What Happened to the McStays?

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Speaker 4 It's a years-long mystery that has puzzled investigators. But out here in the desert, there's a break in the case.

Speaker 5 Once we were inside, it appeared that people just got up and walked away.

Speaker 4 It's not considered a crime scene, right?

Speaker 5 That's correct. It wasn't a crime scene.

Speaker 4 What detectives uncovered that suggests the McSdaves may have plotted their own disappearance. What's incredible is that we're just several hundred yards from the border.

Speaker 4 I mean, the wall's right there.

Speaker 5 Did they cross the border and go into Mexico voluntarily or involuntarily?

Speaker 9 All the surfboards are here, so we didn't go surfing in Mexico, guys. The double stroller here, it doesn't go anywhere without the double stroller.

Speaker 11 It was totally out of character as a husband and wife and family to be romping around.

Speaker 13 What bothered me was that I found an email to Summer. I love you forever.

Speaker 14 Happy birthday, Summer, forever and ever.

Speaker 15 And there was a question of: oh, is this guy, is he following them?

Speaker 4 And you see these text messages, these are very threatening. This is scary stuff.

Speaker 13 Some evidence of financial things that seem shady to me.

Speaker 4 What happened to this family?

Speaker 11 The whole family, husband, wife, and two children, gone, like poof, disappeared.

Speaker 13 Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing?

Speaker 4 The sudden disappearance of the McStave family quickly becomes one of the most perplexing missing persons cases in memory.

Speaker 4 And the mystery starts right here on Avocado Vista Lane in sunny Fallbrook, California.

Speaker 4 And you look around and you see this quiet, quaint community where about 16 years ago, Joseph and Summer McStey drove down this very same street, proud first-time homeowners, excited to raise their two sons here.

Speaker 17 There's the house.

Speaker 18 This is the house.

Speaker 4 The McSte's home was supposed to hold lots of happy memories for this young family. For a short time, it did.

Speaker 4 But then on February 4th, 2010, Joseph McStey, his wife Summer, their two young sons vanished from here without a trace.

Speaker 11 They were living in San Clemente, California. I remember them in the little tiny apartment that they lived in.
And Summer gave birth to Giovanni.

Speaker 11 And they did have their second child in this small little San Clemente apartment too. So as Summer and Joe grew their family, they outgrew the little beach

Speaker 11 place that they were living in.

Speaker 21 When Joey moved to Falbrook, I think he was really excited of being a homeowner.

Speaker 13 He was ready to move into a bigger house, have a yard for the kids.

Speaker 22 There's a decent-sized yard here for sure.

Speaker 22 Fruit trees. This is cool.
Look how big the side yard is. I can do a lot over here with the boys.

Speaker 13 I think Joseph was really on the upswing in terms of his business, his personal life. And Joseph had his own business, Earth-inspired products.

Speaker 4 He sold these high-end custom water features, the type you might see in hotels and business lobbies.

Speaker 13 He actually started his business, I think, like in his garage, designing his own features by hand.

Speaker 13 And he had a partner, Daniel Kavanaugh.

Speaker 19 I actually made the whole website. I was able to build a site that was like the Amazon of wall fountains.
And then I stuck it to the top of Google for every keyword.

Speaker 13 In terms of his website knowledge, that was the perfect partner to get him where he needed to be in the search rankings.

Speaker 4 As the online business was growing, Joseph hired a welder to build the custom fountains.

Speaker 13 Chase Merritt was Joseph's fabricator on the custom side. He would weld and manufacture smaller scale water walls for Joseph.

Speaker 4 In a video posted to the company's YouTube page, Chase is seen putting together one of his newly built water features.

Speaker 20 Once they started doing business together, they were on the phone constantly.

Speaker 4 On February 4th, Chase says he and Joseph met in Rancho Cucamonga, where Chase lived, and they had lunch together at a Chick-fil-A.

Speaker 4 Afterwards, Chase says that Joseph stopped returning calls or answering emails.

Speaker 20 When Chase couldn't get a hold of Joseph that weekend, he expressed concern, like, if you can't get a hold of him, that's unusual and like we should do something.

Speaker 20 And that's when he like reached out to the family.

Speaker 4 Joseph's web designer and business partner Dan Kavanaugh also reached out to the family when he also could not get a hold of Joseph. But then he takes it one step further.

Speaker 19 I just took the initiative and I just called the cops. I put a welfare check in in and I was like, hey, go by this address and see if they're okay.

Speaker 4 San Diego County Sheriff's Office deputies conduct a welfare check at the McSte home. Nobody is home at the time, but there are no signs that anything is amiss.

Speaker 4 So deputies simply follow procedure and do not go inside.

Speaker 4 And then 11 days after the family was last heard from, Joseph's brother, Michael McStey, files a missing persons report.

Speaker 4 Now, he speaks to police in a recorded interview detailing the mysterious disappearance.

Speaker 23 Nobody's talked to Justice since before the fourth. Well, what brought you from trying to call him on February 4th, getting nothing? All the friends calling me, telling me, have you heard from Joe?

Speaker 23 What's going on?

Speaker 4 Dennis Brugos is a retired lieutenant from the San Diego County Sheriff's Office. He oversaw the investigation, and I spoke with him outside of the home where the McStays had lived.

Speaker 4 And once the sheriff's deputies come out here, what are they looking for?

Speaker 5 If the doors are locked from the outside, you know, and check the windows, you look around, you go around the house.

Speaker 24 Deputies, they don't notice anything particularly alarming. No forced entry.

Speaker 24 But they do notice that the family's beloved dogs are left unattended in the yard, barking away, haven't been fed, have no water.

Speaker 4 And then they probably see... the note pasted on the side door here from animal control basically alerting the family family that the dogs have been abandoned.

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 4 What does that signal to the deputies?

Speaker 5 And that raised red flags because by all accounts, they were very good pet owners. They took very good care of their dogs, and for them to do that would be completely out of character for them.

Speaker 11 I mean, their dogs were like their second kits. They would have never done that, ever, in a million years.

Speaker 5 Once we were inside, it appeared that people just got up and walked away. There were some perishable foods on the counter in the kitchen.

Speaker 5 As I recall, there were a couple of half-eaten bowls of popcorn in front of a television.

Speaker 4 Is it alarming to find uncooked eggs, popcorn strewn about on the couch?

Speaker 5 I don't know if that alone is alarming, but I mean when you put the whole picture together, them not contacting people, the dogs, perishable food left out, and all those things together makes you think it raises the level of suspicion that something's not right.

Speaker 4 And what do we know at this point about the McStey's vehicles?

Speaker 5 Well we knew that one of the vehicles was parked here in a driveway and the other one wasn't here.

Speaker 4 The McStey's white Isuzu trooper is missing and inside the home there are clothes that are just strewn about.

Speaker 24 Deputies are looking around thinking is there something really wrong here? But given that, they still didn't see blood spatter, no signs of struggles, no walls kicked in, no broken glass.

Speaker 5 When you look at the situation at the house, then you start looking at the family situation. Who were these people? Were they possibly targets of some criminals for some unknown reason?

Speaker 4 And then investigators get a break in the case. The family car is found not far from here along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Speaker 4 And then a surveillance camera, just like this one, captures what appears to be a family of four going into Mexico. So now the question is: are the Mixtees running from something or someone?

Speaker 4 This is pretty close to the waves that we would surf actually, even a little bigger than Joe is comfortable with, but I get him out there and he loved the ocean.

Speaker 22 Holy cow, it's breaking at the reef. See those guys

Speaker 22 out here? Look at that.

Speaker 4 What did you make of Joseph when you met him?

Speaker 19 He was chill. I liked just surfing with him.

Speaker 26 You know,

Speaker 27 we were pretty simple.

Speaker 4 What was life like for Joseph and Selma when they were living in San Clemente? As our business got more successful, it became like the perfect life.

Speaker 4 You got your girl, now you got your kids, you're right by the beach. You can go surfing, you can run an online business.
It's American Dream.

Speaker 11 To me, Semma was exotic. She had dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, and she also had a really big cute smile.
When she got engaged, Semmer was telling me that, you know, she wanted me in her wedding.

Speaker 11 And the wedding was held at a beautiful venue here in South Orange County.

Speaker 11 It was very fun and playful.

