Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / The Disappearance of the McStay Family - A Decade of Mystery and Betrayal

Transcript

The Disappearance of the McStay Family - A Decade of Mystery and Betrayal · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. So what we do here
• 0:03
  is take the source material you've given us, all the articles,
• 0:06
  trial notes, investigative reports, and really try to give you
• 0:09
  that comprehensive, structured analysis you're looking for. We cut through
• 0:13
  the noise basically.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're aiming to find the core insights, and today
• 0:19
  a heavy one. We're mapping out the whole story of
• 0:21
  the Mixday family, Joseph Summer and their two little boys,
• 0:24
  Gianni and Joey.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's that journey from what looked like a perfect life
• 0:28
  in Fullbrook, California, right the suburban dream, through this incredibly
• 0:31
  confusing investigation, the wrong turns taken there, and then landing
• 0:35
  on this just horrific discovery and finally a conviction really
• 0:40
  rooted in betrayal and.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Well greed exactly. And that initial conflict is key, you know,
• 0:46
  the baffling disappearance itself, no forced entry, no ransom note, nothing,
• 0:50
  The family seemingly vanishes, and for.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Years the official story leaned towards them crossing the border
• 0:55
  going to Mexico voluntarily, which.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Was then completely violently shattered years later when they were
• 1:01
  found murdered, buried way out in the Majave desert, like
• 1:04
  over one hundred miles away.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: That contrast is stark. It's what makes this case so haunting,
• 1:10
  and it's.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Critical for you, the listener, to grasp how that early
• 1:14
  investigation went off track, treating it as a voluntary disappearance
• 1:18
  based on well staged evidence near the border.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: The discovery the bodies wasn't just about finding them. It
• 1:24
  exposed a brutal homicide, sure, but it also really put
• 1:27
  a spotlight on those early investigative failures, failures that honestly,
• 1:31
  people are still scrutinizing today.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, so our analysis today it pulls from everything
• 1:36
  original investigation files, the trial transcripts, which are dense, very dense,
• 1:41
  and also some really recent stuff Caitlin Rothers' twenty twenty
• 1:43
  five book Down to the Bone, and that ABC twenty
• 1:46
  twenty special from twenty twenty five as well, and.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: These newer sources. They offer some critical perspectives on those
• 1:52
  early assumptions, things the jury might not have fully appreciated
• 1:55
  back then. It adds a lot of important context.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's start before before every Changed, Yeah, Section one,
• 2:02
  The American Dream and the Subtle strains Life before the Void.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Right, you have to set the scene, Fallbrook, California. This
• 2:10
  home they'd just bought and renovated. It was meant to
• 2:12
  be their sanctuary, you know, a symbol of their success.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Paid That picture just mixed ay. Early forties, tall guy,
• 2:19
  six foot two, charismatic, loved surfing. He ran his own business,
• 2:23
  Earth inspired products.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, custom decorative fountains, pretty high end stuff apparently residential commercial.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Clients, and the sources say the business was doing well,
• 2:32
  thriving actually, but it involved a lot of travel for
• 2:35
  Joseph overseeing projects personally. That travel factor becomes kind of
• 2:40
  important later in summer.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: She was forty three, sort of the heart of the family.
• 2:44
  It seems she was a licensed real estate agent, but
• 2:47
  mostly focused on being a mom to the boys.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Jenny was four, Joey just three.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, little guys, And like you said, money wasn't really
• 2:54
  an issue. They just bought this house, fix it up.
• 2:56
  October two thousand and nine.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: The details really emphasized that feeling of settling down, don't they.
• 3:02
  Citrus trees in the yard, a trampoline.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Over one hundred grand in the bank, no real debt.
