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thank you [Music] [Music] thank you welcome to True crab garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who would like to point out that it's not impossible Dan
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the answer is 544. here is the captain it's gonna be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
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a friend [Music] this week we are featuring Lost Galaxy IPA by the good folks over at Lost
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Nation Brewing this is a wheat based Session IPA with a crisp body with malt plenty of hops and balanced out nicely
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with a fruit finish simply crushable garage grade 4 out of five bottle caps and here's some please and thank yous
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that are going to go out to our good friends that helped us out with this week's beer fun first up a big Ron
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Swanson please and thank you goes out to Melissa and Hooksett New Hampshire and a
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big we like YouTube to Jessica in Cincinnati next up here's a cheers to melody in Riverside California and a big
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hey hey hey to Heather in Seattle Washington here we have a cheers a long distance cheers to Shane and cork
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business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] Fallbrook California February 2010 most of the following comes from an article written by Robert jablin for the
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Associated Press the article headline says what everyone was thinking disappearance of family of four is all a
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mystery and that was the truth the article was just days after a very normal and happy family of four
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disappeared by the looks of it they just vanished in fact given the state of their home
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it would appear that the family was here one minute and then the next poof they were gone
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the home was found empty of people but everything still very much in an everyday living mode
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with rooms freshly painted blue painters tape still covering the ceiling corners
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and woodwork eggs sitting out on the kitchen counter bowls of half-eaten food and the family's two dogs out in the
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backyard so yeah by the looks of it they just vanished and now for the aforementioned news
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article which states the details of The Disappearance clearly and concisely and reads
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the mcstays haven't been seen since February 4th their car was found at a mall 70 miles
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from home a middle-class family of four vanishes leaving their dogs unattended and
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rotting food in their San Diego County home their abandoned car is later found near
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the Mexico border it might sound like a TV mystery but the reality as relatives of the
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mcstay family pleading for help and law enforcement searching both sides of the border for Clues
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Joseph mcstay 40 his wife summer 43 and their sons Gianni 4 and Joseph Jr 3 are the missing
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the family has not been seen or heard from since February 4th their white 1996 Isuzu Trooper was found
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four days later in a strip mall about 70 miles from their home San Diego County Sheriff Lieutenant
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borregos says it's all a mystery is the vehicle down by the border a ploy where they voluntarily missing
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were they taken against their will just for a family of four to disappear I've never seen anything like it
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Joseph's brother Michael went to the home on February 14th to check on the family but only found the
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dogs he called authorities the next day and investigators found no signs of a struggle
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still Michael mcstay said he fears for the lives of his family members and feels helpless
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neighbors said they had been feeding the animals but had heard nothing from the family
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acquaintances told investigators the mcstays never would have left on vacation for any other reason without
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telling someone relatives have set up a website seeking information about the family's
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whereabouts at www dot mcstafffamily.com this week's True Crime Story is about the mcstay family's
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disappearance and the investigation to locate them this is True Crime garage [Music]
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as you heard it was February of 2010 when a family of four went missing this is the mcstay family from Fallbrook
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California now what I would like to do here Captain is start off by going through a timeline this is a timeline of
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the general events that were taking place before and after their disappearance and this is considered to
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be agreed upon as a factual timeline and we will kind of read these as bullet points here captain and fill in the
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blanks as we go along but like the sheriff's office said in that article it was all a mystery a family of four to go
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missing all at once with no Lee needs as to potentially where they could have gone or what could have happened to them
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was all a mystery let's start off with late 2009 so this would be November before they went missing we have the