Speaker 11 And then when she got pregnant, she was thrilled that she was pregnant and starting the second part of her dream come true with Joey.

Speaker 4 They had two kids, Joseph Jr.

Speaker 19 and Gianni.

Speaker 4 And they knew you. What do they call you?

Speaker 19 They would call me Uncle Dan. They're cute little kids, you know.
I'd come over, play some guitar, hang out with them.

Speaker 11 They would go on bike rides as a family along the beach.

Speaker 17 I'm having so much fun. Woo!

Speaker 11 And I think they just were happy in their bubble.

Speaker 13 They wanted to stay in San Clemente because of the surf,

Speaker 13 but they found that they had a lot nicer options down by Fall Brook.

Speaker 13 They were trying to renovate the new house, so they were going to do that all by themselves.

Speaker 22 We're going to rip out the cabinets. I'll be putting a beautiful granite here, beautiful wood floors all through here as well.

Speaker 4 They had barely started their home renovation projects when they suddenly disappeared in February of 2010.

Speaker 21 As time went on, we started getting more worried.

Speaker 11 It was just devastating. Time stops and you're in disbelief and shock.

Speaker 4 After the San Diego County Sheriff's Investigators visit the McSteys home, it takes another four days to get their warrants approved to allow them to remove evidence from the home.

Speaker 4 And what happens within those four days could critically alter the course of the entire investigation.

Speaker 4 It's not considered a crime scene, right?

Speaker 5 That's correct. It wasn't a crime scene.
There was nothing that suggested any type of foul play, but still we are going to run with it.

Speaker 4 What doesn't happen, though, is the house is not roped off. You don't see tape on the door, nothing like that.

Speaker 25 Right.

Speaker 4 And at that point, Joe McSday's mother comes in and she decides to try to clean up.

Speaker 4 And so you don't actually know if she actually may have destroyed evidence because you weren't quite sure what evidence was in the house to begin with.

Speaker 5 That's correct.

Speaker 24 Investigators are also really interested in getting information on that Isuzu trooper that belonged to the family. But the thing is, it could be anywhere.

Speaker 24 And then they run the plates and they find out that the car is 60 miles away.

Speaker 29 It was at a parking lot in a shopping center that was at the San Diego-Mexico border and the vehicle had been towed.

Speaker 29 Now, what investigators still don't know is if the Mixtays themselves parked their vehicle here or if it was someone else.

Speaker 4 What's incredible is that we're just several hundred yards from the border. I mean, the wall's right there.

Speaker 5 Certainly walking distance, even with children.

Speaker 4 When the car was impounded and detectives actually got to it, Did they find any evidence that was useful?

Speaker 5 They had the child safety seats in the back seat.

Speaker 5 There was some medication that one of the children was taking, I believe, for asthma, but

Speaker 5 nothing else of any real significance.

Speaker 4 Until February 8th, that Isuzu trooper was parked here. How does that influence the trajectory of the investigation going forward?

Speaker 5 Well, from that point, then you're trying to say, why is the trooper down here?

Speaker 5 The international border is a block and a half away, so did they cross the border and go into Mexico voluntarily or involuntarily?

Speaker 24 Police turn their attention to any surveillance video that might be at that border.

Speaker 24 And sure enough, after going through hours and hours of footage, they see a family of four calmly walking across the border on the very same

Speaker 24 day. that that Isuzu trooper had been towed from the parking lot.

Speaker 4 And so it seems that a surveillance camera just like this one captured what looked like the McStey family crossing into Mexico.

Speaker 5 That's correct. And at that point, you know, it was exciting from the perspective of the investigators that like we might have a lead here.

Speaker 21 When we saw the footage of them in Mexico, supposedly, that was kind of a relief. They had found his car very close.
to the border and so that made sense.

Speaker 4 Investigators also do a forensic search search of the mixta's computers and they uncover what looks like an important lead. They call Michael Mixtay to break the news.

Speaker 33 Hi Mike. Hey.
Finally got a little bit of a lead.

Speaker 33 We did the computer analysis

Speaker 33 and on January 28th, somebody inside the residence on the computer using Internet Explorer.

Speaker 33 There were multiple inquiries to crossing into the Mexico area with children and what's required for passports.

Speaker 33 That coupled with the video and the placement of the car would indicate that they probably went to Mexico.

Speaker 21 It seemed like every time you turn on the TV, there was something about it.

Speaker 1 It became a huge local story.

Speaker 37 Forensic computer experts found important new clues on the Mixteus family computer that indicates the family researched and planned their getaway across this border into Mexico.

Speaker 21 I remember there were some chat rooms about, well, Joey brings all these materials from Mexico. Maybe he's involved with the cartels.

Speaker 29 We heard everything. There were so many crazy theories.

Speaker 4 Adding to those theories and questions, Joseph's friend and business associate, Gina Watson, found some other possibly Mexico-related information while combing through Joseph and Summers' email for any clues.

Speaker 13 So the email that I saw was about Rosetta Stone Spanish, and

Speaker 13 she wanted Joseph to go purchase it, and she was excited about it.

Speaker 13 It doesn't necessarily mean they use the Rosetta Stone to change their life and move to Mexico or something, but it's definitely a possibility.

Speaker 4 But when Gina Watson takes a deeper dive into the McSday's accounts, she stumbles upon something that she finds alarming. It looks like someone has been taking money out of the company's account.

Speaker 4 Now, could that be connected to the family's disappearance?

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Speaker 4 The McStey family has vanished without a trace from their California home. Eventually, the call for answers grows more forceful and becomes national.

Speaker 4 Really disturbing story, so they need your tips more than ever.

Speaker 2 Family members have searched near the San Yucidro-Tijuana border where the McStays vehicle was found abandoned.

Speaker 24 Detectives are thinking, it appears that they went to Mexico and it was their choice.

Speaker 8 We felt that, you know, there was a possibility that, a strong possibility that they left voluntarily and there was no coercion involved.

Speaker 4 But those close to the Mixtays are just not convinced the family would head down to Mexico without telling anyone.

Speaker 11 It was totally out of character as a husband and wife and family to be romping around.

Speaker 10 Can I give you my number to pass along to them so they could call me?

Speaker 4 Joseph's brother, Michael McStey, is equally suspicious that something just isn't right.

Speaker 4 Weeks after the disappearance, Michael goes goes back to the home, this time with a camera. And he's looking for clues and expressing his doubts.

Speaker 9 Now look, all his surfboards are here, so he didn't go surfing in Mexico, guys. The double stroller here in Canada is here.

Speaker 27 Yeah, the double

Speaker 36 double stroller is here.

Speaker 9 They don't go anywhere without the double stroller.

Speaker 10 I mean, if they were down there, there's no phones in Mexico to call your family and say, hey.

Speaker 10 I'm drinking a Mai Tai down on the beach with a bazillion dollars in the bank.

Speaker 10 No, it's just not like Joe.

Speaker 4 Meanwhile, Gina Watson has been helping Joseph McStey's father, Patrick, comb through emails trying to find any clues.

Speaker 4 Since Gina and Patrick also doubt that the McStays traveled to Mexico willingly, they now believe that something far more sinister has gone down.

Speaker 4 At the time of the family's disappearance, Gina and Patrick knew that Earth-inspired products was poised to land some large contracts.

Speaker 13 He and I both thought since Joseph was about to come into money through his business that it could be a financial motive for someone.

Speaker 13 And then I saw that there were withdrawals from the PayPal account.

Speaker 24 Joseph had PayPal set up so that he could pay money to vendors or receive money from clients.

Speaker 4 Gina notices several emails requesting money from the business account via PayPal from Dan Kavanaugh on February 6th and several more after that, all of them totaling almost $7,000, all of which was withdrawn before the mixtaise had even been reported missing.

Speaker 4 So San Diego detectives called Dan Kavanaugh to ask him about those PayPal transactions.

Speaker 33 And let me ask you this, Dan, I know you have access for PayPal and PayPal transfers. Yeah.
All the way back to like the fifth.

Speaker 45 You wanted to do this,

Speaker 35 itemize out all the transfers, and you

Speaker 35 like

Speaker 4 And what kind of explanation did you give them about the PayPal accounts after the mixed days went missing?

Speaker 19 Maintaining the business, keeping it afloat, keeping the lights on, you know, paying our vendors.

Speaker 4 Did the investigator seem satisfied with your answers? Yeah.