• 3:06
  It makes the motive that eventually surfaces just pure greed
• 3:10
  feel so charring totally.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: They were putting down roots, not planning to bolt.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: But you know, even in that nice picture, there were complexities,
• 3:19
  ripples beneath the surface.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: As they say, like Summer's background.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Right, Summer wasn't born Summer Mixed Day. She was born
• 3:26
  Virginia Lisa Randa. She'd changed her name after wal some
• 3:30
  turbulent times. Had a brief first marriage too, to a
• 3:33
  guy named Martelli, and.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Family described her as really protective, maybe a bit.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Wary, fiercely protective, yeah, and wary of outsiders. Some sources
• 3:43
  even suggest that wariness extended specifically to Joseph's business partners.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Which might have been smart given the friction in the business.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Definitely, Joseph's company was growing, but he had this habit
• 3:53
  apparently of fronting cash or extending pretty generous credit to associates, and.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: By early twenty ten things were getting.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Tense, extremely tense based on the source material issues over money,
• 4:04
  unpaid loans. Joseph actually told his brother Michael that he
• 4:08
  thought one partner was like siphoning funds, embezzling.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Basically, he knew something was wrong.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the two key associates here were Michael Cavanaugh
• 4:19
  and the name that becomes central, Charles Chase Merritt.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: These were the guys Joseph worked closely.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: With, and the tension over money, specifically how that alleged
• 4:28
  embezzlement was happening, that forms the absolute core of the
• 4:32
  prosecution's case. Later on, Joseph wanted to cut ties.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Investigators believe that decision cost him his life.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: That's the theory. But it's also worth remembering the initial
• 4:41
  investigation looked elsewhere too, right.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. The other potential threat Summer had been getting
• 4:46
  some unsettling emails.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: From a local ex boyfriend described as having a history
• 4:51
  of volatility.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: So when the family first disappeared, that provided another avenue
• 4:55
  for investigators, another suspect pool. It definitely complicated things for
• 5:00
  the San Diego Sheriff's Department early on.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's move to the timeline section two, the
• 5:05
  timeline of absence and that whole Mexican misdirection.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: February fourth, twenty ten, the last day things.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Were normal and the activities documented are just painfully ordinary.
• 5:15
  Joseph had business meetings. He texted Summer around noon about
• 5:19
  dinner plans. Summer handled a real estate call.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: There is that one detail though Summer left a voicemail
• 5:26
  canceling a trip she was supposed to visit her sister
• 5:28
  that weekend, right.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Why cancel a family visit if you're about to flee
• 5:31
  the country. It's a point the family jumped on immediately
• 5:34
  when the police suggested they'd left voluntarily. It just didn't
• 5:37
  add up.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: So the actual vanishing point seems to.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Be that evening seven four to seven pm, a neighbor's
• 5:42
  security camera catches something grainy image, low angle, just the
• 5:47
  undercarriage of a vehicle pulling away from the mixed stay house,
• 5:50
  believed to be their white Asuzu trooper.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: But crucially you couldn't see who was inside.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Nope, mass of blind spot right there. Then a bit later,
• 5:57
  eight two eight pm that critical did footprint, Joseph's cell
• 6:02
  phone calls Chase Merritt, He's a voicemail unanswered, yep, The
• 6:05
  phone pings a local tower in Fullbrook, and then silence.
• 6:10
  Joseph's phone goes completely dark after that call. No more
• 6:13
  activity ever.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: So that window roughly seven point four seven to eight
• 6:18
  two eight pm, that's when investigators think it all went down,
• 6:22
  the confrontation maybe, or at least the start of whatever.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Happened, and the scene inside the house discovered nine days
• 6:28
  later by Joseph's brother Michael. It was just eerie.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Michael had to climb through an unlocked window, right yeah.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And he finds the dogs, Tucker and Bentley, unattended, barking
• 6:38
  like crazy, clearly dehydrated, awful. And then there's like two
• 6:42
  bowls of popcorn on the sofa, dishes in the sink,
• 6:46
  a carton of eggs left out on the counter.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: It looked like they just stepped out.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: That's exactly how the deputies initially saw it, a hasty departure,
• 6:53
  and that right there was the first big misstep. No
• 6:57
  obvious signs of struggle meant they didn't initially treat it
• 6:59
  as foul play, which paved.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The way for that whole voluntary flight theory, the theory
• 7:03
  that haunted the family for years.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Especially because just days earlier, February eighth, the trooper turns
• 7:09
  up abandoned in a.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Coole's parking lot in Sandy Sidro, sixty miles south right
• 7:14
  near the Tijuana border crossing.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And the details of the car just screamed staged keys
• 7:20
  in the ignition IDs Jaseph Swallett left inside.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It was all designed to look like they made a
• 7:26
  run for the border.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And investigators found those computer searches at home too. Remember
• 7:31
  what documents do children need for traveling to Mexico? Spanish lessons?
