The McStay Family Murders - Part One | #439

Summary

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RedHanded Episode #439: The McStay Family Murders - Part One

Release Date: March 5, 2026
Hosts: Suruthi & Hannah

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Episode Overview

In this gripping two-part deep dive, Suruthi and Hannah dissect the disturbing case of the McStay family, who disappeared from their California home in 2010 before their remains were discovered years later in a Mojave Desert grave. The episode meticulously unpacks the botched early investigation, the dysfunctional dynamics among family and business associates, several possible motives and suspects, and the many threads, theories, and mysteries that left internet sleuths (and the hosts) obsessed with the case for years.

“This is one of those cases that has driven me to the brink. I have consumed so much information about this case. I don’t know anything else anymore. This is all I know.” – Suruthi, [01:56]

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The McStay Family Background (04:12–07:00)

• Joseph (Joe) McStay (40), Summer McStay (43), and their sons Gianni (4) and Joe Jr. (3, nicknamed “JJ”) had recently bought a Spanish-style house in Fallbrook, CA, with plans to flip it and buy their dream home on the coast.
• Joe, a self-made businessman and former surfer, ran Earth Inspired Products, a successful high-end water feature business, with orders worldwide.
• The family life appeared idyllic but was, as later revealed, far more turbulent.

The Disappearance (07:00–16:59)

• On February 9, 2010, Joe’s business partner Charles “Chase” Merritt raised the alarm with Joe’s family after days without contact. Michael, Joe’s brother, and Chase checked the house.
• They found two starving dogs left outside, indicators the family hadn’t planned a trip.
• Inside: fresh paint smell, broken eggs on the counter, spoiled food, half-eaten popcorn, dirty nappies—a scene not matching a family who’d gone on holiday.
• The family’s double pram was left behind, making the thought of them leaving voluntarily even more suspect.
• Police response was lacking: The house wasn’t secured, and family members were allowed to remove or clean items, potentially destroying vital evidence.
• Joe’s laptop was removed, and his mother, Susan, thoroughly cleaned the house, with police allegedly giving permission—although police later denied it.

“So much evidence is lost in this initial period. The house has been fucking cleaned.” – Suruthi, [17:00]

Early Investigative Fumbles & Theories (16:59–31:18)

• The case went to homicide, but police failed to secure the crime scene for four critical days.
• Cameras captured a white truck (possibly the McStay’s) leaving on February 4, the day the family lost contact.
• The truck was found days later abandoned near the Mexican border. A prior search on “passports to Mexico” stoked police suspicions that the McStays had left voluntarily.
• CCTV surfaced of two adults and two children crossing into Mexico, but the footage was so poor it was impossible to confirm their identities.
• Joe's medications, Summer’s glasses, the boys’ essentials, and even the dogs were left behind—family and friends found claims the McStays had just run off totally implausible.

“If they were going on some weird impromptu holiday, leaving the car behind seems pretty stressful.” – Suruthi, [28:27]
“Why would you not do those things? Unless you’re on malam from law enforcement, which they obviously aren’t because the police don’t know anything about that.” – Suruthi, [35:15]

Family & Relationship Tensions (38:12–54:16)

• Joe and Summer had a whirlwind romance, but friends and associates—especially business partner Chase—painted Summer as controlling, secretive, and divisive.
• Summer used a false name (“Summer Martelli” instead of Virginia Lisa Aranda) and presented herself as ten years younger even in official documents.
• She accused her stepson’s stepfather, Michael McFadden, of sexual abuse on little evidence, leading to deep rifts.
• Summer’s behavior was described by various parties as paranoid, erratic, and possibly undiagnosed mental illness.
• Potential suspects included Michael McFadden (prior history of domestic violence), Summer’s ex-boyfriend Vic Johansson (a violent former Marine who moved near their home), and others, but all were later found to have solid alibis.
• A revealing moment: Days before disappearing, Joe had booked counseling for him and Summer, suggesting he was trying to salvage their family life, not planning an escape.

Discovery of the Bodies (54:43–61:00)

• In November 2013, four years after they vanished, a motorcyclist found a human skull in the Mojave Desert. Police discovered two shallow graves containing the remains of Joe, Summer, and their sons.
• The bodies showed clear signs of homicide: blunt-force trauma with a sledgehammer (likely their own), separated clothing suggesting potential sexual assault on Summer, and their graves marked by two sets of tire tracks still visible years later.
• The family had never made it to Mexico; they’d been brutally murdered and buried in California.

Investigations & Suspects – Round Two (62:19–77:11)

• Police properly investigated the case only after the bodies were found—too late to preserve much evidence.
• Initial suspects (including ex-partners and friends) had alibis.
• Suspicion fell on Joe’s brother, Michael McStay, for his slow response, odd comments to police (“I really hope they don’t turn up in two shallow graves,” [65:17]), and selling Joe’s belongings—but actions were ultimately explained.
• Attention turned to Joe’s business and two associates:
  • Dan Cavanaugh: The tech manager, in Hawaii at the time of disappearance, rapidly withdrew cash from the business after Joe vanished, eventually sold the company, and had sent threatening messages to Joe. He was rejected as a suspect due to alibi evidence.
  • Chase Merritt: Joe’s close associate and the last recorded person to see him alive; evidence of a heated financial dispute surfaced, including an email in which Joe demanded $42,000. Chase appeared on CNN, ominously stating, "I was definitely the last person he saw." [76:14]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Forensic Failures:
  “So Michael took Joe’s laptop, saying that he wanted to look for clues and try to figure out where the family might have gone, while his mum, Susan, went into the house and cleaned it from top to bottom... [she] just destroyed any potential evidence which that is on the police. Hundred percent.” – Hannah, [15:45]

• On Law Enforcement’s Tunnel Vision:
  “The police are like, whatever, they’ve gone to Mexico. Look at this video that shows nothing. It’s so bonkers to me.” – Suruthi, [27:02]

• Speculating on Family Dynamics:
  “Even Summer’s own family admitted that they believed that Summer had some sort of undiagnosed problem... they said that she could be quite paranoid and she could be quite erratic.” – Suruthi, [50:01]

• On the Brutality of the Crime:
  “Whoever did this was able and willing to smash a three year old and a four year old’s head... Just think of the... rage, the determination, the energy, the power it takes to strike that sledgehammer... including into the heads of children.” – Suruthi, [61:10]

• On Suspect Motives and Theories:
  “Dan Kavanagh definitely had motive. The problem comes with means and opportunity.” – Hannah, [73:04]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Episode Theme Intro & Hosts’ Emotional Connection: 01:56–04:04
• Discovery of Abandoned Home & Police Fumbles: 07:00–16:59
• Neighbourhood & Border Theories, Mexico CCTV: 21:19–31:18
• Family Background & Summer’s Secretiveness: 38:12–44:53
• Potential Suspects Detailed: 49:44–62:39
• Discovery of the Bodies: 54:43–61:00
• Autopsies & Crime Scene Analysis: 59:04–62:39
• Suspect Deep Dives (Michael/Dan/Chase): 62:39–77:11
• Cliffhanger (Chase Merritt’s Financial Dispute): 77:11–77:18

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Memorable/Funny Moments (Non-Case)

• Hosts bantering about emotional support sharks and the stress of true crime obsession
• Discussion about millennials appearing younger than Gen Z and the perils of scented cleaning products
  “Have you also seen that Gen Z are the first generation that have dropped IQ points?... and we also look younger than them, so fuck you. Suck it.” – Suruthi, [42:38]

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Next Episode

Cliffhanger:
The episode ends with the massive bombshell of Joe accusing Chase Merritt of owing him $42,000, with many questions unresolved regarding Chase’s actions and possible involvement.