Speaker 19 And I could provide documentation, spreadsheets, proof, like everything.

Speaker 33 If you could do that and just shoot me a quick ledger on where the money went, that way my questions are answered.

Speaker 4 The San Diego sheriffs say that they were satisfied with the information Kavanaugh provided, and he was cleared.

Speaker 4 Gina Watson also gives a tip to detectives about Chase Merritt. He's the welder who builds Joseph's custom water fountains.
Someone Gina claims had a history of customer complaints.

Speaker 13 You have to talk to Chase Merritt.

Speaker 13 I actually emailed the detective.

Speaker 4 Gina knows Chase Merritt not just through Joseph, but also from the water feature industry, and she said she'd had direct experience dealing with him.

Speaker 13 I would say he was good with his hands and good with metal but there were complaints.

Speaker 4 By his own account, Chase Merrick was the last person to see Joseph McStey.

Speaker 4 Since he's a priority interview for San Diego investigators, they sit down with him two days after the McStays are reported missing.

Speaker 23 Joseph was one of my best friends and, you know, obviously and my business associate. And I can't remember a day that I haven't talked to him almost every single day for the last at least two years.

Speaker 24 Investigators have lots of questions for Chase. Among them, what was that lunch at Chick-fil-A about?

Speaker 23 I saw Joseph Thursday around noon. Thursday, which day? Thursday the 4th.
Where'd you see him going at Chick-fil-A? We just had to go over all kinds of money stuff.

Speaker 23 Nothing to do with the disappearance, whether it's good or bad.

Speaker 38 Absolutely not.

Speaker 23 I don't know of anybody that has anything to gain by Joseph being gone.

Speaker 20 Well, Chase wanted to find Joseph, so, I mean, he was willing to do anything he could to help the investigation.

Speaker 4 Kathy Jarvis, Chase's girlfriend at the time, says that any allegations of unhappy customers were just untrue.

Speaker 48 Go ahead and put the first piece of glass in.

Speaker 4 On the Waterfall Company's YouTube page, Chase displays his handiwork.

Speaker 20 He absolutely cared about his his work and how it reflected on him.

Speaker 24 At this point, there's really not much to do with Chase Merritt. They take a DNA sample and send him on his way.

Speaker 4 With no fresh clues to follow, and because investigators believe it is possible the family left the country voluntarily, the question of what happened to the mixed days remains a mystery for the next few years.

Speaker 29 So in 2013, the Sheriff's Department, felt that they had exhausted all of their leads. So, they felt that their best case was to turn it over to the FBI.

Speaker 11 As the days and weeks and months went on and on, we felt very hopeless and helpless.

Speaker 4 But not long after the case is handed over to the FBI, a shocking discovery comes to light in the Mojave Desert.

Speaker 50 North Victorville, it's high desert, it's about 3,000 feet elevation, kind of a desolate area.

Speaker 16 A popular sport in the high desert is riding and racing motorcycles.

Speaker 50 It was Veterans Day 2013 and I had the day off so I went out. It was a nice morning, cool and early.

Speaker 50 When I go riding I usually try to avoid most well-traveled roads and just look for trails and rougher roads.

Speaker 17 I'm going very slow and I saw what I thought was kind of like an upside-down

Speaker 4 tortoise shell, which would be strange.

Speaker 17 When I walked over there and I

Speaker 51 it didn't look like a tortoise shell.

Speaker 7 Well it looked like part of a skull, but it was no bigger than probably the palm of my hand.

Speaker 50 It's a heartbreaking thing because I was I couldn't help but think it was

Speaker 50 small.

Speaker 35 I'm out here on a motorcycle out behind the dump, and I found what looks like a human skull.

Speaker 4 The disappearance of the McStey family has haunted family, friends, and the community for almost four years.

Speaker 4 And now, about 100 miles away from where they lived in Fall Brook, California, Evidence unearthed from the sands of the Mojave might provide long-sought answers as to what happened to this family.

Speaker 4 That's what's so crazy about it is that it feels like it's in the middle of nowhere, but you know, we're a quarter mile from this busy freeway.

Speaker 25 Very, very true.

Speaker 4 Detective Eddie Bachman was a homicide investigator with the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office when that 911 call came in.

Speaker 4 A team of investigators, including a forensic pathologist, was dispatched to the location right off the I-15 freeway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

Speaker 4 It wasn't just the bones by the side of the road that the dirt biker found.

Speaker 5 Correct.

Speaker 7 Once they kind of started doing the grid through the walkthrough of the area, that's when they located the graves.

Speaker 4 Two graves just under two feet deep containing human remains.

Speaker 4 Investigators began to excavate the area carefully.

Speaker 43 So you start removing some of the dirt slowly.

Speaker 7 As we start peeling it back, then we realize at that point that we've got four victims out here.

Speaker 4 What's the realization for you?

Speaker 7 It's huge to me at that point. You occasionally have one where, yeah, there's a victim that's located in the desert, but it's generally not of that volume.

Speaker 7 So it was at the end of the second day that we're able to get dental record comparison done and determine that the two adults were identified as Joseph and Summer McSte.

Speaker 4 It takes a few more days to identify the remains of Gianni and Joseph Jr. through DNA testing.

Speaker 4 And for the McSDA's loved ones, it's a tragic resolution to the mystery of the family's sudden disappearance years earlier.

Speaker 7 It's not really the

Speaker 48 outcome we were looking for.

Speaker 44 But

Speaker 10 it gives us courage to know

Speaker 32 that they're together

Speaker 10 and they're in a better place.

Speaker 13 That was such a hard day to see Michael on the press conference barely holding it together. On the one hand,

Speaker 13 it's like finally you know something.

Speaker 13 But then there's all these other questions.

Speaker 11 How did that happen? How did they get there? And, you know, who did this?

Speaker 1 And something really terrible happened to them.

Speaker 4 San Bernardino Sheriff's investigators now have the grim task of figuring out how the Mixtays met their fate.

Speaker 4 As they're scraping away layer upon layer of those shallow graves, are you able to notice anything about what might have happened?

Speaker 7 So initially, when I was working on the grave

Speaker 7 where Joseph was recovered, we noticed obviously there was some type of blunt force trauma to his head, but he also had an extension cord that was tied around his neck and that was bound down to his lower extremities.

Speaker 7 There's obviously some malice or something that was involved with that.

Speaker 4 In the grave with Joseph McStey was his son Joey Jr.

Speaker 4 And in the second grave were Summer and Gianni but also a crucial piece of evidence.

Speaker 7 Ultimately, once the victims were removed from the grave, then we located a Stanley sledgehammer underneath the victims.

Speaker 4 Did that give you an indication that perhaps that was the murder weapon?

Speaker 7 Yeah, and initially looking at it, the size of the sledgehammer was consistent with the impact marks that were left on the victims.

Speaker 4 And even though it's been nearly four years, an incredible clue remains, seemingly formed by a heavy rainstorm and then baked in by the hot desert sun.

Speaker 7 There were sets of tire impressions that have backed up to where each grave were at.

Speaker 4 Did it seem to you that this was one car, two cars?

Speaker 7 Based on the size of the tire impressions, it seemed that it was one car that backed up.

Speaker 4 So at this point, you have four bodies. You now know it's the McStey family.
This must have just cracked this case wide open.

Speaker 4 So you now know what happened to them. You just don't know who did it to them.

Speaker 12 Correct.

Speaker 4 When the bodies were first discovered, some of our first thoughts were, this has to be a cartel hit. Like, who does this? Murders people and buries their bodies out in the middle of the desert.

Speaker 13 You think about what they possibly saw or feared. You think about

Speaker 13 as a mother wanting to protect those children.

Speaker 12 And it's heartbreaking.

Speaker 30 It really is.

Speaker 4 San Bernardino detectives begin to gather all the information they can can from San Diego investigators, but with no crime scene, no witnesses, they're basically starting from scratch.

Speaker 4 Who could have done this? And they begin by asking Joseph McStey's brother, Michael.

Speaker 10 They got pulled away from the house by somebody that was comfortable to them.

Speaker 7 So when we met with Michael and we talked with him, he believed that there were some people that we needed to look into. Charles Chase Merritt and Dan Kavanaugh.

Speaker 4 What could have led to this horrible crime? Can answers be found in angry messages sent to Joseph McStey that does sound like a threat, or perhaps impossible evidence of a romance gone bad?