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whole family the mcstay family of four they move from San Clemente to Fallbrook this is around Thanksgiving weekend now
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keep in mind they will go missing in February the following year so the home that they are living in at the time of
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their disappearance they're relatively new to this home and from my understanding this was a property or a
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home that was once foreclosed on which makes sense when you see the year 2009 remember we had the market crash the
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housing market crash around that same time this is a home that had been foreclosed on that the mcstay family
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moved into for their growing family into a nice area a very quiet safe neighbor Hood but also they're going to be doing
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some Renovations and cleaning up the place and updating the place probably in hopes to make a little bit
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of money right we have Joseph mcstay who is an entrepreneur at the time of his disappearance he is 40 years old he owns
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his own company and the company has had some success so that takes us to February of 2010. on February 3rd we
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have a friend that comes over to the mcstay family home this friend comes by to help paint
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and help do some general remodeling inside the home this is believed to be the last or one of the last known
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face-to-face interactions with Summer mcstay and the two young boys the two young sons of the family
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so this is someone that they knew a personal friend that comes over and is physically there at the mixed Day family
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home and like you said this house is under construction they're doing painting they're going to be replacing
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the flooring they don't have a lot of furniture in the house and they don't have it decorated that's correct now
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that takes us to the next day which is Thursday February 4th 2010. on this morning we have summer who
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speaks with her sister and they are making plans for a future visit and I underline that part in our timeline
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because we know at some point based off of our trailer that this whole family is
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going to go missing and when they go missing the Sheriff's Office labels the case or the investigation as
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an voluntary missing investigation which I think is a mistake it is a mistake but there's reasons why they
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would label it or categorize it as such now for this portion though it's key to know that we do have a situation that's
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leading up to their disappearance where we have someone saying I'm making future plans with one of the members of
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the family her sister is saying hey I have a newborn Summer's got two young Sons we were planning a visit to so that
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so that my newborn child could meet their aunt so that summer can meet my newborn child so they're making plans
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for a future visit together now around noon on that same day on the fourth Joseph the Father Joseph mcstay he
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leaves the family home in his Isuzu Trooper this is for a meeting with his business associate Charles Chase Merritt
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so we need to kind of fill in everybody on what it is that Joseph mcstay does for a living and his company so he owns
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he's the owner operator of a company that is called Earth inspired products and they make these custom water Falls
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and if you were to go into a law office or a fancy business or a business building that houses multiple
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businesses in our fancy hotel fancy hotel you may have seen one of their products and this is the the products
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that I've seen and I'm sure that they make all kinds of different products being that they are in the custom water
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feature custom waterfall business but the ones that I have seen are these fancy glass kind of ceiling to floor
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straight down waterfalls where the water falls and Cascades down the glass and on
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the glass you may have your company logo right looks very impressive when you walk into the lobby of a building we
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have one in the lobby of the garage of the garage that's right in the the lobby which leads to the West and East wing of
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the garage Studio here would be lucky if we could afford a chicken wing so around noon Joseph
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leaves his home in his vehicle which is an Isuzu Trooper to meet his business associate Charles Chase Merritt now for
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simplification purposes as we continue along we will just refer to him as Chase Merritt or chase
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now Chase works for Joseph mcstay right Joseph he's the owner and operator of this business he's the sales guy he's
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also in the designing portion of what the business does but we also have Chase who is the Builder the manufacturer of
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these custom-made waterfalls so he works with Joseph in the designing stages but
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he's the one that's in charge of actually constructing these custom-made water features everybody would say that
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chase is Joseph's right-hand man they become friends some would say best friends through the process of working