“You’re gonna have to join us next week to find out the rest.” – Hannah, [77:11]

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For more on the McStay family murders—including a full breakdown of the trial, the evidence against the final suspect(s), and the enduring mysteries—tune in to Part Two.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome to your Peloton Pilates era. Built on precision, backed by results and trusted by over 2 million members. Experienced instructors with true Pilates expertise, offering classes for every level from foundational to powerfully challenging. Choose from 10 to 45 minute sessions with little to no equipment, anytime, anywhere. And with the cross training swivel screen, you can move seamlessly from cardio to mat press. Pilates. Small moves, big impact. Find out [e-mail] Pilates. In February 2010, almost 15 years ago this month, the McStay family of Fallbrook, a suburb of San Diego, simply vanished. What followed was a bizarre, high profile investigation involving those closest to the McStays. With the spotlight of guilt shifting from person to person. How and why did this completely ordinary family of four, mum, dad and two babies just disappear with accusations of infidelity, embezzlement and abuse? Their lives were scrutinised for years in the media and by online sleuths. But it would be four years before the first arrest came after an unbelievable and disturbing discovery was made in a remote corner of the Mojave Desert. I'm Saruti.

[B]

I'm Hannah.

[A]

And this is red handed. And this is the case of the McStay family murders.

[B]

And I still don't like the new intro, but I'm learning. I'm trying. INTERNALLY SCREAMING so here we go. The McStay family. Have you or have you not in your head already made the joke? The McStays Mc left?

[A]

No. Yes.

[B]

That one's for free.

[A]

I have not made any jokes regarding this case whatsoever because it's one of those cases that has driven me to the brink. And I am so very glad that we're recording it today because I have consumed so much information about this case. I don't know anything else anymore. This is all I know. I have to get it out so that I can close this chapter of my life. And the worst thing is I don't know who did it.

[B]

Well, Tortillas, I had a feeling that you were a bit brinky this week. Well, last couple of weeks while you've been writing this. So I got you a present. Oh. It's an emotional support shark. I didn't make it, but I could have.

[A]

I believe that. Oh, thank you. That's very.

[B]

You're fantastic.

[A]

Thank you. That's very, very kind of you. Look at his little wonky face. This is exactly what I needed because I've been feeling very sharky about this particular story. So thank you. You're welcome. And I still don't know who did it? I think I know. I don't know. This is gonna be a two parter, guys, because there is so much fucking information on this story. And I actually think for a lot of people, for a lot, for some people out there, this was kind of the case that got them into true crime. That's the feeling I'm getting from reading comment sections, reading Reddit. I'm getting the feeling this is for a lot of people roughly our age because it was 2010. This got people into true crime. And I actually in my very first job out of university, before I was like into true crime, I would say there was a girl who I was really good friends with who used to talk to me about this case all the time, really. And like I'm really sad, like we're not in touch anymore. She was great. I don't know why we just sort of like didn't, didn't stay in touch after we left that company. But Alice, if you are watching or listening, then I will always remember you for telling me about this case.

[B]

That's weirdly quite nice.

[A]

Very random. But no, it's a really interesting case. So let's get into it.

[B]

Okay, should I McStay or should I McGo?

[A]

Oh, you gotta McStay.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And mclose your fucking mind.

[B]

Okay. The McStay family seemingly had it all. 40 year old Joseph McStay and his 43 year old wife Summer, clutching onto the emotional support shark for dear life, had just bought a house in the Golden State. What's California's state motto? Oh, I forget, I'm in the bath and I've just thought of something.

[A]

Eureka.

[B]

Yes, because it means I have found it. And I made a fool of myself in front of my very Californian friend. I was like, found what? And he was like, gold, Hannah, gold.

[A]

It's like, ah, I see, I see.

[B]

So yes, the Golden State. Well, we're gonna. I'm gonna have to go back to there. Not, well, maybe physically, but in my mind for later in the year.

[A]

Oh yes you are.

[B]

Really excellent clue there, Hannah. Well done. Anyway, their large detached Spanish style property sat on a cliff overlooking a pristine beach. They had wanted to be right on the coast. But with prices slightly out of reach, the plan was to renovate this property, flip it, and then buy their dream home with the profits. Has that ever happened?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

And I cannot remember who I was talking to about this. But you know, like the trope about Australians is that they really like rules. Grand Designs Australia only ever ran for One season because everything got done on time and on budget.

[A]

What a novel concept.

[B]

The McStays were looking to the future and building their perfect life with their two beautiful boys, 4 year old Gianni and 3 year old Joe Jr. Who I hope they call JJ. That would be nice. In my mind they do. And all of this was possible, only possible because of years of hard work. Laid back surfer turned businessman Joe Sr. Was finally killing it. He ran a company called Earth Inspired Products, making and selling high end custom water features all over the world. And business was booming. I follow, I know I am not on track, but I have to say this. I follow one of those Instagram accounts that just screenshots funny things from the Simpsons and one of them was like a gun store that was called Bloodbath and Beyond. Anyway, for Earth Inspired Products, orders were coming from as far away as London and Saudi Arabia. They were rolling in. So between renovating their new house, raising their kids and managing a flourishing business, the McStay life was McBizzy.

[A]

Which is why it seemed odd when on 9 February 2010, Susan Blake, Jo's mum, got an unexpected visit from her son's business associate, a man named Charles Chase Merritt. Apparently, Chase hadn't heard from Joe for days and was getting a bit worried. So much so, in fact, that Chase had also phoned Joe's brother, Michael McStay. And at first, both Susan and Michael weren't that concerned. Joe was a spontaneous kind of guy. Maybe he'd just planned some sort of last minute trip and just forgotten to tell anyone. Meanwhile in Texas, Joe's ex stepdad, but who's also his adopted dad. So basically, Patrick is the guy. He's in Texas. He was married to Joe's mum, but they had been together since Joe was a baby. Michael is Patrick's son. So Michael and Joe are half brothers, but Patrick adopted Joe, so I'm just gonna call him his dad throughout this because that's how Joe saw it. He took his surname. Patrick is the one who raised him. But Patrick and Susan split up. But Jo is still really close to Patrick. In fact, he's closer to Patrick than he is to his own mum. That's just like setting the. Okay, setting the scene a little bit.

[B]

I think I follow. Okay, but if I have questions, I will ask.

[A]

Okay, got it. So meanwhile in Texas, Joe's dad, Patrick had received a call from another one of Joe's business associates, a man named Dan Cavanagh. Dan was also concerned about the radio silence from Joe. And since he was in Hawaii. He asked if Patrick could do something. But Patrick was stuck in Texas, hundreds of miles away from Fallbrook, California. So after getting the brush off from his son Michael, who told him he was far too busy to be running around, after his brother Joe, Patrick called the police, he explained that the family had been out of contact for six days now. And so on the 10th of February, San Diego Police agreed to do a welfare check. But the officers who turned up just knocked on the door of the house and left.