Speaker 13 I found an email that said, I love you forever.

Speaker 14 Happy birthday, Summer, forever and ever.

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Speaker 1 Two of the bodies found here in the Victorville Desert are those of Joseph and Summer McStein.

Speaker 4 With this finality, Joseph's friends and surfer buddies, they hold a special memorial service on the water, something that surfers call a paddle out.

Speaker 4 This is something that they love to do, so we feel like this would be important.

Speaker 21 The paddle out was after they found him, and

Speaker 21 we finally could kind of have some closure. It was very touching.

Speaker 4 Question now, who killed Joseph and his family?

Speaker 4 Homicide investigators from San Bernardino start by touching base with the San Diego Sheriff's Department to get all the information that they have from the missing person's case.

Speaker 7 We met with them, we got the copies of their case files, but at that point it's our investigation, so we start from scratch.

Speaker 30 Could have been anybody.

Speaker 15 You had to really look at everything with

Speaker 15 an open eye.

Speaker 4 They want to talk to anyone who the San Diego investigators might have heard from that had any issue with Joseph McStey or his wife.

Speaker 13 So Vic Johansen was one of Summer's ex-boyfriends and they didn't have the best breakup.

Speaker 24 We know that at some time in the past, Vic Johansson pled no contest to making criminal threats to a neighbor.

Speaker 13 What bothered me was that I found an email from December of 2009 to Summer and it said, I love you forever.

Speaker 14 Happy birthday, Summer, forever and ever.

Speaker 15 It was just odd. And there was a question of, oh, is this guy, is he following them? Does he have an issue with the family? In the end, however, we were able to contact him.

Speaker 15 We were able to verify his whereabouts. And it excluded him from the list of suspects.

Speaker 4 And then there was Michael McFadden. He's a man who was married to Joseph's ex-wife and was the stepdad to his oldest son.

Speaker 4 Now, years before, he'd pleaded guilty to an assault on an ex-girlfriend, during which police reported that she had claimed that he'd said he was going to kill me.

Speaker 7 There were some issues between Michael McFadden and the McStays just over some stuff to do with the children.

Speaker 15 He was frustrated that he was being looked at as a suspect. However, he was very open with us and provided the records to say, hey, I wasn't in the area.

Speaker 4 So while those people are cleared, the investigators are also looking at McStay's business associates, looking for anything unusual there.

Speaker 15 We looked at Joseph's business, the Earth-inspired products.

Speaker 4 Dan Kavanaugh was the company webmaster and he was critical for driving internet business to the website.

Speaker 4 But over the past year, his once close relationship with Joseph, it had soured because he believed that Joseph McStey and Chase Merritt were cutting him out of money.

Speaker 19 Because he was doing other deals with this new guy. I had no idea.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt. Yeah.
What did you tell Joseph?

Speaker 19 I was like, what's up, bro? Like, what are you doing? Like, you owe money now, dude.

Speaker 4 So these are the text messages between Joseph and Dan Kavanaugh. Yes.
This is pretty testy.

Speaker 15 Yeah, absolutely. As you read the messages, you see that he's threatening to remove the site.
And that's Joseph's livelihood.

Speaker 4 Kavanaugh says it'll be about 30 days from today that your site is gone from the search engines. You treat me like a kid, like I'm dumb.

Speaker 4 Joseph responds, I, Summer and the kids, know the real you and what you would potentially do to harm me and my family.

Speaker 19 That was his answer. What does that mean to you? That just sounded like a fake answer to me.
And I didn't make any like threats. All I'm saying is that I can stop the marketing to the site.

Speaker 4 That does sound like a threat.

Speaker 19 Yeah, but that's like, that's all I could do at that point. And so make him take it seriously.

Speaker 4 Despite the animosity, McStey had been paying Kavanaugh, and Kavanaugh says their business relationship was still being resolved when Joseph and his family went missing.

Speaker 4 Kavanaugh says that after Joseph disappeared, he had to take charge of operations.

Speaker 19 You can't just not pay all the bills. The business goes under.

Speaker 4 Remember, Kavanaugh acknowledged to the police that he made several withdrawals of thousands of dollars from the company account.

Speaker 4 And while the family at first did have some questions about what was happening, Kavanaugh says ultimately he satisfied their concerns.

Speaker 19 Well, yeah, because there'd be no company anymore if I don't pay the costs associated, right? So then there's nothing.

Speaker 13 It made sense to me that they probably used Dan to keep the business going.

Speaker 4 But Gina Watson says what didn't quite make sense is what happened after the

Speaker 4 banana. But over a year later, Dan Kavanaugh sold the business.

Speaker 13 Everybody was really upset about that because they didn't feel he had a right to.

Speaker 4 Did you give part of the proceeds to the surviving McState family?

Speaker 19 No, they didn't create the business with us.

Speaker 15 These are questions that we had as we're investigating it because this is a problem, right? Is it a business deal gone bad or is it something more than that?

Speaker 4 But it wasn't like a huge blow-up, like you didn't talk to him anymore or anything like that. I mean, you guys still talked.
Yeah, you still talked every day.

Speaker 7 But when we interviewed Dan, Dan said that things were all good with them.

Speaker 19 I know that I sold a company and I don't see any laws broken. I own half that company and I have the legal right to sell that company if I want.

Speaker 15 He felt that Joseph owed him this money. He felt that he was entitled to it, which is why he took it.

Speaker 4 Not only that, but Kavanaugh is able to provide investigators with an alibi.

Speaker 15 And he is also able to tell us where he was when the family went missing and provide photographs of where he was, which was in Hawaii.

Speaker 19 I had taken my girlfriend with me at the time, and we were out there just surfing and hanging hanging out.

Speaker 4 Investigators are convinced that alibi clears Dan Kavanaugh as a suspect. But while investigators are talking with Kavanaugh, he's got a suggestion for them of someone who already is on their radar.

Speaker 4 The other main person in the business, Chase Merritt.

Speaker 19 Chase owed in like 30 Gs on these books around the time they disappeared. Okay.

Speaker 19 Interesting, huh? Yeah, very. Absolutely.
And then the dude's probably going to get kicked off the whole deal and then lose maybe hundreds of thousands in the future over many years.

Speaker 19 So that's a lot of motive to me.

Speaker 4 Are there still other secrets for investigators to uncover in this case?

Speaker 4 And what is it you see in this murky video from a security camera across the street from the McSte's home?

Speaker 4 Could it be the murderer caught on tape?

Speaker 4 So at this point you have four bodies. You now know it's the McStey family.

Speaker 24 Everything shifts. We have a quadruple murder investigation, unfathomable.

Speaker 29 Just a family of four completely murdered.

Speaker 36 It's like, ooh.

Speaker 4 So you now know what happened to them. You just don't know who did it to them.

Speaker 7 There were some people that we needed to look into, Chase Merritt and Dan Kavanaugh.

Speaker 40 They're missing a motive. Joseph and Chase literally adored each other.

Speaker 20 They twisted the truth into something that fit their narrative.

Speaker 4 You're writing checks to yourself and your boss's name the day he disappears off the face of the earth?

Speaker 40 It's a coincidence that they disappeared that day.

Speaker 24 The defense team tells that jury the killer has to be somebody else.

Speaker 4 They pointed the finger right at you.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 54 Like, I have a full detailed confession from Endo.

Speaker 4 Did you ever confess anything to her?

Speaker 55 No.

Speaker 19 That's a joke.

Speaker 13 It was just like, oh boy, what are they going to pull out of their back pocket?

Speaker 24 Now, jurors prepare to hear some mind-blowing evidence.

Speaker 4 Did you murder that family?

Speaker 4 Cadillac bike.

Speaker 4 What's up, Jay? First bike ride ever. Jay, come here.

Speaker 13 Who's ever heard of an entire family going missing?

Speaker 56 We begin with a California murder mystery.

Speaker 4 The family of four vanished from their Fallbrook home.

Speaker 11 The whole family.

Speaker 57 Husband, wife, and two children both disappeared.

Speaker 4 It's a years-long mystery, but there is a break in the case.

Speaker 4 It was out here in the Mojave Desert in California where this dirt biker going off-road makes that grim discovery. A human skull.

Speaker 4 And then the story... blew up.