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together and growing this business and again the business has had some success I doesn't sound to me like they were
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just a complete success you know falling over each other successful with just success month after month after month
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but we also have a third associate and I'm not going to sit here captain and pretend to know all of the ins and outs
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and everything about Joseph mcstay's business there could have been other individuals that worked with them maybe
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as a contractor or maybe even part-time or full-time seasonal employee that I don't know but there's going to be three
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major figures in this earth inspired Products company and again it's Joseph mcstay owner operator Chase Merritt who
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is the Builder slash manufacturer but then we also have a third individual and his name is Dan Kavanaugh and he is
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involved more behind the scenes and will get into Dan Kavanaugh as we go a little
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bit further down the road here this meeting with Joseph mcstay and his business associate Charles Chase Merritt
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is in Rancho Cucamonga now later what we are told is this meeting is going to take place at a Chick-fil-A and it's
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going to be an hours-long meeting several hours long a casual meeting it checks are going to be exchanged plans
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are going to be made they're going to be working and discussing business related
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items at this Chick-fil-A at this Rancho Cucamonga location this brings us to about 4 25 PM when we have an outgoing
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call from the home phone to Joseph's cell phone which pings from a Fallbrook cell tower this is reported as the last
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outgoing call from the home phone around five and up to about 6 PM there are several text messages that take
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place between Joseph and his wife Summer's cell phones and just so we can get a better picture of what's going on
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Joseph is the breadwinner at this moment in their lives they have a young family a three and a
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four-year-old and summer is Raising her kids yeah she's a stay-at-home mother at
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this time while Joseph is running his company now we have 8 28 p.m that evening Joseph calls or his cell phone
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calls Chase's cell phone and Joseph's cell phone pings off of a Fallbrook Tower cell phone tower that's important
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because remember their home is in Fallbrook and this to me would indicate that either a Joseph mcstay's phone is
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at his home at this time or near his home at this time rather than being in Rancho Cucamonga at the Chick-fil-A
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right this activity and these phone calls will all be very important because it's generally believed that February
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4th may be the day when the mcstay family vanished when something happened to change the events of their life and
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their timeline and they essentially go missing there's going to be a little confusion on exactly when this family
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went missing if we all knew exactly when they went missing well this probably would not have been such a mystery
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and they probably would have been a better investigation to take place what we have next on our timeline Captain is
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February 10th and this is the San Diego County Sheriff's office that is doing a welfare check on the mcstay Family
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there's a little confusion as to how the San Diego County Sheriff's Office was notified that there could be something
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wrong at the mcstay family home we would later hear from Joseph mcstay's Father Patrick who would say that
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I received an email from business partner Dan Kavanaugh who says hey I can't get a hold of Joseph
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I've been trying to reach him via phone via email I can't get a hold of him and this Dan Kavanaugh tries to call Patrick
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Joseph's Father Patrick doesn't answer the phone for whatever reason and then ultimately gets an email telling him hey
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I can't get a hold of your son so Patrick has a son that lives in the area this is Mike mcstay or Michael mcstay
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who is Joseph's brother he asked his brother Mike would you go by and check on your brother
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I can't get a hold of him myself his business partner says he can't get a hold of him to which Mike gives a little
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pushback he's too busy to go over there so what we have happen is actually a couple days go by before Mike mcstay is
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at the home checking in on his brother now he's also checking in on his brother at the request of his other business
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associate Chase Merritt right and Chase Merritt is actually there with him for one of these visits this takes place
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prior to anyone calling and notifying San Diego County Sheriff's Office and Chase Merritt says that when me and Mike
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mcstay were there Mike climbed through a window this would be the office Joseph's
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office window in the home to enter the home enter the premises and goes to the front door unlocks the front door