[B]

When no one replied, Chase had also taken himself over to the house and found that the family's two dogs, Bear and Digger, had been left in the garden with no food or water. So he called Joe's brother Michael again, who finally agreed that something wasn't right. So eventually, on the 13th of February, after nine whole days of no word from the family at all, Michael McStay drove down to Fallbrook to check out his brother's house, and Chase met him there. The two men managed to get into the property through an open window in the back. The house smelled of fresh paint. Summer had been decorating, after all, and at first, nothing seemed massively wrong. Until, that is, they entered the kitchen. There were broken eggs on the counter, milk that had been left out and spoiled coffee left in the coffee pot, and two bowls of half eaten popcorn on the sofa. And a bin full of rotten food and dirty nappies. It's a weird way to leave the house if you're going on holiday. That plagues me that when you're away for a long period of time, like, did I take. Did I take the bin out?

[A]

It's the worst thing. My favorite thing is to ruthlessly clean the house, change all the sheets, pour bleach in the toilet because I know no one's gonna be using it for like a week, fill it to the fucking brim, and then go on holiday.

[B]

Cause coming back to a mingin house is so depressing.

[A]

Despicable. It's despicable. This is what I mean. I'm just like, we don't know that much about the family. Is this how they live their lives? But is this how anybody lives their life? I don't feel like people leave rotten nappies. People don't leave nappies in the bin to rot and then go on an impromptu holiday. And eggs on the counter smashed.

[B]

No, probably not. Although my friends did have a baboon break into their outside bin and steal their poo nappies.

[A]

But did they put nappies in the bin?

[B]

In the outside bin?

[A]

Miserable.

[B]

Yeah, that was pretty Grim.

[A]

That is grim. And I will always remember, actually, our tour manager Ben's best tip for how to come back from a tour in good shape, which is to do all your laundry while you're. Yeah, the last couple of days. Last couple of days, get all of your clothes laundered, put them in your suitcase, fly home, and then you just take them out your suitcase and put them straight back into your cupboard. Genius.

[B]

That man, firstly, will only ever wear shorts, and secondly, has been all over the world but the place he has been most launderettes. That man loves a laundrette.

[A]

I mean, what's not to love? So, yeah, they walk in, find all this kitchen shenanigans going on, and this is the part where you're like, okay, maybe they're not on holiday. Because I do want to clarify, and we will talk about this later. People are like, why would you wait so fucking long without hearing from the family to go check? But Joe had done this kind of thing before where he would just, like, go on a holiday, turn off his phone, do a digital detox, and, like, just not be in touch with anybody. So we'll talk about how weird it is or how weird it isn't that they didn't do anything for all this time, but at this point, they are like, something is wrong.

[B]

Yes, it did appear like something wasn't right. It looked like the family had just dropped everything and run off. The McStays also didn't seem to have packed anything, and by now they've been out of contact for over a week. Very odd to be gone for so long, totally empty handed, especially if you have kids. I think in the garage, Michael and Chase even found the family's double pram. Again. It seemed very unlikely that the McStays would have left this behind. They've got two young boys with them. Yeah, fuck that for a laugh.

[A]

They're not gonna walk very far.

[B]

I mean, they're gonna fuck shit up in different directions. That's what they're gonna do.

[A]

Exactly. So to leave the pram, weird friend

[B]

of mine has twins.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

And I asked her, it's like, what do you do if they run off? Pick one opposite direction. She was like, oh, that's easy. I tripped the slow one and Chase the fast one. You know when someone says something and you're like, that is so obviously lived experience that you had to figure that out.

[A]

Oh, my God. Leashes, child. Leashes abound. So Chase said that apparently upon discovering all of this at the house, he wanted to call the police. Straight away. But according to him, Michael told him they should wait at least a couple more days. Michael said that, you know, the average family holiday lasts about two weeks. And so if his brother, Aunt Summer and the boys still weren't back after the weekend, then that's when it would be really time to worry. And so on Monday, with still no word From Jo, Michael McStay called the police and the case went straight to Homicide, which seems like great, finally people are taking the situation of this missing family seriously. But what's really weird is that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department didn't do anything to secure the McStay house. They didn't cordon it off with police tape, they didn't pin up notices, they didn't do anything to even try to keep people out of the house to, you know, keep it secure as a potential crime scene. Like they've taken it to homicide. That's, you know, you've, you found these like broken eggs on the counter. You found like, there's not much in the house by way of disturbance and there's no sign of forced entry, but there's like a knocked over lamp and stuff like that.

[B]

And an open window.

[A]

Well, yes, that they got in through, but they don't secure the house, which feels very, very weird. They just leave it and they go off to get their search warrants. But this takes them four days to do. And in that time, Joe's family had phoned the police and asked them if they could access the house and even remove items. And according to the family, the police told them that was absolutely fine and to go right ahead.

[B]

So Michael took Joe's laptop, saying that he wanted to look for clues and try to figure out where the family might have gone, while his mum, Susan, went into the house and cleaned it from top to bottom. She scrubbed that kitchen, she took out that bin and she did the washing up. She said that she didn't want Joe, Summer and the boys to come back to a mess, which nobody does. But, oh, fan up, they're coming back. And also Susan has just destroyed any potential evidence which that is on the police. Hundred percent. Like, I don't know anything about Susan, haven't met her, I don't know what's gonna happen. Maybe it was Susan all along, but the police really have dropped that ball. And Susan claims that she had called the police and she had told them what she was going to do and allegedly the police told her that she could do what she wanted. The police would later deny that they allowed Michael and Susan to remove items and clean the house. But we can't deny that they did nothing to secure that crime scene.

[A]

They're just like, oh, we're sorry if, you know, there was. I'm sorry if you're upset. Yeah. They were basically like, not even we're sorry, but there must have just been some sort of misunderstanding that they thought they could do that. And I'm like, well, you also didn't secure the crime scene and both of them say they contacted you and you said it was fine for that to happen. Like this, this whole fucking case from start to finish is just like a clusterfuck. So much evidence is lost in this initial period. The house has been fucking cleaned. And like, a lot of people are like, why is Susan going in and bleaching the fucking house? Because, like, it's full of dirty nappies. And like there's a genuine discussions online about whether people use bleach or not. And they're like, well, I think it's highly suspicious to use bleach. And I'm like, is it? The kitchen was like grubby.

[B]

One of my most like, uneco things is that I need cleaning products to stink of chemicals. Otherwise I don't feel like it's clean.

[A]

I also felt the same, but I've had to move away from that now because there's all this stuff that I've been reading about, like how if you've got endo and like blah, blah, blah, and like, if you use products that have like a high level of scent to them or like a high level of like, chemicals in them, it can act as like an endocrine disruptor.

[B]

Oh, for God's sake. And you can't go anywhere. You're the boy in the bubble.