• 7:36
  It all seemed to fit that.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Narrative, even though Joseph's passport was still in the house
• 7:41
  and Summers was.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Expired right glaring inconsistencies. But the San Diego Sheriff's Department,
• 7:47
  they really latched onto the voluntary disappearance idea. The family
• 7:51
  pushed back hard, saying, look, they would never leave their dogs,
• 7:53
  never leave their money, never just vanish without a word.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: But the authorities seemed convinced.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: And the thing that really cement it for them for
• 8:00
  a long time anyway, was that border video.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: I asked the grainy footage.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Released March fifth from the Sandy Caedra pedestrian Gate dated
• 8:08
  February eighth, seven, two five pm. It shows four people
• 8:12
  figures that kind of looked like the mix days walking
• 8:15
  calmly into.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Tijuana vaguely looked like them.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Very vaguely. But that footage basically put the investigation on
• 8:21
  ice for months, inner Pol got involved. The FBI eventually
• 8:25
  took over in April twenty ten, but the focus remained.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: South and all this time that one hundred thousand dollars
• 8:31
  plus in their bank accounts untouched after February.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Fourth, which is maybe the biggest piece of evidence against
• 8:37
  a voluntary flight, isn't it. People fleeing with toddlers usually need.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Cash fast, you'd say so.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: But the commitment to that initial theory was so strong
• 8:46
  it literally took finding the bodies years later to force
• 8:50
  a change in direction and that initial misclassification. While Kaitlin
• 8:54
  Rothers book really digs into that as a major major
• 8:56
  flaw in the early handling of the case.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's get to that hurrific turning point, section three,
• 9:01
  the cold case horror in the discovery.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Right, So for almost four years, the mixed days are
• 9:05
  just gone missing. The case is cold, stuck in that
• 9:09
  voluntary flight limbo until November eleventh, twenty thirteen.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And the location shift is dramatic. We're not near the
• 9:14
  border anymore.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Even close. We're over one hundred miles northeast of Fallbrook
• 9:18
  Visterville area, Mohave Desert, pretty desolate place.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: In an off road motorcyclist Nick pew He spot something.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just riding through the desert sees a child's skull
• 9:28
  partially uncovered eroding out of the sand. Immediately triggers a
• 9:33
  massive search by San Bernardino County deputies. And what they find.
• 9:37
  It's not just scattered remains, it's two shallow graves doug hastily.
• 9:42
  It looked like about two hundred and fifty yards apart.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Two separate graves.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: That's chilling, very suggests maybe a rushed burial, perhaps panic,
• 9:50
  and the contents of the graves incredibly disturbing. Grave one
• 9:54
  had Joseph and little Joey, the three year old wrapped
• 9:57
  in blanket.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Oh god.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Grave two held Summer and Jianni, the four year old,
• 10:01
  and right there in the grave with them lying next
• 10:04
  to their remains. The murder weapon a three pounds sledgehammer.