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allowing Chase to come in the two of them walk the home together they don't see any obvious signs of a strong or
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break in but the other thing is they don't see any of the mcstays either the family of four poof gone no blood no
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sign of a struggle there's some debate on this conversation the way that it has been told and
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reported is that Chase Merit says to Michael mcstay we need to call the police we need to call the
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authorities and report them missing this doesn't feel right something feels wrong
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here right again we have Mike mcstay who offers a little more pushback and says no it looks like everything's fine they
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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
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this point Dan Kavanaugh Patrick Joseph's father and the other business associate
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Chase Merritt they all seem to be on high alert but Mike mcstay he's pretty casual about this and we
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don't know I don't know personally a lot of his personality Mike mcstay's personality but his brother Joseph is
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described as super casual guy super nice very laid back doesn't get stressed easily so maybe the
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maybe this is just how it is in their family and they share a similar personality and Mike is going well maybe
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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
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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
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has never been put together they never made the house a home yet so everything looks a little out of place and
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everything looks a little disorganized so one can make the argument of well it doesn't seem like there was a struggle
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here the other person can make an argument well this house was never really put together at this time their dogs are
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outside when the brother is sitting there when Michael is saying well I'm hopeful that they just went on vacation
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you just went on vacation for seven to ten days or or maybe even two weeks and you're gonna leave your dogs
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outside that doesn't make a lot of sense to me no and in fact being a dog guy I get furious of people that I hear tell
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me oh you know they're out staying the night somewhere they go straight from work out with their friends and then
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stay the night somewhere and never went home to let the dog out or never went home to feed the dog I get furious when
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I hear that I would have been on high alert I'm with you the the home to me I don't know that any regular person or
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even somebody that knows them well could walk through the home and decide if there's been a struggle or if things are
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out of place or disturbed or disrupted what have you but the dog thing would really put me on
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high alert and the other thing too that that rubbed me the wrong way about Michael mcstay's thoughts and feelings
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was I get what you're saying maybe they took off for a couple days okay maybe they're being negligent with their dogs
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for whatever reason or made arrangements with neighbors to feed the dogs and we'll just leave them out back right not
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being able to get a hold of them not being able to get in touch with them is what would concern me Heck on the way
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here I text my brother-in-law said hey I think I just saw you down the street wanted to say hello he was nope that's
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not me I'm in Louisville so it's it I think that it's odd that that someone's gone and you can't get in touch with
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them and that's what would put me on high alert now these other individuals convinced Mike mcstay to contact the
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Sheriff's Office and this will lead to a visit on February 15th when we have Mike
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mcstay there with deputies from the Sheriff's Office to do a quick sweep inside the home now note here
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that Mike mcstay once again has to climb in the window and go and unlock the front door of the
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home because technically the Sheriff's Office does not have a search warrant at this time they're just going to Simply
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go in take a look around see if they see any obvious signs of a crime and if they do not they're going to
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leave but officially the mcstay family is reported missing by this time note the date February 15th later we
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would be told that we believe that they went missing or something happened in the mcstay family on the fourth
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I can't say with 100 certainty when Mike mcstay was notified of this we do have several family members who
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are aware that something is wrong we do have several business associates that are aware that something is wrong but to
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me that seems like a lot of time that has passed from when authorities later believe something happened to the mcstay
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family to When anybody is actually reporting this and people are on scene looking for the family looking to see if