[A]

I know. And throw your hormones off. And then there's all the stuff. If you're trying to conceive, you can't like have any fragrance on anything. You can't use perfume, you can't use deodorant. I'm using deodorant because again, it's like an endocrine disruptor. And I was like, surely this is. But basically I'm just like, okay, well let's just not use things with fragrance in apart from deodorant. Deodorant is important. And so now I've like switched to eco friendly, like fragrance free cleaners. And you're right. Like, I'm just like, is it clean? Is it clean? But I still bleach my toilet. That's fucking gross. But no, look, I, I don't know. We'll talk about Susan and Michael and all of this later, but I believe that the police did let them do this. So, meanwhile, over in Texas, getting stressed about how slowly things were moving, Patrick, Joe's dad, called in a private search and rescue team called Equisearch, and the owner, Tim Miller, headed down to the McStay house with an investigative journalist named Steph Wilson Watts. The two of them arrived at the McStay house and were shocked that Michael was there and was like, come on in. Miller and Watts were scared that the police would tear them to shreds because they both knew it was unbelievably odd for them or for anyone to have had that much access to a house that should have been being treated like a crime scene for a potential quadruple homicide, no less. But no one's making this a secret. They go in there, they're filming Michael showing them around. It doesn't feel to me like a covert way to destroy evidence like Michael. In the videos that I've seen of Tim Miller there, when he's showing them round, it feels like he's like, help us look at this. The pram is still here. Like, yeah, we'll talk about the suspects later. But I. I have to be honest that I don't think that I blame the police for why this house was walked through and treated the way that it was.

[B]

So, quadruple days later, with the house now bleached and buffed Sioux style and the property having been accessed by multiple people, not to mention items having been removed and handled, the police finally got round to doing their own search. And shockingly, there just wasn't that much discovered in terms of physical evidence. The next door neighbour's CCTV camera did show what looked like a white truck pulling out of the McStays driveway and leaving at around 7:47pm on the 4th of Feb, which was the last day anybody had heard from the McStays. At first, this was believed to be the family's own white Isuzu truck, since the vehicle was missing from the McStay property. But the footage is really dark and you can only see the bottom half of the truck. So it's really hard to tell. And as we'll find out, basically everyone in this story drives a white truck, so this video will go on to become a major point of contention.

[A]

Now, there was something interesting that did turn up on the McStays home computer. A week before they vanished, someone had searched for passports to Mexico. And soon came another discovery that seemed to provide context for this particular online search. Because the police had finally put a BOLO out on the family's truck. And almost immediately they got a hit. It had been clamped and towed away after being left in the car park of a strip mall mere steps away from the Mexican border. And it had been parked there on the 8th of Feb, four days after the family fell out of contact. And when authorities found this truck, they began to believe that the McStays really had just willingly gone off to Mexico. Now the remaining McStays were shocked. It made absolutely no sense. If the family had gone on holiday, why weren't they replying to any messages or calls? And why would they leave all of their stuff behind?

[B]

Why would they abandon their car and walk over the border?

[A]

Questions.

[B]

And even if you ignore the pram. Etc. Joe hadn't been well for a few months leading up to their disappearance. He'd been struggling with nausea and breathing problems and vertigo. None of the doctors he'd seen knew what was wrong with him, but he'd been given medication and inhalers to manage his symptoms. And he had just been put on a course of antibiotics for a respiratory infection. All of those things were left behind. And Summer, she was, According to the McStays, basically blind at night without her glasses. But yet again, they were left at the house.

[A]

And Patrick was adamant that Summer was, if anything, far too overly protective of her two sons. And he said she never would have left without packing all of their things. Patrick also said that his daughter in law, who was Colombian, was scared of Mexico and never would have taken the boys there willy nilly, completely unprepared. Plus, long before the boys had come along, Summer had had her dog, Bear, who was like another child to her. And Digger, well, he was a new addition to the family and was just a puppy.

[B]

Two toddlers and a puppy, fuck off. No thank you.

[A]

And a house renovation. But basically everyone who knew Summer said there was no way on earth that she would have just abandoned those dogs like that, leaving them outside with no food or water. So they were being fed and watered. But what had happened is basically the McStay family go there and they see that the dogs are in the garden and there is food and water when they go back to check. But it's because somebody had called like animal control because the dogs were in the garden barking all the time and animal control had come and they had been leaving out food and water, but it hadn't been left out by the McStays.

[B]

Joe also had another son from a previous marriage. He shared custody of Jonah with his ex wife, Heather. And he was, according to everyone, a really involved father. So no one could believe that Joe would have just vanished from his eldest boy's life. Like that, without explanation, was totally out of character.

[A]

I am a bit confused because in different places, his son from his first marriage has different names. So I'm just going to go with Jonah because he's also called Elijah in some places. I don't know if it's like a middle name situation. So if you see him called something else somewhere else, I am aware of that. But we're going to call him Jonah. But there is only one other boy.

[B]

Yeah, Jonah's got a better story as well.

[A]

So, yeah, all of these very, very valid concerns were ignored. And the police only doubled down further on their Mexico theory when they discovered some CCTV footage from the day the McStays family truck was left in that car park. This video from the crossing showed four figures casually walking over the border into Mexico. Now, just to be super, super clear, this CCTV footage is anything but. It's so dark and so grainy. You can barely see anything. It looks like a fucking ultrasound. Like you can barely see anything. All you can really tell, right, is that there's two adults and two kids walking. It is in no way a definitive ID of any of the McStays.

[B]

And so Joe's family were extremely skeptical, with Michael saying that the man in the footage walked nothing like his brother. I do think that someone's gait is something that you don't really think about, but you really notice it. Like it's very recognizable.

[A]

It's something we instinctively sort of recognize,

[B]

pick up on it without knowing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the police pointed to the shoes that the woman in the video was wearing. They were Ugg style boots, and they looked a lot like ones that Summer wore in many of the family's YouTube renovation videos. Also, one of the children in the footage has a backpack with a leash attached on it and the woman's holding it. And Gianni had one of those backpacks, which, fine, but so do a lot of people. But what isn't clear is, is why on earth, after Summer's Uggs were found in her house and Gianni's leash backpack was found in the family truck, why on earth did the police still use both of those items to positively identify the McStays in the border video and double down on it?

[A]

They are so insistent. They're so insistent. The other things that we need to know about this truck, right, they haven't taken any of their belongings with them that you would take on holiday or if you were going on the run or, you know, just generally anything like a fucking pram for your two children. But the truck has, like, in the cargo space at the back there's a sheet and underneath the sheet it's just like, stuff they've bought. Like, it's got like a children's, like, play kitchen in there. So why would you be like, let's run off to Mexico or, let's go on holiday to Mexico. We'll park our truck in this fucking, you know, strip mall car park. We won't take any of our belongings. But don't even bother unpacking the cargo of the truck. We'll just leave it with a giant, like, Montessori style, like, children's kitchen that we've just purchased off the Internet. And yeah, let's just leave that there. Like so much of it doesn't make any sense, but the police are like, whatever, they've gone to Mexico. Look at this video that shows nothing. It's so bonkers to me. But the police were absolutely convinced and even Tim Miller of Equisearch called off his team after seeing the footage. No one seemed to wonder why on earth the family would, as Hannah said, leave their truck in the US and walk into Mexico with two little kids.

[B]

And like, like all borders I've been, it's not nice. Like, I wouldn't be getting out of my car.

[A]

They don't need to leave their car. They can take their car over the border. If they were going on some weird impromptu holiday during which time, let's say, something bad happened to them in Mexico and that's why they'd vanished, leaving the car behind seems pretty stressful, even if it's just for a little holiday.

[B]

Absolutely, ma'.