• 10:08
  It buried the weapon with them with Summer in JIHAMI specifically,
• 10:11
  yeah wow. The autopsis confirmed it quickly. Cause of death
• 10:13
  were all four massive blunt force trauma skulls crushed. It
• 10:17
  was brutal, intimate, not a quick, distant crime.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Joseph skull shattered, Summer's jaw fractured the boys. It's just unthinkable. Violence.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Identification via DNA was fast by November thirteenth, and boom,
• 10:32
  the case flips entirely for.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Missing persons stuck in Limbo to a four count homicide overnight.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: And there's that weird detail. The source material mentions the
• 10:42
  PVC pipes found near the graves.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Right, What was that about?
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Well, it's sometimes linked to decomposition. The idea is you
• 10:49
  bury short pipes near a body to vent gases, mask
• 10:52
  the smell, maybe speed things up. The fact the graves
• 10:55
  were shallow and pipes were just left suggests the killer
• 10:58
  maybe knew some basic can sealment stuff or maybe just
• 11:01
  gave up halfway through. It's unclear, but it.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Suggests some level of planning maybe, or.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: At least knowledge possibly. But the sheer savagery, the sledgehammer,
• 11:10
  it points more towards you know, rage, personal intimate, not
• 11:15
  a professional hit or anything like that.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So the focus snapped right back to Joseph's.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Inner circle, absolutely, back to the financial tensions, back to
• 11:22
  the last person Joseph called before his phone went dead.
• 11:25
  The location, the timing, the method. It completely blew up
• 11:28
  the Mexico theory and gave investigators the physical evidence they
• 11:31
  needed to zero in on Chase Merit, and.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It forced a jurisdictional shift too right, San Diego Shriffes
• 11:36
  had to hand everything over to San Bernardino.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: County, which really underscored how badly the initial phase had
• 11:41
  been handled. A complete reset based on the grim reality
• 11:45
  found in the Desert.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Okay section four, connecting the dots to the accused, Chase Merit.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: So with the bodies found and cause of death established,
• 11:54
  all eyes turned to Charles Chase Merrit, Joseph's business associate,
• 11:59
  the last guy.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Joe, and Merritt wasn't exactly squeaky clean was he.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Far from it. He had a criminal record felony convictions
• 12:07
  for burglary, receiving stolen property, not exactly a model business partner.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: And the motive, according to prosecutors, was just cold hard cash, pretty.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Much greed, tied directly to Joseph's business and frankly Joseph's generosity.
• 12:22
  The argument was that Merit owed Joseph a lot of money,
• 12:25
  over forty two thousand dollars.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: How did he run up that kind of debt?
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Allegedly by submitting fake invoices, billing Earth inspired products for
• 12:33
  work he hadn't done, or inflating the costs, basically skimming
• 12:37
  from his friend and business.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Partner, and Joseph was on to him, planning to cut
• 12:41
  him off.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: That's what the prosecution argued. Joseph knew about the debt,
• 12:45
  suspected the embezzlement, and was planning to confront Merit and
• 12:48
  end the business relationship. That planned confrontation, combined with Merritt's
• 12:53
  history and apparent desperation for money he was known to gamble, created.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: This perfect storm trigger potentially the.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Trigger and the evidence trail after the family disappeared. It
• 13:03
  was incredibly damning for Merit. This is where the circumstantial
• 13:07
  case really gets strong.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: The checks, the checks.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: After February fourth, someone started cashing checks from Joseph's business account,
• 13:14
  totally over twenty one thousand dollars. The checks looked like
• 13:17
  Joseph signed them, but he couldn't have exactly handwriting experts
• 13:21
  confirmed they were signed after Joseph was already dead forgeries,
• 13:25
  and Merritt used that money almost immediately for casino trips,
• 13:28
  lost about ten grand gambling right after the family vanished.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, so not just stealing, but actively trying to maintain
• 13:35
  the fiction that Joseph was still alive and handling his.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Finances precisely It fits perfectly with the staging of the
• 13:42
  car near the border by yourself time make it look
• 13:45
  like Joseph is still around while you deal with other
• 13:49
  things like burying bodies.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And then there's the cell phone data that was huge.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: Right, absolutely critical. Now you have to remember twenty ten
• 13:55
  cell tower tech wasn't like today's GPS. It's less precise.
