:16
want to swing by the home to check on him oh I took the computer my mom cleaned the house and then let's factor
00:52:22
in something else if somebody wanted to to do something terrible to this family or to one member of the family what
00:52:30
happened on at least two occasions that we are aware of when Chase Merritt is with him at the home and then again when
00:52:38
deputies are with him at the mixay home he clearly shows that he has access to the locked and secured home by climbing
00:52:45
through that office window on two occasions that's almost like that to me is a bit of a red flag going this guy
00:52:53
knows how to access the home when other people clearly do not yeah or maybe he just used his brain when he got to the
00:53:01
house maybe that was not something that he was privy to before he got there agreed but as an outsider looking in
00:53:09
that is something that I'm going to call into question that's also something that's going to be put on my page and
00:53:15
it's not going to leave there until I'm given a reasonable explanation as to why
00:53:20
he knows how to do that or was able to do that unfortunately that is going to wrap up our timeline pretty much for
00:53:27
2010 there's a lot of things that happen but there's nothing really in the investigation itself that is known to
00:53:33
the public to carry us further down the road here or give us any kind of breadcrumb Trail as to where the family
00:53:41
may be or what may have happened to them in February of 2010 in 2011 what we end
00:53:47
up having here Captain is pretty much more deadend leads these continue when photos were sent to the San Diego County
00:53:57
Sheriff's department and to the m family extended family Michael M these photos were of what was thought
00:54:06
could possibly be Summer Mix day and a child that were sent to Michael mday and the San Diego County Sheriff's
00:54:14
Department of course rather quickly it's ruled or determined that that in fact is
00:54:20
not summer in the photo and again these are just more deadend leads in 2012 this is when we have all of the
00:54:30
rumors that are still going around that the mix family may be alive and well in Mexico there was even one point where we
00:54:39
almost had breaking news where it came out that the mix family was found but this time found in New Mexico in the
00:54:48
state of New Mexico and this obviously turns out not to be the mix Day family this is going to take take us to near
00:54:56
the end of 2013 on November 11th 2013 we have two off-road motorcyclists is what they're referred to in this
00:55:08
article that I'm referencing however I believe that they were on dirt bikes one of them discovers what he
00:55:16
believes to be a bone and in fact it turns out to be a skull he he notices this in a desert area of
00:55:26
Victorville California this would be about 70 mil from the mix home this will kick off a 30-hour excavation project at
00:55:40
this location at this site on November 13th we still have workers Excavating an area that is
00:55:48
approximately 10t by 10t they are sifting through dirt they are looking for bones they are finding bones and
00:55:58
they are also finding other evidence in this area now 2 days later on the 15th we have the San Bernardino County
00:56:06
Sheriff's Department which holds a news conference at which Sheriff John McMahon
00:56:12
confirms the identity of two of the bodies recovered from this site and those two bodies are confirmed by the
00:56:21
Sheriff's Office to be that of Joseph M day age 40 and his wife Summer Mix day age
00:56:51
43 thank you so much for joining us here in the GR gar it's official True Crime garage listeners are the smartest and
00:57:00
sexiest listeners in the history of podcasting if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our
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bonus show called off the record you can find a link on our website at True Crime
00:57:12
garage.com and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter [Music] [Applause]
00:57:40
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