[A]

Am. They didn't even have a push chair. Why would you leave the truck if they were on the run? Let's say, surely they could have sold that truck south of the border to fund some sort of new life. Why would you leave it to get towed and point everyone in the direction of where you've secretly run off to? It doesn't make sense, especially as the truck and. Or the money that they could have sold it for would have been very useful given the fact that since they fell out of contact on 4 February 2010, neither Joe nor Summer had touched their bank accounts or used their mobile phones or even so much as glanced at their fucking emails.

[B]

Not looking good, brav.

[A]

No, that's the number One sign that it's not looking good, that you haven't touched your bank account or used your mobile phone. That's more than a digital detox. That's you're dead.

[B]

A life detox.

[A]

Exactly. Exactly.

[B]

And also, it's worth pointing out that no other CCTV from the strip mall that day or any day around that time recorded the McStays family in the area. So there's no evidence it was even the McStays that parked their truck in that car park. The CCTV of the four figures crossing into Mexico was captured at 7:00pm that evening, and the truck was parked at about 5:00pm how did the family go completely under the radar for all of that time in an area that's full of shops and cameras and Border Patrol for two hours? This is rhetorical. Can you not check? Can you not ask the border people?

[A]

No, It's a good question. And this is something that I discovered during the research of this episode, is that basically, American citizens, US citizens, who are leaving the US to go into Mexico via this border crossing don't have to sign out or don't have to be checked, nothing. But when you're coming back in as a US citizen from Mexico back into the us, you do have to be checked. You do have to sign back in to say that you've come in. So it's entirely plausible, and this was the police's, you know, vein of thinking that they could have left the country without any, like, sign out, without any check, but if they had come back into the country, they would know about it.

[B]

Passports for Mexico.

[A]

Yeah. So it's kind of easy for them to say, well, we just wouldn't know if they had left. So the police were absolutely certain that they had figured it out and they labeled the family as voluntary missing. So as far as the police were concerned, the truck and the CCTV meant that the McStays had gone across the border. And like I said, since there was no sign of a check in back to the us, they figured they just haven't returned. But the question then became, if they had run off to Mexico, why? No one could point to a valid reason. Patrick, Joe's dad, had spoken to Joe that morning, the morning that the family vanished. And Joe had been all excited about a deal that he'd landed on some granite worktops for the kitchen.

[B]

He, you.

[A]

And he made absolutely no mention of going away. And why, when the family was so focused on getting that house renovated and sold quickly so that they could, you know, buy the actual home that they wanted on the coast. Why would they run off on a holiday or otherwise?

[B]

I don't know. During your reservation, you've been pretty close.

[A]

This is true.

[B]

To running off to Mexico.

[A]

This is true. I have definitely. It starts all exciting. And this is the only thing that I'll put into the camp of they ran away, right? Is it starts off all exciting when you're like, oh, I've got this renovation, I get to pick all these things. And then you're just like, I don't care. I don't fucking care anymore. So I understand. But they have a greater goal in mind of buying this new house. And I think for them, every day they're paying off this house and not selling it is like time. They're wasting money, they're wasting. Why are you suddenly going on holiday? I don't know. Maybe.

[B]

That same morning, the 4th of February, summer had also spoken to her sister, Tracy. Tracey had just had a baby and they had made plans for Summer and her boys to go and visit in a couple of weeks again, Summer didn't mention that she might be going away for a bit or hint at the family being in any sort of trouble. The McStays very much seemed like they were making immediate plans for the future at home in their house. And surely the state of the house, the fact the family had left their dogs, all their stuff and their truck didn't really track with some sort of little getaway, even a spontaneous one, it all looks nefarious,

[A]

especially because they hadn't touched the money in their bank accounts, used their phones or even their emails, since they vanish. Like I said, not withdrawing any money and not using your card really, really makes it look like you're dead or at least being held against your will. Particularly because there was a lot of money in those accounts. Joe had 30k in his and Summer had 20k in hers. And there had been no large cash withdrawals leading up to their disappearance. Which you could say, look, they got the money out before and now that's why they're not doing it. There was nothing like that, which surely you would expect to see if they had gone on the run. And this whole, like, them going on the run and not using their cards, and that being the reason, because you do see a lot of people online saying that, like, oh, well, that's why they're not using their phones, that's why they weren't using their bank accounts, because they were on the run. That only really makes sense if you're on the run from law enforcement, surely, like a Normal per. Like, let's just say they're in trouble with some dodgy person. That person can't track your bank account usage or necessarily track your phone usage. So, like, why would you not do those things? Unless you're on malam from law enforcement, which they obviously aren't because the police don't know anything about that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So it just doesn't make any sense. And for the police to overlook all of these things is just so mind boggling. It only really makes sense if they're already dead. Because even if they were being held captive, which doesn't make sense anyway, but even if they were, say they'd been abducted, surely that person would be forcing the family to empty their savings accounts and give them all of their money.

[B]

Yeah. Especially if there's 50k up there.

[A]

Exactly. And that's not even coming onto the business account.

[B]

But all of those questions were only pushed further aside when the police made their runaway theory public. And numerous sightings of the McStays started to come in from all over Mexico.

[A]

And the youngest boy, Joe Jr. He has like, you know, like how Madeleine McCann had like very specific eye. And that's how a lot of people were like, that's how I know I saw Madeleine, because she's got that eye. With Joe Jr, he has like a strawberry birthmark on his head, like, you know, like a port stain birthmark. So people were like very, very certain of who they had seen. And I'm like, did you get a photo, though? No, I don't know. But there's so many sightings.

[B]

All sorts. People claimed that they'd served the family in restaurants. They had bought cocktails from them at a local bar. They'd been spotted swimming. Loads of Mexico stuff, if you can think about doing it In Mexico, the McStays were spotted doing it.

[A]

All sorts. All sorts. There on fucking. What's a Mexican dance? I was gonna say salsa class, but that's not Mexican. Never mind. They're making, they're making. They're making Caesar salads and playing in

[B]

a mariachi band, singing on a boat, like that awful woman.

[A]

Oh, my God. Hannah and I went to Mexico City and we were like, one day we like took this very, what we thought would be a very relaxing cruise down a river. We'd see some axolotls and all of this and oh my God, there was just this person who was like following our boat singing the entire time. And I was like, so loudly. It was horrific. It was like being caught in traffic for hours. And it went on for so long, I was just like, oh, my God, I'm going to kill myself.

[B]

Yeah, there's not enough Micheladas in the world to get me through that, truly.

[A]

So, yeah, they're drinking micheladas, playing in a mariachi band and making Caesar salads with some guacamole with little bugs on top of. Remember, they were delicious.

[B]

Anyway, the authorities didn't seem to concern themselves with how the McStays were paying for all of these things.

[A]

They were doing all of these mariachi lessons.

[B]

Yes. I couldn't remember the word for guacamole, which you just said. My head was just like that. Avocado insides. Great. Fantastic. Anyway, the police dropped the case and the leads, even the fake ones, dried up.

[A]

But of course, the mystery didn't die away for Joe's family. If they were to believe the police, a major question still remained. Why had Joe and Summer run off? They weren't in any financial trouble, so was it personal? Joe and Summer had met in 2004 when they had been introduced by Summer's friend, a man with the most fake sounding name I have ever heard. His genuine, actual, factual name is MacGyver Macarga.