• 14:00
  But investigators showed a pattern of movement from Merrit's phon
• 14:03
  that was just impossible to explain away innocently.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: What did it show.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: It showed his phone pinging towers near the Mixed Day
• 14:10
  home in Fallbrook around the time of Joseph's last call
• 14:13
  on February fourth. Okay, maybe explainable.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: But then the desert pings.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: The desert pings on February fifth and sixth, the days
• 14:21
  immediately following the disappearance, Merritt's phone connects to cell towers
• 14:25
  way out near those remote grave sites in the Mohai Desert.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Where the bodies were eventually found.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly, this is a guy who lived hours away in
• 14:31
  Rancho Cucamonga. What was he doing out there in that
• 14:34
  specific desolate spot right after the family vanished? The prosecution
• 14:39
  argued he drove out there to dig those graves. Premeditation
• 14:43
  or at least immediate disposal.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: That's powerful, circumstantial evidence.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: They and then they linked him physically to the staging
• 14:49
  of the disappearance too. Merritt's DNA was found on the
• 14:53
  gearshift and the steering wheel of the Asuzu trooper abandoned
• 14:56
  near the border, So the theory.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Was he kills the family, drives their car south to
• 15:01
  Sandy Sidro to create the Mexico illusion, then drives way
• 15:05
  northeast to the desert to bury them, and then starts
• 15:08
  cashing the forged checks.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: That was the prosecution's timeline. It explained the DNA in
• 15:13
  the car, the desert phone pings, the financial fraud, and
• 15:17
  the border staging were their behavioral clues to a few things.
• 15:21
  During an early interview back on February nineteenth, before the
• 15:24
  bodies were found, Merritt apparently referred to Joseph in the
• 15:27
  past tense said something like Joe was my best friend.
• 15:30
  A slip of the tongue maybe, but investigators noted it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And his alibi for the night of the fourth wasn't
• 15:36
  great either.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: He initially claimed he was at a movie when Joseph
• 15:39
  called him that last time it didn't seem particularly solid.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: So you put it all together, the motive, the financial desperation,
• 15:46
  the forged checks, the DNA in the car, the phone
• 15:49
  pinging near the graves.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: It built a pretty compelling, albeit circumstantial case, enough that
• 15:54
  on November five, twenty fourteen, almost five years after the
• 15:57
  mix days vanished, Chase Merritt was a recto at his home.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: He denied it right away, didn't.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: He immediately protested his innocence. I did not do this,
• 16:06
  but the weight of the evidence led to four counts
• 16:09
  of first degree murder, which.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Brings us to Section five. The trial, the conviction, and
• 16:14
  those lingering questions that still.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Remain, and getting to trial was its own saga. It
• 16:19
  took years. Merit went through what five different lawyers, Yeah.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And even try to represent himself for a bit, claiming
• 16:24
  he had some terminal illness which turned out not to
• 16:27
  be true.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Lots of delays, immense delays. The trial finally kicked off
• 16:31
  January seventh, twenty nineteen, in San Bernardino, and it was
• 16:35
  long four months.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: So the prosecution, led by Jamie Cusans, they had this
• 16:40
  circumstantial case, a circumstantial fortress. Some called it right.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: They knew they didn't have a smoking gun in the
• 16:46
  traditional sense, no eyewittans to the murders, no bloody crime
• 16:50
  scene found in the house. They had to weave together
• 16:52
  all those threads of evidence.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Let's break down those main pillars again, because they're key.