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there's any obvious signs of a crime no place we can go [Music] away [Music] and we are back to the windows to the
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walls cheers cheers like you were stating the stay family they rule it involuntary
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disappearance I think this is a huge mistake you hear law enforcement state that when we get to a scene of a crime
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if we have bodies and we don't know what happened we assume the worst why not in
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this situation why wouldn't law enforcement assume the worst and then work backwards that's a good question
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and I'm not going to go down the road of of what a job what kind of job that they
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did on this case early on I don't really have a strong opinion either way I'm pretty down the middle on
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on my thoughts on that whether they did a good job or a bad job what I will say is this though
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is a good detective should be working off of fact and factual information and unfortunately at this time when
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deputies go to the home and detectives get involved what they have here is missing people that's the fact they see
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nothing at their home that would indicate to them that there was Foul Play or an abduction or a break-in or
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anything of that going on and so they have to categorize it something so that is the category that was given to it
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based off of the facts that were known to law enforcement at that time now we do have the detective who is on record
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saying yes when I saw the home I only knew one thing that I had four missing people
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now in my mind because of my job and because of my experience I am always concerned with a potential homicide
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so while he he can categorize it as voluntary missing because there's no other indication that it is anything
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other than that he also states that the thing he was majorly concerned with is not so much to the missing adults we
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have missing children here and they're young children with no explanation from anybody in the family as to why they may
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be missing or even hints as to what was going on with the family as to why the kids would be missing you know he says
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that often in his line of work what he sees when we have missing children is a parent may take off that there's some
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kind of fight and one parent leaves and the other parent takes the children and goes looking for them however in this
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situation they have everybody on summer side of the family and everybody on Joseph's side of the family saying
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everything's great they loved each other the family was great business was wonderful their home was great their
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lives were great you know everything's great so he has no explanation or even no hint as to why the children would be
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missing now we talked a little bit about the home and you gave a good description
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of that but I think that we should go a little more in depth with that to take a
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look at what the police what the authorities were seeing when they walked through the home for the first time and
00:28:41
this is from a San Diego news Outlet this is nbcsandiego.com where in March okay so they're
00:28:52
Officially Missing by February 15th according to the timeline that we just went through
00:28:58
but this is from an article from March of 2010. this is Mike mcstay Joseph's brother who is going through the events
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as well as what the home situation was like when they found it with reporters they lived in the 3400 block of avocado
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Vista Lane the brother says that the home had been cleaned and vacuumed since the family had disappeared cleaned by
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his mother Susan Susan Blake who is no longer with Patrick cleaned the home after the
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family had disappeared and before this interview took place and I'll read directly from the interview
00:29:40
it says inside the house is a moderate level of disarray mostly because the home was in the process of being
00:29:46
remodeled according to Mike four upstairs bedrooms are for the most part empty several children's toys including
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a large Playhouse remain in the home the master bedroom is empty Furniture had yet to be delivered said Mike mcstay in
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a walk-in closet Mike mcstay said several purses were found but not but did not appear to be currently being
00:30:08
used downstairs strips of masking tape protect the edging of several walls the kitchen was being repainted two sets of
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sunglasses one of which has prescription lenses were found on a counter in the garage a double stroller sits with
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several wetsuits resting on top of it Mike mcstay said his brother would always take the stroller on planned
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trips I don't want to throw the mother under the bus but this is another huge mistake and and probably what happened
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and what she was thinking in her mind is they're gone they went on vacation I came over to their house it's in a
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little bit of a disarray I'm worried about my son I'm worried about my daughter-in-law I'm worried about my
00:30:51
grandchildren so to keep myself occupied instead of worrying I'm going to go over