[B]

No, it's not.

[A]

It is. He's in the documentary and it's like, maciver, Macarga friend and suspect.

[B]

It's.

[A]

Fuck, it's a wild name.

[B]

It's Baby MacGyver.

[A]

MacGyver. And knowing that their surname is Macarga, MacGyver Macarga Humongo Grant. It was love at first sight for the couple, and they quickly became serious. They had Gianni, their first son, in 2005, and soon after, they got married in Orange County. Joe Jr. Followed in 2007, and their happy family was complete.

[B]

But according to Joe's business partner, Chase Merritt, things weren't all sunshine and rainbows. While others claimed that Summer adored Joe's son from his first marriage, Jonah and the whale, Chase called, saying that Summer resented the time Joe spent with Jonah as it took him away from her and their boys. According to Chase, Summer was opinionated, aggressive and controlling, and none of Joe's friends liked her, stating in interviews that she had a lot of problems. Even Michael, Joe's brother, said that Summer had driven a wedge between Joe, his family, and Joe's eldest son, Jonah, as well as their other friends.

[A]

Jo's mum admitted that Summer was a bit possessive of Jo and that she could be a bit intense at times, but she didn't really think it was that big a deal. Susan was surprised, however, when the police's Missing persons reports of the family listed summer's age as 43. Because Summer had told everybody that she was 33. And, like, as, like a strong line, like, not as, like, oh, wink, wink. Like, we all know she's older than that. Like, everybody thought she was 33, but she was actually 43.

[B]

Friend of a friend did a DNA test and found out that his dad is not his dad. And so he woke up one morning, new dad.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And basically it happened because I think when you do one, people who've already done the test get a notification, like, if you're related. So all of these people came up and he was like, I don't know who any of these people are, but I bring this up because his biological dad couldn't remember his mum's name. He was. I don't know, I can't remember. And then he saw a picture of her. He was like, oh, I remember her. And I bring this up now because she told him that she was 27 when she was 43. I know people were looking rough in the 70s, but, like, wow, that's hectic.

[A]

I wonder, what's the youngest age do you think we could pass for?

[B]

See, I think I have, like, time age, face blindness. And I think it's because My dad was 40 when he died, right. And I was 12. So in my head, 40's ancient. And now I'm like, 40's nothing. 40's nothing. And I am at an age where I remember my mum being the age, obviously, like you as well, because my mum had me at 30.

[A]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

So I don't think I know how old people look.

[A]

No, I'm very bad at aging people also.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know, I. I feel like I walk around and I still think I'm 25.

[B]

Well, you've got CGI baby face, so.

[A]

So do you, though. We both got very good skin. I think we're fine.

[B]

Only because I sweat so much. No, honestly, like, I went to a different hoop studio and, oh, my God, I can't remember. And she definitely will listen to this. Anyway, listener got in touch with me and was like, I've got a hoop to you. So I went. And the reason I do hoop anyway is because I'm too sweaty for pole and it's easier to grip because there's tape on the hoop and you can, like, anyway, get to that studio. No tape on hoops. I'm slipping, sliding, can't do anything. And I'm like, miserable. And she came to talk to me at the end I was like, thing is, like, I've never done it without tape. And like, because she was like, how was the class? And I was like, class was great. I was shit. And she was like, oh, well, like, sometimes it just gets a bit warm in here. And I was like, no, no, no. Like I'm medically, I'm too sweaty to not have tape on them. And she was very sweet. She was like, okay, if I see your name on the list, I'll put a taped one.

[A]

Well, I don't know what the statistics are on tape and millennials, but have you seen that millennials are the youngest looking generation? Like, we look younger than the next generation. What are they? Gen Z? Yeah, and we're also. Have you also seen that Gen Z are the first generation that have dropped IQ points?

[B]

I did see that. So I'm very smug about it.

[A]

So every generation IQ points go up from the prior generation, but with between millennials and Gen Z is the first time it's gone down. And we also look younger than them, so fuck you. Suck it. Anyway, unless you're a Gen Z listener, in which case I can't believe you have been listening this long because your attention spans are so short anyway.

[B]

Go and have sex and take drugs, please.

[A]

So, yes, Susan is shocked to discover that Summer had been lying about her age. And, like, it's even on like official documents, like Summer's real estate license. Like, she's put that she's 33, so she's not just like casually lying to like, friends and family about it. Susan was also shocked when she found out that Summer wasn't even her daughter in law's real name. It had been Virginia Lisa Aranda, and Summer had officially changed it to Summer Martelli years before. And I bring all this up because it seems shady. Like, you find out that somebody you are, you know, is your daughter in law, like, they've got a completely different name, they're completely different age. And so for Susan and the McStays, it did ring some alarm bells for them, especially when they put it together with things like how Summer had suddenly uninvited her entire family from her and Jo's wedding the day before the ceremony. And I get why this looks all, like, pretty super weird, but honestly, from everything I have read about and, like, looked into, and this is sad to say, but I think Summer was just ashamed of her heritage. Her friends say that she would say that she was ashamed of her heritage, she was ashamed of her family, and I think that's why she changes her name. She's not Italian. She just picks Martelli because she likes it and she likes Italian culture. And she's like, I'm going to take that name. And I think that's probably why she didn't want her family at the wedding, as sad as that is. So it looks shady. I think it's shame.

[B]

And Chase had even more to say. He told police that he had actually suspected Summer of poisoning Joe. Like we told you, Joe hadn't been very well in the months before the family vanished. And according to business partner Chase, Joe had confided in him that he was scared to eat the food that Summer made him.

[A]

Joe never says this to anybody else. Chase is telling us this after Joe has gone missing.

[B]

Apparently, even Patrick Jo's dad admitted that he too had initially suspected Summer. And while these accusations seem wild, four days before they disappeared, Joe had booked an appointment with the family counsellor. Chase wasn't wrong when he said that there were problems at home for the McStays, beyond the happy smiling videos they posted online. Summer had recently caused a bit of a stir. In September 2009, she'd videotaped her son Gianni, and she's questioning him about some inappropriate behaviour she claimed he was displaying.

[A]

Yeah. So Summer had already accused a daycare worker at their local gym of being inappropriate with her boys. And there wasn't like a big investigation into that accusation. The gym basically gives her a refund and is like, please, like, please leave, like, we, we don't want to do anything about this. But now, in 2009, she was convinced that Joe's ex wife, so Heather, her new husband, so Jonah's stepdad, a man named Michael McFadden. Summer became convinced that Michael McFadden had been the cause of her boy's odd behavior. Now, I couldn't find loads about what behavior they were displaying that Summer was so concerned about. I only found one line. And she said it was that apparently Gianni, who's the oldest of the Two boys, who's 4 years old, had apparently wanted to try and French kiss her. That's what she says, right? And she puts this down as odd behavior. So Summer made Joe call his ex wife, Heather, about her concerns about her husband. When Heather asked how Summer knew that Michael McFadden, her husband, had been inappropriate with Joe and Summer's boys, Joe told her that apparently God had told Summer. So she doesn't, like, have evidence of, like, they were at your house and then they came back and they were doing this? Maybe she does. But the thing that's Convinced her, apparently is that God told her that Michael had done something. Now, again, Heather didn't take Summer seriously and so Summer filed a complaint with cps. And look, maybe this is important, maybe this isn't. But in the CPS report, in the CPS complaint that she filed, Summer again, lies about her age, which, like, it's one thing to lie about your age and look, I don't want to like rag on a victim, but it's one thing to lie about your age just like casually, but it's another thing to be lying about it on like official documents.