• 16:57
  The cell phone data.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Mapping in painstaking detail, showing that route Fallbrook, then out
• 17:03
  to the remote desert on the fifth and sixth, then
• 17:05
  back towards the casinos. They hammered home how illogical that
• 17:09
  desert location was for Merrit unless he was there for
• 17:12
  a specific nefarious reason, and.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: The defense couldn't really offer a good alternative explanation.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: For those pinks, not a convincing one. No. Then Pillar two.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: The money, the forty two thousand dollars dead, the fake invoices,
• 17:26
  the forged checks cashed right after the murders. Forensic accountants
• 17:31
  laid it all out, motive clear as day.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Pillar three the DNA and the trooper linking Merrit directly
• 17:37
  to the staging of the vehicle at the border.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And Pillar four the murder weapon, that three pound sledge
• 17:43
  hammer found in the grave with Summer and Johnny, the
• 17:45
  sheer brutality of.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: It, and legally This was crucial for first degree murder,
• 17:48
  especially with special circumstances like multiple victims and child victims.
• 17:52
  They needed to show premeditation or maybe lying in wait.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: How do they argue that.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: They argued Joseph's plan to confront Merit about the money.
• 18:00
  Merit knowing this was coming, combined with that seemingly planned
• 18:04
  trip out to the desert to dispose of the bodies,
• 18:06
  that showed intent. The burial itself showed concealment, hitting those
• 18:11
  special circumstance requirements for the death penalty phase.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: But the defense, under Rajah Mlane, they pushed back hard,
• 18:18
  said it was all speculation.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: They did. Their main angle was attacking the gaps, the
• 18:23
  biggest one. No Merit DNA on the sledgehammer itself.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That's significant, right, if you wielded it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: You'd expect something maybe. And also no blood evidence found
• 18:33
  in the Mixtay home that tied Merit to a cleanup.
• 18:36
  If the murders happened inside the house, as the prosecution implied,
• 18:39
  where was the forensic evidence of that violent struggle.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: So the defense suggested maybe the murders happened elsewhere.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Outside the home exactly, which would mess with the prosecution's
• 18:49
  timeline and theory of the confrontation happening there. They also
• 18:52
  tried to point fingers again at the other business associate,
• 18:55
  Michael Kavanaugh, but he had that solid alibi, ironclad he
• 18:59
  was verifiably in Hawaii. They also attacked the border video
• 19:02
  again arguing you couldn't definitively id the people in that
• 19:06
  Greeny footage, trying to undermine the whole staging narrative.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: It sounds like they raised some valid points about reasonable doubt.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: They certainly tried, but in the end, the sheer volume
• 19:15
  and consistency of the circumstantial evidence, the phone pays, the
• 19:19
  money trail, the DNA in the car, it was just
• 19:21
  too much for the jury to ignore. How long did
• 19:23
  the jury deliberate ten days, which is a long time,
• 19:26
  suggesting they really wrestled with it. But on June tenth,
• 19:29
  twenty nineteen, they came back guilty all four counts of
• 19:33
  first degree murder, with all the special circumstances found.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: True, and the sentencing followed.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: January twenty one, twenty twenty very emotional day in court.
• 19:42
  Merritt got life in prison without parole for Joseph's murder
• 19:45
  and for summer Gianni and Joey the death sentence.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: The California has that moratorium on executions.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Correct since twenty nineteen. So Merrit, who's now sixty two,
• 19:54
  is on death row at Richard J. Don Of in
• 19:56
  correctional facility, but likely won't ever face execution, and he
• 20:00
  still insists he's innocent.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Which leads us to those lingering questions because even with
• 20:04
  the conviction, doubts persist, don't they They do?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: And recent media like that ID DOCU series two Shallow
• 20:11
  Graves from twenty twenty two, they interviewed Merit in prison.
• 20:14
  The show really questioned how reliable that twenty ten cell
• 20:18
  tower data actually was. They argued, look, without blood in
• 20:21
  the house or DNA on the hammer, are these location
• 20:24
  pings really enough?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: And they brought up the ex boyfriend again, suggesting maybe
• 20:28
  that lead wasn't fully explored.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, revisiting some of those early potential suspects. And then
• 20:33
  Caitlin Rothers' twenty twenty five book Down to the Bone,
• 20:36
  She's maybe the most critical of the investigation.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: What's her main argument?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: After reviewing tons of exhibits, she argues the San Diego
• 20:43
  Sheriff's initial failures dismissing tips. Being fixated on the voluntary
• 20:47
  flight theory caused huge problems, contaminated the scene, lost valuable time.