Speaker 58 We begin with breaking news on a mystery.

Speaker 4 Detectives ultimately find the remains of the McStey family, and they're buried in two shallow graves here in the Mojave, about 100 miles away from their home.

Speaker 32 It's believed that the murder weapon was a sledgehammer because one was found in the grave site.

Speaker 4 This is pretty much the same kind of hammer. Yeah.

Speaker 15 It's really very uncommon for us to even find a murder weapon in most cases.

Speaker 4 And so many big questions follow, but the biggest one of them all, who killed that family?

Speaker 10 We're going to find this individual or individuals. I know that the sheriffs, the FBI, everybody wants to bring this to justice.

Speaker 4 My name is Randy Nock and I'm a...

Speaker 24 San Bernardino detectives are now on the hunt for a killer. And they're looking over old case files from former detectives trying to get clues.

Speaker 4 Investigators focus in on the two men who worked closely with Joseph McStey on the online water fountain business, including his business partner, Dan Kavanaugh.

Speaker 4 Kavanaugh had been involved in this ugly dispute with McStey, saying that McStey cut him out of some of the profits from the business.

Speaker 4 Dan Kavanaugh had sent angry messages to McStey, who responded, We know what you would potentially do to harm me and my family.

Speaker 15 This is a very contentious conversation. We need to look into this.

Speaker 4 Despite that apparent bad blood between the two, they remained in business together and McStey was paying Kavanaugh his share of those profits.

Speaker 4 And investigators determined that Kavanaugh had an alibi. He was in Hawaii at the time of the family's disappearance.

Speaker 19 Maybe by the grace of God I had decided to take a surf trip out there.

Speaker 4 So investigators clear Kavanaugh and turn their attention to the other men who worked closely with Joseph in the water fountain business.

Speaker 15 Chase Merritt, he gets involved with Joseph building these custom waterfalls, which were much bigger projects, the kind of fountains you see at restaurants and hotels that have to be custom built.

Speaker 48 Hi, welcome to your how-to video of installing your new water feature.

Speaker 4 This is Chase Merritt in a video on YouTube promoting the water fountain business.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt says he met Joseph at this Chick-fil-A before Joseph disappeared to discuss the business. Merritt even goes on TV to talk about that day.

Speaker 3 In your gut, what do you think think happened?

Speaker 25 I have absolutely no clue.

Speaker 32 The only real big interest we had in that was the parting shot he took.

Speaker 3 You were the last person he saw.

Speaker 51 I'm definitely the last person he saw.

Speaker 32 He doubles down and says, I was absolutely the last person to see him alive.

Speaker 15 It's definitely something that caught our interest.

Speaker 4 Now that this is a homicide investigation, San Bernardino detectives can also request warrants. And so they're able to dig into the business's finances.

Speaker 4 They say there's evidence that Merritt was deeply in debt to Joseph McSte,

Speaker 4 pointing to this email that Merritt had provided to the San Diego detectives.

Speaker 24 Investigators say it's essentially reminding Chase that he owes Joseph a shocking amount of money, $42,000. And this email was sent three days before the McSteys disappeared.

Speaker 32 The interesting thing is, is in an audit of Merritt's financials, he didn't have that $42,000.

Speaker 15 We found that he was just horrible with his personal finances.

Speaker 15 He had a gambling issue where he would go to casinos and spend a lot of money.

Speaker 20 Chase was terrible with money.

Speaker 1 We had a couple of boats for a while.

Speaker 20 We had jet skis.

Speaker 1 Like we had things we didn't need.

Speaker 4 Early on, investigators discovered Chase Merritt had a bit of a rap sheet. Turns out between 1977 and 2001, he had several arrests for burglary and petty theft.

Speaker 20 Chase has never been violent with me.

Speaker 20 I've never seen him be violent. He's

Speaker 20 not psychotic in the sense that I feel like you could take somebody's life for

Speaker 4 money. As detectives continue to review evidence from the original investigation, they say they make a major breakthrough when they take another look at the family's Isuzu trooper.

Speaker 15 The San Diego Sheriff's Department processed it for evidence.

Speaker 15 They collected the DNA swabs, like, okay, we have it. Where is it going to take us?

Speaker 24 It turns out that trace DNA found on the steering wheel on the gear shift belonged to Chase Merritt.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt told the initial investigators with San Diego that he never drove the family's trooper. Have you ever driven the white vehicle?

Speaker 4 But nearly a year after the bodies are found,

Speaker 4 San Bernardino detectives bring Merritt in for questioning, and they press him, and he changes his story.

Speaker 4 Now he says, Yeah, he once drove the trooper when he and Joseph went to play paintball before Joseph disappeared.

Speaker 59 Detective Tiff asked you if you'd ever drove

Speaker 33 the trooper,

Speaker 45 and you said no.

Speaker 59 Actually,

Speaker 59 that isn't what I said, because I remember the conversation.

Speaker 59 The last time I had driven the trooper was when we went paintballing, but it was 150 feet.

Speaker 4 The fact that his DNA is now recovered off of an area where the driver would have touched, that's a red flag for us.

Speaker 15 We believe he drove that down to the San Yucitro border.

Speaker 4 For detectives, signs are pointing to Chase Merritt. But later, if we talk in here,

Speaker 12 a woman comes forward.

Speaker 34 Well, I think you guys have the wrong man.

Speaker 4 Well, what she tells investigators convince them they've got the wrong man.

Speaker 54 Like, I have a full detailed confession.

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Speaker 17 It's going to get a little bumpy, okay?

Speaker 4 After the McStey family was found brutally murdered out here in the desert, the cops began zeroing in on Chase Merritt. And it turned turned out that he was very familiar with the Mojave Desert.

Speaker 17 He grew up around here.

Speaker 20 Chase grew up in Hesperia, California. It was, you know, pretty much the middle of nowhere.
I actually met Chase at a country western bar. You know, he can be off-putting, but he can also be charming.

Speaker 1 We share three children together.

Speaker 20 At least half of his family still live in the desert.

Speaker 4 The area where Chase Merritt grew up would prove pivotal to the investigation.

Speaker 4 That's because detectives find that two days after the McStays disappear, Merritt's cell phone pinged off of that cell phone tower, which happens to overlook where the bodies were buried.

Speaker 4 And this is near where he used to live.

Speaker 15 He's showing in the area where the graves are.

Speaker 4 That's a huge deal.

Speaker 7 His phone comes on and it hits off the tower here in Victorville. We later find the graves, you know, and we find the victims.

Speaker 4 Quite a coincidence.

Speaker 7 Pretty significant coincidence in our investigation.

Speaker 15 He also has family in the area, so is there a reason that he was here? You know, or is he here because he's burying bodies?

Speaker 4 So now detectives ask Chase Merritt pointed questions about why his phone is pinging off those towers overlooking the graves.

Speaker 46 Where'd you go, February 6th?

Speaker 34 don't remember.

Speaker 46 I don't remember. Why would your phone show you at the grave site on February 6th? Not possible.
I wasn't there.

Speaker 33 Why would your phone record show you there?

Speaker 5 Couldn't it?

Speaker 46 Oh, they do?

Speaker 55 They couldn't.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt repeatedly denies being near the grave site.

Speaker 46 It shows you out there, Chase. That's why I'm asking.
I'm trying to help us figure this all out.

Speaker 59 It's impossible.

Speaker 4 Were the records wrong?

Speaker 32 No, he pinged off those towers.

Speaker 46 Did you plan to put on and kill these people? Of course not.

Speaker 46 Of course not.

Speaker 33 There's no reason for me to hurt them.

Speaker 45 What were you doing in the desert then?

Speaker 33 If you're not, if that's not you at the desert center, what were you doing in the desert?

Speaker 59 If I was in the desert,

Speaker 45 there was two persons I would have met.

Speaker 59 Either my older sisters and our grand.

Speaker 45 or my brother.

Speaker 4 Chase Merrick talks with detectives for nearly seven hours, continuing to deny that he was ever near the grave site. And despite the evidence against him, he's ultimately allowed to leave, free to go.

Speaker 4 So why did you let him walk out of that interrogation room?

Speaker 15 Well, at that point, there's still a lot of unanswered questions.

Speaker 4 Could Merritt have been out there visiting his family in the desert? Investigators interview his sister, Juanita Merritt, to try to find out.