[B]

And it's not a great look when you've lied about loads of other stuff as well.

[A]

And it's not going to make you look more credible if they find out that you're lying about something like that. Now, McFadden strenuously denied Summer's allegations, but he was hardly squeaky clean. He had previously been arrested and convicted of domestic violence after he beat an ex girlfriend up for sleeping with another man. But the CPS investigation did find Summer's accusations to be unsubstantiated. After this, Heather didn't want Jonah to be around Summer anymore. And Summer refused to allow her two boys to, to go to the McFaddens house. Now, Heather, who I think is being, you know, remarkably like trying to solve this problem, tried to organise therapy for the whole family. She's like, let's all go to therapy, let's get to the heart of the problem. Jo agreed to go, but Summer refused to go.

[B]

In the meantime, Michael McFadden, clearly furious at Summer, had confronted her and then left Joe a voicemail telling him to muzzle his wife or he'd have to muzzle her for him. That's not great. Obviously that put quite a lot of stress on Joe who was already under a lot of pressure with the house, his business and this mystery illness. So could the drama have made the McStays flee? Or did Michael McFadden have something to do with their disappearance?

[A]

Yeah, and look, like I said, Michael McFadden not a good guy. Accusations of being a child molester, Life ruining, rightfully so if it's true. Not great at all. And rage inducing if it's not true.

[B]

Yeah, it's not something to fuck about with really, is it?

[A]

No. Now, there was a lot of online speculation at the time that Summer may have been the cause of the family vanishing. Either she did something to all of them herself or she pissed somebody off who hurt them. Or she was the one who made the family go on the run because Even Summer's own family admitted that they believed that Summer had some sort of undiagnosed problem. They actually speculate that maybe she had bipolar because they said that she could be quite paranoid and she could be quite erratic. And sadly, I think Summer knew that something was wrong because on the 4th of Feb, the day that the family vanished, Summer had actually called a homeopathic pharmacist who remembered the conversation because it was so unusual. Apparently Summer had called him asking about a treatment called anger. And apparently Summer hung up on the pharmacist when he told her there was no such thing. It's all so patchy.

[B]

But Joe had wanted to fix their problems. After Summer refused to go to therapy with Heather and McFadden, Joe had asked his mum to help find another therapist for him and Summer, saying, I just want to get my family back on track. So while there were problems, booking that appointment with the counsellor would be an odd thing to do if you're planning to secretly run off to Mexico anyway. Yeah, it's a very different solution strategy.

[A]

Yeah. That is if you believe that the man in the CCTV border footage is Joe. Because look, you've got Michael saying, that's not how my brother walks. Now, I also think that you have to also take quite a big leap to believe that any of those four people are any of the McStays. But let's go with the thinking that it is Gianni, it is Joe Jr. And it is Summer. What if we consider the possibility that the man in the footage is not Jo? If we consider the accusation that some people had begun throwing around that Summer was having an affair, maybe the man in the video was actually her lover. Enter a man named Vic Johansson. Vic was Summer's ex boyfriend and he was a former Marine with a bad temper problem.

[B]

Oh, good.

[A]

There is a lot of, like, dodgy people involved in this story and they all drive white trucks.

[B]

Please heavily arm the man with anger management problems.

[A]

Yes. And Vic and Summer had actually broken up shortly before she met Joe. After Vic had threatened to cut Summer's dog Bear's head off. Yes.

[B]

After this, Vic had been arrested and charged for threatening his neighbour and her 12 year old daughter. Saying, I was a Marine, I know how to kill. In 2005, Vic had emailed Summer telling her, don't forget about me, I'm still out here.

[A]

Bit threatening, just a bit.

[B]

And then in 2009, he said, I love you forever. Happy birthday, Summer. Forever and ever.

[A]

Bic.

[B]

Kiss, kiss, kiss. Then he moved within two miles of the McStays new house. And on the 10th of January, 2010, days after the family vanished, he'd been arrested for refusing to leave a bar. A bar that was right next to Joe's office and a place where Joe often went to go and have a drink. Had Vic and Summer rekindled their relationship after Summer perhaps felt betrayed by Joe over the whole Joe McFadden thing?

[A]

Or had Vic Johansson approached Summer? Because she did say to her sister that she had run into him because he now lives so fucking close to the house? Or had they run into each other, he tries it on, she refuses, he feels rebuffed, and then, you know, it's like a revenge situation. But then that obviously takes out the fact that it's Summer and Vic running across the border with the two kids. But yes, Vic Johansson, potential suspect, could be either possibility. Right?

[B]

And if that's true, and Vic and Summer have run off into the Mexican sunset, where's Joe?

[A]

Why is no one looking for him?

[B]

If he's dead, where is he? Yeah, nobody's looking. And why would they murder Joe? He had a lot of money in the bank. Why would you murder him and then not try and take it? They're married. She knows his pin. But Tracy, Summer's sister, said that there was just no way Summer would have run off with Vic. She was terrified of him. So could Vic have killed Summer and her family?

[A]

Well, if he had, or if Michael McFadden had. The police weren't investigating because, unbelievably, they still believed that the McStays were alive in Mexico or elsewhere, and they let the case go cold. It would be nearly 44 years before a call came in that finally delivered the truth. At 9:58am on 11th November, 2013, John Bluth, a motorcyclist, was driving through the desert in Victorville, California, when he spotted something. It looked like a bright white rock at first, but he stopped to take a look, and it was quite clearly a human skull.

[B]

911 emergency.

[A]

What are you reporting?

[B]

Hi, I'm out here behind the dump,

[A]

and I found what looks like part

[B]

of a human skull.

[A]

What's the location? There's no paved roads around here. I cannot stress to you how unbelievably incredible it is that this happened, that John Bluth just so happened to find this fucking skull. If there weren't already so many suspects in this case, I'd be like, you want to look at him? Because it's unbelievable that this happened. There is nothing in that desert. Now, some people will refute this, and they'll be like, it's actually super easy to get to. It's like right off the interstate. I hear you. It's like 20 minutes off the interstate. Sure. It's not remote in the sense that it's hard to get to. It's remote in the sense that there is nothing there. There is no reason for anybody to be there. He just happened to be driving through on his motorcycle and spotted him.

[B]

And so, about 100 miles north of the McStay home and over 150 miles from the Mexican border, police discovered two shallow graves, just 10 inches deep, containing four skeletons buried in the desert. And through dental records, they were able to identify the two adult skeletons as Joseph and Summer McStay. The two smaller bodies were their sons, Jani and Joe Jr. So now this was a quadruple homicide investigation that was only getting started four years after the fact. How much vital information had been lost, with the police insisting that the family had just run off to Mexico, when in reality, it was clear that they had never left the country.