• 20:51
  She uses the term tunnel vision regarding merit.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And raises that practical question, the big one.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: How does one guy manage to subdue to adults control
• 21:00
  two small children, drive their car sixty miles south to
• 21:04
  stage it, then drive himself and four bodies over one
• 21:07
  hundred miles northeast to the desert, dig graves and bury
• 21:11
  them all, apparently without anyone noticing. It seems logistically challenging
• 21:16
  to say the least, do.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: He have help? That question hangs the air.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: It does, and that twenty twenty special highlighted another disturbing detail,
• 21:23
  the sledgehammer being buried specifically with Summer and Jianni, not
• 21:27
  Joseph and Joey.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Why I mean, what could that mean?
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Well? Speculation, obviously, but some analysts suggested it might point
• 21:34
  to a more specific, maybe even ritualistic rage directed at
• 21:37
  Summer and her son, Perhaps something beyond just the financial
• 21:40
  dispute with Joseph, a deeper personal hatred. Maybe it complicates
• 21:45
  the simple greed motive.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: So all the conviction points to merit and money. The
• 21:49
  sheer brutality in some of these details hint at something, yeah,
• 21:53
  more or maybe just a level of rage that's hard
• 21:55
  to comprehend.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Exactly the what and who seem answered by the court,
• 21:58
  but the how and maybe even the full why still
• 22:01
  feel unsettlingly and complete to some observers.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's wrap this up outro thoughts.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Well, the impact of this case was immense. Beyond the
• 22:10
  tragedy for the family, It really did force a hard
• 22:12
  look at procedures. Joseph's brother, Michael McStay, became this incredible
• 22:17
  advocate for missing persons.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: His work actually led to reforms in California right to
• 22:22
  try and prevent that voluntary flight assumption from taking hold
• 22:25
  so easily when the evidence doesn't fully.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Support it, Yeah, ensuring agencies look harder sooner, and the
• 22:31
  story itself, it's become this major touchstone in true crime.
• 22:35
  Patrick McStay, another family member, even self published a book
• 22:38
  about it.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And that grave site out in Victorville. It's become a
• 22:42
  morbid landmark, hasn't it.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: People actually go there dark tourism, Yeah, a place people
• 22:46
  visit trying to make sense of it all. And while
• 22:48
  the sources agree the core motive seems to be financial desperation.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Greed driving merit to kill Joseph to avoid the debt
• 22:56
  and confrontation.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: The sheer scale of the violence, killing the entire higher family,
• 23:00
  the brutality of it. It feels disproportionate to just owing money,
• 23:04
  doesn't it absolutely?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Which leads us to our final thought for you, the
• 23:08
  listener to consider. The mix Stay case is often held
• 23:10
  up as an example of investigative tunnel vision early on
• 23:14
  and jurisdictional issues complicating things right, The disastrous voluntary flight
• 23:18
  theory from the San Diego Sheriff's delayed everything.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: So considering that initial critical failure, the question becomes, what
• 23:26
  specific concrete investigative reforms were actually mandated or implemented statewide
• 23:31
  in California after this case? Beyond general awareness, What systemic
• 23:35
  changes ensure that law enforcement agencies are now required to, say,
• 23:39
  escalate missing persons cases with susparous circumstances faster, or perhaps
• 23:44
  mandate earlier collaboration between county jurisdictions to prevent evidence from
• 23:48
  being compromised or leads ignored due to initial misclassification. How
• 23:53
  does the system ensure this specific type of failure doesn't
• 23:56
  happen again.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: A crucial question about learning from tragedy. That's something for
• 24:00
  you to think about. Thank you for joining us for
• 24:02
  this deep dive. We'll see you next time.