Speaker 4 And Chase Merritt's sister, Juanita, lives basically on the other side of that mountain?

Speaker 7 Yeah, she lives on the other side of the mountain out in a small little town area called Oro Grande. So during the interview she did not provide him any alibi.

Speaker 62 Chase at that time when he was with Joe never came up here.

Speaker 15 That's what I was going to ask. Can you remember it all?

Speaker 12 He didn't even hardly visit.

Speaker 58 I can remember one time he visited.

Speaker 15 About how long before

Speaker 62 five years I hadn't seen him.

Speaker 7 Since she was adamant that he wasn't out here at that time, that his brother lived out in Hisperia, but didn't have any indication that he would have been up here visiting.

Speaker 15 There was no explanation as to

Speaker 15 why he was there.

Speaker 4 At what point did you decide to move in and make the arrest?

Speaker 15 We believed we had enough to prove that he was the only person who had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit this crime.

Speaker 15 We presented it to the district attorney's office. They agreed.
Then we went and got the warrant to go arrest him.

Speaker 20 Chase felt like the police were eyeing him as a suspect. When he got arrested, it was kind of expected.

Speaker 4 He didn't resist.

Speaker 7 We walked him into sheriff's headquarters and placed him in a holding cell.

Speaker 4 The suspect is 57-year-old Charles Merritt. I was in front of the courthouse for the arraignment.
Chase Merritt is charged with four counts of murder.

Speaker 47 I don't need to tell you that this is a cold and callous murder of an entire family.

Speaker 4 We also heard from members of the McStey family and after three years the emotion is just pouring out. I said I wasn't gonna cry

Speaker 12 but

Speaker 7 you have no idea

Speaker 47 what this means.

Speaker 4 Merritt pleads not guilty to all four counts of murder, but it'll be more than four years before he has his day in court.

Speaker 63 The case finally getting to trial nine years after the McSay family disappeared.

Speaker 31 Now,

Speaker 24 jurors prepare to hear some mind-blowing evidence.

Speaker 56 Investigators also obtained a surveillance video.

Speaker 24 But will this evidence help them win their case?

Speaker 4 Why do you think this video is important?

Speaker 15 What do you think it shows?

Speaker 24 Or will it sink it?

Speaker 4 It's been nearly nine years since the McStays disappeared, and now a reckoning.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt is about to stand trial at this courthouse in San Bernardino in a case that has captivated the country and become a national mystery.

Speaker 4 When the trial starts,

Speaker 4 all of us in the media are finally saying, now we're going to get some answers.

Speaker 58 The family was brutally murdered. Today, opening statements start in San Bernardino from Merritt.

Speaker 4 How does this family of four disappear off the face of the earth?

Speaker 56 Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence in this case will show you not only the how, but the why, and especially the who.

Speaker 4 And the who is sitting here in court today, Charles Merritt.

Speaker 4 The prosecutor's theory of the case is that they believe Chase Merritt was being fired by Joseph McStey during what Merritt says was their final meeting together. Take me back to February 4th.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt, Joseph McStey meet at a Chick-fil-A not far from where we are right now. Allegedly.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 32 We developed the theory that if there was a meeting at all, it was a very quick firing.

Speaker 32 The cell phone records show that Joseph went back home.

Speaker 32 It's later that Merritt's phone goes off the network for about four and a half hours, and it's in the middle there where we believe Joseph and his family disappeared.

Speaker 4 Disappeared or were murdered?

Speaker 5 Murdered.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt's defense attorney says the claim that the murders happened inside the house, that's ludicrous.

Speaker 40 The method of death, according to the prosecution, was by sledgehammer. Blood would be strewn everywhere.
There was not one speck of blood found in the entire house.

Speaker 4 Is there actually any evidence that they were murdered in that home?

Speaker 32 No, unfortunately, there's no forensic evidence that...

Speaker 4 Like zero, zero forensic evidence.

Speaker 32 Zero forensic evidence. And we never contended that we could prove that.

Speaker 4 Chase Merritt's attorney denies there was any animosity between Merritt and Joseph McSte.

Speaker 40 What motive would Chase have to kill Joseph? Joseph and Chase literally adored each other. They had gotten contracts worth millions of dollars.

Speaker 40 These two were going to the moon, and neither one of them could have done it without the other.

Speaker 4 Prosecutors, on the other hand, say there is a motive. The why boils down to greed

Speaker 4 and greed's child fraud. Authorities allege that Merritt had a gambling problem and that he lost money.

Speaker 4 So they say he wrote checks from the water fountain business to himself and then tried to cover his tracks.

Speaker 15 So these checks were on Joseph's business software. They were backdated to February 4th and then they were deleted from the system.

Speaker 15 And that's important because we realize that nobody knew the family was missing yet. So why would someone delete it, backdating it to the fourth?

Speaker 4 The defense maintains that Merritt had permission to write the checks, and they refute the claim that he had a gambling problem.

Speaker 40 He wrote checks to himself to buy materials. That was a common practice.
Checks were backdated routinely.

Speaker 4 Maline also says that there's an innocent explanation for that email that allegedly showed that Merritt was tens of thousands of dollars in debt to Joseph McStey.

Speaker 40 This was a running ledger. One month up, one month down.
One month up, one month down. It was not a dead.

Speaker 4 But you have to remember, they have some direct evidence as well. Chase Merritt's DNA is in that Isusu trooper.

Speaker 32 We get DNA results that place him in the driver's side of that vehicle.

Speaker 4 Prosecutors say it shows that Merritt was the one who drove the family's vehicle. to the Mexico border.
The defense has an answer for this, that it could have been transfer DNA.

Speaker 40 When I shake your hand and I go to touch a steering wheel, my DNA is going to be on the steering wheel.

Speaker 4 And during the cross-examination of the state's own DNA expert, he doesn't rule out that possibility.

Speaker 4 Would it be reasonable for you to conclude that this could be secondary transfer DNA in the vehicle? It is a possible explanation for that

Speaker 4 population. Is it a reasonable one?

Speaker 4 I believe it is reasonable, yes, sir.

Speaker 31 San Diego investigators also obtained a surveillance video from the neighbor across the street.

Speaker 4 In a key moment for the prosecution, they played this surveillance video for the jury that shows a vehicle leaving the McStays house the evening they went missing.

Speaker 15 As you start to analyze the video and you take a closer look at it, you can see with the naked eye that there's a low-hanging tailpipe.

Speaker 15 While the trooper did not have an exhaust pipe on the passenger side, the exhaust pipe was on the driver's side.

Speaker 4 Prosecutors contend the video, that actually shows Chase Merritt's truck, truck, and they argue that it places him at the scene of the crime. How do you actually know that's Merritt's vehicle?

Speaker 32 It had characteristics consistent with being Merritt's truck, including the shadows that are cast by the brake lights, the height, width, and placement of the headlights.

Speaker 4 But the centerpiece of the prosecution's case is when an FBI cell phone expert testifies that Merritt's phone was pinging in the area of the desert where the Mixtays were buried.

Speaker 64 The cell phone can give you, from an historical perspective, it can give you a general location of where somebody has been.

Speaker 40 I heard their expert testify that I can't place Chase's phone near the grave site. He's in the general area.
It's the best he could do. That doesn't sound like certainty to me.

Speaker 32 Our expert never claimed to have been able to what's called geolocate the user of a device based on the technology and data that was available from 2010 records.

Speaker 32 All we know is that his phone pinged on the 6th on a tower that overlooked the grave site.

Speaker 4 Remember, Merritt says he could have been at his sister Juanita's house when his phone pinged in the desert. But she originally told detectives that she hadn't seen him in five years.

Speaker 2 He didn't even hardly visit.

Speaker 62 So, I mean,

Speaker 62 five years, I hadn't seen him.

Speaker 4 And when they call Juanita Merritt in to testify, prosecutors are in for an unpleasant surprise.

Speaker 66 How often do you think that you would see your brother around that time frame?

Speaker 24 I saw him quite often.

Speaker 1 Do you remember telling the detective that you hadn't seen him probably for about five years?

Speaker 17 No.

Speaker 4 Juanita changes her story on the standing.

Speaker 32 She claimed that he had been up there, but her memory was really fuzzy because she had had surgery and was heavily medicated.

Speaker 4 Was that harmful to the case?

Speaker 32 We had her prior statement.