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there and and she cleans and not only cleans but she deep cleans using bleach in the kitchen and using bleach in the
00:31:06
bathrooms whatever happened to this family whether it happened at the home or otherwise this house does not look
00:31:12
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
00:31:20
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
00:31:27
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
00:31:37
a misstep by the mother another thing that I found that was odd too was Mike mcstay took Joseph's computer around the
00:31:45
same time that the house was being cleaned and the Sheriff's Office basically says that you know this family
00:31:52
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
00:31:58
should not do don't you dare do this I'm in the process of trying to get a search
00:32:03
warrant so I can look through the home as quickly as possible before they disrupt what could be a potential crime
00:32:09
scene but at this point in the investigation they didn't feel that they needed to
00:32:15
instruct the family what to do other than asking them for help help us to help you tell us everything about the
00:32:22
family about their home give us everything that you got so we can create some kind of investigation and try to
00:32:28
locate this family of four well in the process of that they learned something that is
00:32:35
very interesting and is going to be a kind of a strange part in this case they locate the Isuzu Trooper so this is
00:32:46
Joseph mcstay's vehicle and we know that he was driving that vehicle on the fourth but it's on February 8th this is
00:32:56
before that they are officially missing on February 8th around 11 pm the family's trooper that vehicle was towed
00:33:04
from a parking lot which was about two blocks away from the U.S Mexico border and no one by this point has reported
00:33:12
the family missing yet the detective then says that knowing this area and knowing that people often will park
00:33:21
their vehicles there illegally and then leave and go across the border that became their number one concern we found
00:33:29
their vehicle in an area where that's typical Behavior so we must investigate that Avenue and see if there is any
00:33:37
evidence to back that thought up again my eyebrows raise when you hear about the computer being
00:33:45
removed from the home but it could be a situation just like the mother cleaning the house that there's an easy
00:33:52
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
00:34:01
this point Michael has said that he's worried that his brother and his family is not going to return so there is talk
00:34:09
within the family on how or if they're going to try to continue his business because he has contracts for six months
00:34:18
to a year out yes and I'm glad that you went back to that Captain because that is correct right and that is something
00:34:25
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
00:34:31
this point in the investigation is Chase Merritt has access to Michael mcstay we
00:34:36
know that because they are at the home together they go through the mcstay family home to together at some point
00:34:42
it's a little blurry to me right if Mike mcstay is involved Loosely or in some form or fashion with
00:34:49
his brother's company but you're exactly right we have a company that needs to be run and now we
00:34:57
have Dan Kavanaugh who's saying hey I'm trying to do my thing and Chase Merritt who is saying I'm trying to do my thing
00:35:03
to keep this company going while Joseph is gone and hopefully he returns soon and will
00:35:10
be it'll be business as usual but in the meantime somebody needs to access that computer and someone needs to be able to
00:35:17
relay information or do things for us we need someone that we can get in touch with that can act as Joseph in the
00:35:25
meantime so I guess when you look at it that way you go okay Mike mcstay has two
00:35:31
options either he takes the computer and helps out Dan and helps out Chase and return he's obviously helping his
00:35:39
brother while his brother's gone run his business Earth inspired products or he could give it to one of the business
00:35:46
associates and be hands off and let them take take the reins and so I guess given
00:35:52
those two options if I'm Mike I'm taking the computer myself well the other reason that he might have taken this
00:35:58
computer Joseph which is missing has a very close relationship with Patrick his father and
00:36:05
so Patrick knows that Dan Kavanaugh has made some threats before they actually call him the hacker and so it is
00:36:19
possible that they have some kind of conversation about well we might need to take his computer because we don't want
00:36:28
one of his business associates to hack into the system yes and so a little clarification on Dan Kavanaugh from my
00:36:37
understanding he's a partner at one point in this business now what his role was exactly is not clearly defined
00:36:46
however what we do know is he did set up the website for the company for their products and
00:36:52
that is one method that they use to sell their products to gain potential customers and he also figured out some
00:37:00
kind of search engine algorithm that he tapped into to make it so that when you search for custom water features or
00:37:08
water features or water fountains that Earth inspired products may be the first one or one of the first ones that come
00:37:16
up in your search it's the same as back when we were little kids and everybody relied on the
00:37:23
Yellow Pages or the phone book for a lot of business or to find vendors that could do work at their home or at their
00:37:31
business and so a lot of businesses would call themselves double a concrete or Triple A
00:37:39
woodworking or my favorite ABC Liquor it makes it puts you at the top of the list
00:37:44
when people go looking for you and then likely would drum up more business like you said it's not very clear what his
00:37:51
role was defined as but from the information I gathered like you said he set up this website now business
00:37:57
websites can cost a lot of money and maybe the the thought process is I'm not going to give you this money up front
00:38:04
but 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
00:38:14
the typical situation when you have a website built for a company they build the website they get paid for it but bye
00:38:22
you don't get a check every time my order comes in and it seems like for years that Dan Kavanaugh was getting a
00:38:29
check when he possibly shouldn't have but a guy makes agreement with a business owner I put some of this onus
00:38:40
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
00:38:48
normally works and also when you buy a domain name you as the business owner should own that domain name so that