Speaker 15 The interview that Juanina and I had was all recorded and that was able to kind of disprove her assertion.

Speaker 4 After nearly nine weeks, the state rests and the prosecution leaves the jury with one parting shot. That clip of Chase Merritt's TV interview.

Speaker 51 I'm definitely the last person you saw.

Speaker 32 We ended with that because it is the most poignant statement to emphasize to the jury, even he believes he was the last person to see him alive.

Speaker 4 Now it's the defense's turn.

Speaker 9 Let's do it.

Speaker 4 And they try to flip the case on its head by saying, not only do the cops have the wrong guy, they point the finger at the person they allege is the real culprit.

Speaker 13 It was just like, oh boy, what are they going to pull out of their back pocket?

Speaker 16 Two months into the murder trial of Charles Chase Merritt, the defense now gets to present its case to the jury.

Speaker 56 When we see the McStey family, we see, you know, victims. We do.
And we want justice for them as well.

Speaker 4 As the defense begins, it has one clear message for the jury. The prosecution has got the wrong man.

Speaker 6 And that's what this whole investigation is. We want Chase Merritt.
So let's just... Do gymnastics with logic and figure out how do we build a case against them.

Speaker 4 Did you ever believe that Chase Merritt was guilty?

Speaker 40 Not for a second. Not for a second.
Not for a second.

Speaker 4 Never had a moment of doubt.

Speaker 40 Never. I don't know who did it, but certainly the evidence points to other people

Speaker 40 other than Chase.

Speaker 24 That evidence that the defense has is actually DNA recovered from the burial site.

Speaker 40 In our investigation, we were able to get three DNA profiles from the material that tied up Joseph and from the bra of Summer next day.

Speaker 4 The defense was making the argument that the DNA evidence that they had collected from the grave site did not match Chase Merritt, that in fact it matched someone else.

Speaker 56 Apparently, Chase killed this family, buried them, and put someone else's DNA on everything and not his own.

Speaker 32 There was no DNA of other individuals found at those.

Speaker 4 Whose DNA was found at the gravesite?

Speaker 32 Nobody's. It's just a total misrepresentation of what the science is.

Speaker 4 Prosecutors claim there wasn't enough DNA for a full scientifically valid profile that would either allow testing that would exclude Chase Merritt or lead to anyone else. But the defense disagrees.

Speaker 4 They claim the authorities just didn't look at other suspects seriously enough.

Speaker 68 They failed to look at Dan Kavanaugh.

Speaker 4 And in particular, the other person in business with Joseph McStey.

Speaker 19 I mean, he had nothing else to defend the guy with. There is a pile of evidence that he did it.
So then the defense is like, well, this other guy did it, though.

Speaker 4 But the defense claims there is plenty of evidence against Dan Kavanaugh, starting with a shocking new allegation raised by a woman named Tracy Ricobene, who, accompanied by her dog, came forward to authorities.

Speaker 4 So who is Tracy Ricobene?

Speaker 19 That was just a friend that I met from another friend, literally a platonic friend.

Speaker 4 Prosecutors say that Ricobani had contacted them after the trial was already underway, claiming that Kavanaugh had confessed to her about the murders.

Speaker 36 When did that full confession come out?

Speaker 54 Maybe two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

Speaker 4 But investigators say what sounded like it could have been significant.

Speaker 54 Like, I have a full detailed confession from him.

Speaker 7 If you want to know exactly how he did it, turned out not to be.

Speaker 15 None of the things she said caused Kavanaugh's alibi to come into question. We knew Kavanaugh was in Hawaii.

Speaker 4 Did you ever confess anything to her? No.

Speaker 19 That's a joke.

Speaker 4 But the defense is still willing to go for a Hail Mary in court.

Speaker 57 And then lo and behold, October of 2018,

Speaker 24 Tracy Rico Benny gives a statement.

Speaker 4 And what she says is Dan Kavanaugh confessed to her that he killed the McStey family.

Speaker 4 Even though the defense tells the jury about Tracy Ricobene, they ultimately decide not to introduce her police interview tape into evidence or even to call her to testify.

Speaker 4 Now, the judge also strictly limits what allegations the defense can raise against Dan Kavanaugh, who is neither accused nor on trial.

Speaker 24 Remember those threatening messages that Dan Kavanaugh sent to Joseph McStey?

Speaker 34 Not allowed.

Speaker 24 But the jury can hear about the financial transactions that Kavanaugh made after the family went missing.

Speaker 68 Dan Kavanaugh, despite having a relationship with Joseph for many years,

Speaker 68 had never gone into his account and taken money himself.

Speaker 4 The defense wants the jury to believe this is evidence of financial motive for Kavanaugh to kill McStey.

Speaker 43 Do you know what the total amount that Dan Kavanaugh took in?

Speaker 4 In total, the income was $206,000.

Speaker 4 That money includes the almost $7,000 Kavanaugh transferred out of the company's PayPal account that he said he needed to keep the business going, as well as his proceeds from selling the company a year and a half after Joseph went missing.

Speaker 40 And that money went into Kavanaugh's account.

Speaker 9 That's correct.

Speaker 68 The only way he would do that is he knew Joseph wasn't coming back.

Speaker 19 He sold Earth-inspired products.

Speaker 64 He sold it and got the money.

Speaker 32 There is no evidence, no credible, reliable, corroborated evidence to justify pointing the finger at Dan Kavanaugh.

Speaker 4 The prosecution dismisses the defense's financial arguments and in fact its entire effort to blame Dan Kavanaugh because he had that alibi.

Speaker 32 The problem with attempting to say that Dan Kavanaugh was the killer was that we had very concrete proof that Dan Kavanaugh was nowhere near San Diego at the time of the disappearance.

Speaker 32 Dan Kavanaugh was actually in Hawaii when they disappeared.

Speaker 4 But at trial, the defense challenges Kavanaugh's alibi. They claim there's no definitive proof of a trip.

Speaker 40 The best they were able to do is present a plane ticket that he purchased. Doesn't mean he flew.
It means he purchased. Show me that he got on a plane.

Speaker 40 Where?

Speaker 32 They got a verbal confirmation that that ticket was used.

Speaker 4 To further counter the defense's claim, prosecutors call a rebuttal witness, Kavanaugh's girlfriend at that time, Laura Knowles.

Speaker 65 At any point during that relationship,

Speaker 65 Mr. Kavanaugh traveled

Speaker 17 your public leave returned.

Speaker 64 February, middle of February.

Speaker 32 His girlfriend was with him and posting pictures of all of them from Hawaii on her Facebook page.

Speaker 4 But the defense offers something else for the jury to consider.

Speaker 4 They claim Chase Merritt has an alibi of his own.

Speaker 40 According to the prosecution, the family was dead before 8 p.m.

Speaker 40 How could he call Chase at 8.28 p.m.? Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4 So far, the defense is trying to show someone else could have conceivably killed the McStave family.

Speaker 4 But now they try to show Chase Merritt could absolutely not have done it.

Speaker 17 At some point, did he, did Chase come home?

Speaker 62 Yes.

Speaker 4 By arguing, as Chase Merritt's former girlfriend, Kathy Jarvis, testifies, that he was at home the night of the murder.

Speaker 17 Now, was there a phone call that Chase received in the evening hours? Yes. And do you know who the call was from?

Speaker 17 Yes. Who? Jason.

Speaker 24 This is an absolutely critical moment in the trial because Jarvis is testifying that Chase got a phone call from Joseph McSte just as prosecutors say Joseph McSte is being murdered.

Speaker 40 According to the prosecution, the family was dead before 8 p.m. How could he call Chase at 8.28 p.m.?

Speaker 40 Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 20 It became a very emotional

Speaker 20 recollection. What if you were the one he was reaching out to to save him and you didn't answer the phone, you know?

Speaker 4 But prosecutors don't buy it. They maintain Chase Merritt called himself

Speaker 4 using Joseph McStey's phone.

Speaker 32 The nefarious explanation is he attempted to create an alibi by doing that.

Speaker 20 They're making it seem like because I love him so much, I'm going going to lie for him.

Speaker 20 I told the truth, and they twisted the truth into something that fit their narrative.

Speaker 4 The defense continuously attacks the prosecution, and in perhaps the most contentious moment of the case, they accuse prosecutor Britt Imes of withholding evidence they allege he knew could help clear merit.