00:38:56
domain name and the website could have been completely owned by Kavanaugh and that's what he would be holding hostage
00:39:03
over Joseph's head and you're exactly right it we should point out that these are all moves that Joseph mcstay
00:39:14
either made or created or was reacting to in reaction to what Dan Kavanaugh is saying to him and their dealings
00:39:22
together because the way that it's been explained to me and the way I understand
00:39:27
it is that at one point Dan Kavanaugh was an actual partner again not clearly to find what his role was it could just
00:39:35
be maintaining and running the website but at some point the two start to part ways at the time of
00:39:43
Joseph's disappearance they were ready to part way so much so that Joseph was buying Dan Kavanaugh out
00:39:52
as a partner and he had already paid him thousands of dollars to buy him out and
00:39:58
they were taking on a new role and Dan Kavanaugh's future role will be to receive a monthly check for simply
00:40:06
running and maintaining the website going forward he will no longer be a partner he will now become basically a
00:40:13
vendor for Earth inspired products this discovery of the Isuzu Trooper being towed on February 8th this is going to
00:40:24
be a breadcrumb trail that is going to lead detectives right to the border of Mexico and they want to know could we
00:40:32
have a situation where one two or all four of the family members parked illegally and just walked off into the
00:40:40
sunset right into Mexico never to be seen again or to live happily ever after they want to figure out is this a
00:40:47
possibility here in this case this will be at the San Ysidro border crossing into the Tijuana area on February 8th
00:40:58
the same day that the vehicle was towed that's the day that they're going to start
00:41:03
reviewing surveillance footage at the border and they're going to look at that surveillance footage from that day
00:41:10
leading up to this point in their investigation when they know that the mcstay family is officially reported
00:41:15
missing this is quite the task because there's like thousands if not a hundred thousand people that cross to and from
00:41:23
that 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
00:41:31
already kind of pointed out that it's a bit of a needle in a haystack situation right you're looking for four people
00:41:37
crossing the border on that day or subsequent days afterwards however we need to point out something
00:41:45
that makes it even much more difficult you don't have to be looking for four people you could be looking for a
00:41:53
situation where it's Joseph in the two boys maybe he did something to Summer you
00:42:00
could be looking for summer and the two boys maybe she fled or maybe she did something to Joseph or maybe the parents
00:42:07
did something to the children and they're fleeing the area and now you're just looking for Joseph and summer right
00:42:12
so out of all these people we have a needle and a haystack it's kind of a needle in a stack of needles at this
00:42:19
point in my opinion so the sheriff's office they get the national Center for missing and exploited children they come
00:42:27
to their aid and provide volunteers to help them watch and put Eagle Eye volunteers on this surveillance footage
00:42:36
looking for Joseph for summer for either of the boys or all four this is going to
00:42:43
take some time for them to sort through this but in fact what they end up saying
00:42:47
is hey on the same day that the vehicle was parked on February 8th on the same day that the vehicle was towed from that
00:42:54
parking lot two blocks away from the border we did spot something at a portion of the surveillance footage that
00:43:01
called into question if we were seeing the family crossing the border and the description is at the bottom left corner
00:43:08
of the video of their video screen they say that they can see a man walking hand
00:43:13
in hand with a child following him is a woman in a white jacket holding the hand
00:43:18
of another child and they wondered if this could possibly be Joseph Summer and the two boys now have
00:43:26
you seen this video yourself I've seen stills of it 100 recently actually but when this case was fairly new in 2010
00:43:35
2011 and so on I had seen quite a bit of news media that was on this case from Jump Street and I believe that I had
00:43:46
seen an actual video clip back then but leading up to our coverage of it Captain
00:43:50
I've only seen stills of this picture I've seen the Steals and I've seen the video itself if somebody said to me we
00:43:59
believe that this is the family I would say yeah makes sense I think you could make an argument it's
00:44:07
not them because you can't see any of their features in the video is kind of grainy when you put two and two together
00:44:15
well you have this vehicle that's close to the Border where people Park to then cross the border and then we have what
00:44:23
we believe is a representation of this family my little garage brain says it's very
00:44:29
possible that's them going across the border I agree with you 100 here captain now law enforcement was upfront about
00:44:37
this stating that they thought the video was terrible they thought that yes it could potentially be them but the video
00:44:45
itself the quality of the video they thought was terrible so they would not say definitively that they thought they
00:44:51
were seeing the mcstay family they just said it was a possibility when they showed it to people that knew the mixed
00:44:58
days in fact we have Michael mcstay the brother who says that's not my brother uh on that video I know you can't see
00:45:05
facial features but Mike says that's not how Joseph carries himself that's not how he walks I don't believe that to be
00:45:14
my brother and his family and I just want to reiterate not to be Mr Know It All Mr captain
00:45:23
knows it pants how about Mr knows it most or knows most of it but it was a mistake I think by law
00:45:32
enforcement to rule this voluntary disappearance it's a mistake to wait as long as they did to call law enforcement
00:45:41
it's a mistake to clean the house it's a mistake to disturb things in the house it's a
00:45:48
mistake to take the computer away there's just a lot of mistakes that happen and again I just don't understand
00:45:59
if somebody called me from one of my siblings work like work relations and said I can't get a hold of
00:46:09
your brother 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
00:46:16
away or even if they live two hours away I'm texting them I'm calling them and by
00:46:22
the time I get to their house and they're not answering their door police are being called that's how I operate
00:46:28
but I'm also a host of a true crime podcast I agree with what you're saying there Captain I share a lot of those
00:46:35
same feelings I do want to point out though that to stay water that those are all mistakes in hindsight and if we're
00:46:44
sitting in a situation where February 16 2010 the mcstay family shows up alive and well then none of these were
00:46:52
mistakes but when we have a situation where months and months and months go by and they don't come home and nobody can
00:46:58
get in touch with them then yes these are all obvious mistakes now as for the ruling or determination of what we're
00:47:05
going to categorize a case all of those things are very fluid situations too it doesn't stay
00:47:12
uh etched in stone that that's always going to be a voluntary disappearance it's only that until they
00:47:20
have reason to suspect or evidence of a a different situation now one thing here
00:47:28
that I want to point out is as I said when this case was pretty new and fresh in 2010 and 2011 it did get a lot of
00:47:37
media attention even on a national level so this was a case that I was aware of and I was following Loosely and when
00:47:44
there was something to be watched on TV or something to read on the internet about it I was tuning in I remember just
00:47:52
thinking this would be late 2010 after they had been gone for several months I I even after seeing the still or the
00:48:02
video of what could potentially be the mcstays at the border and even with their vehicle being found near the
00:48:09
border the way that their home was left never once made me think that they just up and
00:48:16
left in fact I couldn't find anything or was never presented with any reason of why
00:48:22
they would want to leave unless they just took a Fly by Night two-day vacation to Mexico decided not
00:48:31
to tell anybody and then something terrible happened to them there but the state of the home didn't make
00:48:36
any sense I you go back to the dogs being left outside un there's no preparations made for them to be taken
00:48:43
care of and then the state of the home like you said half eaten food is found laying out around the house
00:48:50
there's there's a like an apple core there's uh half bowls of popcorn there's eggs that are sitting on the counter
00:48:58
that doesn't look to me like they up and went somewhere voluntarily so that's where we kind of circle back to the idea
00:49:06
of well there must be something else going on here and I in 2010 man I was very concerned
00:49:14
about the movements the statements and the lack of the lack of effort on the behalf of Michael mcstay of his brother
00:49:23
he seemed kind of tuned out like I don't see any problem here I don't want to raise any red flags don't want to make
00:49:31
any waves don't want to report him missing don't want to swing by the home to check on him oh I took the computer
00:49:36
my mom cleaned the house and then let's factor in something else if somebody wanted to do something
00:49:43
terrible to this family or to one member of the family what happened on at least two occasions
00:49:49
that we are aware of when Chase mayor is with him at the home and then again when deputies are with
00:49:56
him at the mcstay home he clearly shows that he has access to the locked and secured home by climbing
00:50:03
through that office window on two occasions that's almost like that to me is a bit
00:50:09
of a red flag going this guy knows how to access the home when other people clearly do not yeah or maybe he just
00:50:15
used his brain when he got to the house maybe that was not something that he was
00:50:21
privy to before he got there agreed but as an outsider looking in that is something that I'm going to call into
00:50:28
question that's also something that's going to be put on my page and it's not going to leave there and so I'm given a
00:50:34
reasonable explanation as to why he knows how to do that or was able to do that unfortunately that is going to ramp
00:50:42
up our timeline pretty much for 2010. there's a lot of things that happen but there's nothing really in the
00:50:48
investigation itself that is known to the public to carry us further down the road here or give us any kind of
00:50:55
breadcrumb Trail as to where the family may be or what may have happened to them
00:51:01
in February of 2010. in 2011 what we end up having here Captain is pretty much more dead-end leads
00:51:09
these continue when photos were sent to the San Diego County Sheriff's department and to the mcstay
00:51:16
family extended family Michael mcstay these photos were of what was thought could possibly be Summer Mix day and a
00:51:26
child that were sent to Michael mcstay and the San Diego County Sheriff's Department of course rather quickly it's
00:51:34
ruled or determined that that in fact is not summer in the photo and again these
00:51:40
are just more dead-end leads in 2012 this is when we have all of the rumors that are still going around that the
00:51:51
mcstay family may be alive and well in Mexico there was even one point where we almost had breaking news where it came
00:51:59
out that the mcstay family was found but this time found in New Mexico in the state of New Mexico and this obviously
00:52:08
turns out not to be the mcstay family this is going to take us to near the end of 2013. on November 11th
00:52:18
2013 we have two off-road motorcyclists is what they're referred to in this article
00:52:26
that I'm referencing however I believe that they were on dirt bikes one of them discovers what he believes
00:52:34
to be a bone and in fact it turns out to be a skull he he notices this in a desert area of
00:52:43
Victorville California this would be about 70 miles from the mcstays home this will kick off a 30-hour excavation
00:52:56
project at this location at this site on November 13th we still have workers Excavating an area that is approximately
00:53:06
10 foot by 10 foot they are sifting through dirt they are looking for bones they are finding bones and they are also
00:53:16
finding other evidence in this area now two days later on the 15th we have the San Bernardino County Sheriff's
00:53:24
Department which holds a news conference at which Sheriff John McMahon confirms the identity of two of the bodies
00:53:33
recovered from this site and those two bodies are confirmed by the Sheriff's Office to be that of
00:53:41
Joseph mcstay age 40 and his wife Summer Mix day age 43. thank you thank you so much for joining us here in
00:54:12
the garage it's official True Crime garage listeners are the smartest and sexiest listeners in the history of
00:54:19
podcasting if you need more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show called off the record you can
00:54:25
find a link on our website at True Crime garage.com and until tomorrow be good be
00:54:33
kind and don't let it thank you [Applause] thank you [Music]