Speaker 17 Thanks, Paul, Dr. Dennis McGruden.

Speaker 24 It had to do with this witness, Dr. Leonid Rudin, and he's one of the world's leading forensic video experts.

Speaker 24 Called by the defense to testify about that critical piece of evidence, the home surveillance footage of that truck.

Speaker 27 I'm not sure whose witness I am at this point, but at some point I was a prosecution witness.

Speaker 4 Now, remember, prosecutors contend that was Chase Merritt's truck. And originally, they were going to call Dr.
Rudin to support that until he changed his mind.

Speaker 6 They're cherry-picking their evidence.

Speaker 4 So now, outside the presence of the jury, the defense tries to convince the judge the prosecution did not turn over Dr. Rudin's key findings.

Speaker 7 We are requesting it to not go all the articles.

Speaker 32 I relayed the general understanding of what I had. The defense had it.

Speaker 32 They communicated with the witness. It really was, we want our case dismissed, is what they wanted.

Speaker 4 But after the whole thing is over, the judge makes his ruling and he sides with the prosecution.

Speaker 17 There was no suppression of evidence and no

Speaker 17 prejudice.

Speaker 32 So it baffled my mind that they would stoop to that level to accuse me of misconduct.

Speaker 4 But the jury, they're unaware of all of this.

Speaker 4 And Dr. Rudin is now testifying, but for the defense.
And what he says is one of the biggest moments for the defense. He can't conclude that the truck in the video matches Chase Merritt's truck.

Speaker 17 Based on the data I have and all the methods that I have available to me now, I render a rejection.

Speaker 40 We clearly were able to show Chase's truck was excluded.

Speaker 24 So, it's on to closing arguments.

Speaker 28 A dramatic open to closing arguments in the murder trial of Charles Merritt.

Speaker 9 It was blown

Speaker 4 after blown

Speaker 9 after blown to a child's skull, a three-year-old and a four-year-old.

Speaker 24 Where the prosecution insists there's no question Merritt's guilty. But the defense says there is so much reasonable doubt the jury must acquit.

Speaker 31 So when you return a verdict of not guilty, you sleep at night going, yeah,

Speaker 30 they got the wrong guy.

Speaker 32 When that jury went out, it's still nerve-wracking.

Speaker 32 As seasoned prosecutors, you still

Speaker 15 get worried.

Speaker 4 Those deliberations drag on day after day.

Speaker 40 The longer you're in deliberations, the longer it is to think about the family, especially the two little kids. That can't be good.

Speaker 4 And then, after six long days, jurors finally agree.

Speaker 29 We, the jury, in the above entitled Action, find the defendant, Charles Ray Merritt, guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree.

Speaker 66 Merritt hung his head as he was found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder. There were audible gasps of no and thank God heard in the gallery.

Speaker 4 But that verdict isn't the end of Chase Merritt's story. When I talk to him, he tells me there's more the jury didn't hear.

Speaker 63 Lots of drama unfolding in the sentencing phase for a man who used a sledgehammer to kill a Falbrook family.

Speaker 4 Charles Merritt is facing the death penalty or life in prison. So the day has come.
It's time for sentencing. But the defense has one last-ditch effort up their sleeve.

Speaker 4 They file a motion for a new trial.

Speaker 4 Merritt's attorney, Raj Molin, comes forward with a bombshell claim, critical testimony that he says could have helped prove that Chase Merritt's innocence was not presented at trial.

Speaker 4 Well, we believe that Mr.

Speaker 26 Merritt should have a new trial, Your Honor, especially considering cell tower evidence. That would have had a tremendous impact on what the outcome would have been in this case.

Speaker 24 The cell tower evidence was really important to the prosecution's case, but Maline tells the court that the defense failed to call a key witness, an expert in cell tower analysis.

Speaker 4 And so that was evidence that

Speaker 4 should have been included.

Speaker 4 According to Maline, that expert would have testified that the prosecution's analysis of the phone records was seriously flawed. And he would have shown that Merritt was never at the grave site.

Speaker 24 Merritt was livid that he was never called to testify. He wanted the jury to hear that, and they didn't get to.

Speaker 4 Ultimately, it's a big loss for the defense. The judge shoots down the request for a new trial.

Speaker 4 And then comes the sentencing, where members of the McStave family give victim impact statements.

Speaker 67 You deserve to pay for what you did to Joey, Summer, Gianni, and Chubba. You deserve to suffer like my family and Summer's family has suffered.

Speaker 24 Chase Merritt decides he has some words.

Speaker 9 I love Joseph.

Speaker 57 He was

Speaker 2 a big part of my life.

Speaker 44 I would never have hurt him in any way.

Speaker 33 I would never raise my hand to a woman or child.

Speaker 9 I did not do this thing.

Speaker 4 The moment of truth is finally here as the judge imposes his sentence.

Speaker 49 It is therefore the judgment sense of this court that the defendant Charles Marin

Speaker 49 be sentenced to death.

Speaker 43 I personally am happy with the verdict. I think it was correct and fair.
He got a fair trial

Speaker 4 and the jury spoke.

Speaker 20 I think I felt really angry when they sentenced him

Speaker 20 to death. This is such a travesty.
It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4 Today, Chase Merritt is behind bars at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
He is 68 years old.

Speaker 12 Chase.

Speaker 44 Hi.

Speaker 4 Merritt tells us he's currently preparing what's known as a habeas petition to try to prove his innocence.

Speaker 4 In a video call from prison, he detailed the main points he says he plans to raise in his petition.

Speaker 35 Phone tower evidence, most definitely, is one of the biggest things. Prosecutor misconduct,

Speaker 35 abuse of discretion, judicial error, ineffective assistance of counsel.

Speaker 4 How important do you think was it that the defense decided not to put on your cell phone tower witness on the stand?

Speaker 35 I would almost have, almost certainly have been exonerated had he been on the stand. That's how important it was.

Speaker 4 Do you think that you got inadequate counsel?

Speaker 17 Most absolutely.

Speaker 35 Their ineffectiveness cannot be understated. If I were on that jury,

Speaker 35 I would have voted guilty.

Speaker 4 Did you murder that family?

Speaker 35 Didn't murder that family. I am innocent.

Speaker 35 And I will be out one day.

Speaker 4 And as for Dan Kavanaugh, he says the allegations leveled at him by the defense during Merritt's trial ruined his life, with people continuing to accuse him of being involved in the murders, even though authorities had fully cleared him.

Speaker 19 It's just too much stress and they're dragging your name through the dirt, mucking up your name. So that sucks.

Speaker 4 Kavanaugh says he retreated to the place he'd been when the McStays were killed, Hawaii. He says as part of the healing process, he started a new wellness venture.

Speaker 19 This opportunity is like a second lease on life. It's like a second chance at business.

Speaker 4 Despite the acrimony that developed between him and Joseph McStey, today Kavanaugh says he remembers the way it was when they were surf buddies.

Speaker 19 I mean I wish he was still around today and I wish he was able to go surf with me, chill, play guitar, hang out.

Speaker 21 I think Joey will be remembered just as that mellow guy.

Speaker 21 He's got his kids.

Speaker 21 He's got the beach.

Speaker 26 he's got a nice business, he was right where he needed to be.

Speaker 4 Out there in the Mojave Desert, a memorial still marks the place where the McSteys were found. And it's a reminder of all that has been lost, but their memories live on with the people who love them.

Speaker 11 I am grateful to know that we did find Summer and Joseph and the boys' bodies, and they

Speaker 11 did go as a family.

Speaker 31 Taking a cruise on the beach.

Speaker 11 And when I picture them, I picture them at the beach playing in the sand.

Speaker 17 I'm having so much fun.

Speaker 11 Joey's surfing, the sun is out, you know, they have their bicycles.

Speaker 12 That's what I think of when I remember them.

Speaker 4 We should point out the remains of the McStey family were buried in Orange County, California eight months after they were found.

Speaker 16 And although Chase Merritt was sentenced to death, there's currently no date scheduled for his execution. California has temporarily suspended the death penalty.
That's our program for tonight.

Speaker 16 Thanks for watching.

Speaker 7 I'm Deborah Roberts.

Speaker 4 And I'm David Muir from All of Us here at 2020 and ABC News.

Speaker 30 Good night.

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