[A]

So let's talk about these graves and what the police found. Joseph and Gianni were buried together in one grave, while Summer and Joe Jr. Were in the other. In this grave, police also found Summer's black trousers. They weren't on her body. They were found separately, and entangled within them were a pair of women's white knickers, panties, whatever you want to call them. It's all very confusing. I want to call them pants. But the Americans will be confused. Her underwear is entangled within the trousers, like someone had pulled the trousers and the underwear off in one go. Summer's bra was also found separately to her body, and it looked to have been cut in two. One half of the bra is in the grave with her. The other half is in the desert. Now, scattered in the graves were also other items, including a kid's backpack, a cell phone case, part of a rope, and a sledgehammer. The family hadn't run off. And this was also clearly no family annihilation. This had been the work of a third party, because despite all the years that had passed, there were still two sets of tire tracks clearly visible, leading to and from the graves.

[B]

First off, let's start with the autopsies, which were carried out on the 14th of November, 2013. It was never going to be easy. The bodies had been in the ground for years, and the graves had been disturbed by animals. And that's why the passing motorcyclist was able to spot one of the skulls in the first place they'd been dug up. Of course, all of the soft tissue was gone, but what was left painted a picture of a horrifically savage set of murders. Joe's body was the most well preserved because it had been wrapped in cloth and tied up with white electrical cord and a red strap. His ribs were broken and he had a fracture to the back of his right leg. His head showed one large wound and multiple fractures. The medical examiner estimated that Joe had been struck at least four times on the head, which is what killed him.

[A]

Summer had also been hit at least six times in the head. Her skull had shattered into 40 pieces and her jaw was broken in several places. The head injuries were again ruled to be the cause of death. It was also suspected that Summer may have been raped due to the way her trousers, her underwear and her bra were discovered. Although this could have also been the work of animals or as a result of a possible struggle. But thanks to the decomposition of soft tissue, it's impossible to say for sure whether there was any form of sexual assault, as obviously no semen was discovered either.

[B]

Like his parents, 4 year old Gianni's death was also caused by multiple blunt force blows to the head, with the medical examiner stating that the little boy had been struck at least six times. While three year old Joe Junior's death was ruled to be undetermined. It looked like the sledgehammer found in the graves was likely the murder weapon. And it also seemed to have come from the McStay's own home. Who's sledgehammering a child in the head? Fucking.

[A]

And they say that Joe Junior's death was undetermined, but it's only because there's not enough of his skull left. But if there's not enough of his skull left, it's probably because somebody pulverized it. So whoever did this was able and willing to smash a three year old and a four year old's head. Six blows. Just think of the. I don't even know. The rage, the determination, the energy, the power it takes to strike that sledgehammer, which isn't a small sledgehammer that many times, including into the heads of children like. It is a truly, truly shocking crime. On 15 November 2013, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department took over the case. They had 3,000 pages of material to comb through, but so much time had passed and so much evidence had been lost that it was not going to be an easy task. But they immediately began looking at those closest to the McStays.

[B]

Finally, they questioned Vic Johansen and Michael McFadden, as well as MacGyver McArthur. And it was MacGyver who Summer had also seemed to have had a falling out with shortly before she disappeared. But unfortunately for us, all three men had solid alibis.

[A]

And just to put into perspective, like, how poor the police's job was on this, Patrick, Joe's dad, had been so furious that they were doing nothing that he had actually hired a private investigator. And he was the one who found out that about Vikt Johansson. The police didn't find out about him. They didn't find out he was, like, emailing Summer and that he had this, like, history of violence. Like, yes, you can say this doesn't make him, like, a prime suspect. But the police didn't even know about him because they weren't even looking. So, yeah, at this point, they're finally like, hey, hey, what's everybody got? What's everybody got? Who can we talk to? And now they interview these men. But, yeah, like you said, they already. They all had solid alibis.

[B]

I really thought it was gonna be Vic.

[A]

I don't think so. He did have a white truck, and so did Michael McFadden. So everyone's like, but so do the family. Yeah.

[B]

So dead end. The investigators turned their attention to money. And who had the most to gain from the McStay family deaths. They questioned Michael, Joe's half brother. After all, he had sold off some of his brother's belongings after the family vanished. But Michael explained that he was worried that the family's house would go into foreclosure because the police had frozen Joe's bank accounts. So he took what he could out of the house, sold it, and gave the money to Jonah, Joe's eldest son from a different relationship. And that did turn out to be true.

[A]

But suspicion still lingered because of how slow Michael had been to act when it came to raising concerns about Joe and his family being missing. Like we told you at the top of the show, you know, it takes him, like, two weeks before he calls the police, basically. And it takes him nearly that long before he even goes to the house, according to him. But there were also things which I'm kind of like, I don't know. Everyone's got their own lives. And, yeah, your brother and his family aren't, like, answering their phone for two weeks. Would you immediately think it was a big problem? I don't know. But there were things that he said that really, really don't help Michael. Because long before the MCS truck was found by the Mexican border Michael had said that he believed Joe and Summer had gone off to Mexico, which does seem weird. But it is also important to say that a lot of people thought that the McStays might have gone off to Mexico, including Joe's mum, Susan and Chase. In fact, Chase told police when he was questioned that quote, after discussing it at length with my wife and Jo's family, I believe they went to Mexico and then caught a flight somewhere else. Like, you know, everyone was thinking that

[B]

if everyone was talking about Mexico by the time of the police interviews, we can't really say who came up with the Mexico idea first. What's probably more damning in terms of Michael McStay, is that when he got frustrated with the police for not treating the case with enough urgency, Michael said to them, I really hope they don't turn up in too shallow graves. What an extraordinarily odd thing to say.

[A]

I completely agree. It's a very, very bizarre thing to say. Again, I want to say that we don't know who said that first. They're all talking to each other. They're all talking to each other. Who said that first? Michael is the one who says it to the police, but we don't know who said that first. But I grant you, it's a very weird thing to say.

[B]

So you could say, and I am saying, actually, that looks really suspicious, but would you say that if you actually had buried your brother's family in two shallow graves out in the desert? I wouldn't, but I also wouldn't sledgehammer a toddler. So I don't know. And if you had killed your brother's family and your brother, why would you be pushing the police to investigate said quadruple homicide when they clearly just wanted to brush the case off as the family having willingly disappeared? That's fucking jackpot for you.

[A]

Exactly. Michael McStay only says those things when he's angry at the police for not taking the missing family seriously. Why would you be like, they better not fucking turn up dead because I killed them, when you are clearly not taking this seriously and you want to brush this off as them voluntary missing, you would just be like, yeah, you're right, my brother was a bit wild and he did run off and he did do these things, so who knows where they fucking are? He was using that as a way to put pressure on them and to make them feel like, you have let my family down. If they turn up dead, why would you do that? Anyway, I know a lot of people on the Internet really, really like Michael McStay for these murders. Like, he is, like, kind of the primary, one of the primary candidates that people talk about online. He did wait a long time to call the police, that the family had fallen out of contact. But plenty of people also think, and we'll talk about this more next week, that Dan Cavanaugh did this and he called the police four times. So, like, I don't think calling the police or not calling the police is necessarily the most, like, smoking gun thing for me.

[B]

Yeah, it's a bit weird, but it's not like, theory endingly weird.

[A]

No, I think calling the police can feel like a big step for people and you probably don't want to look silly if your brother really has just gone off on holiday and you fucking called the police and they've got homicide team around at your house again. I understand why people find it weird, but. And like I said, Joe did do this kind of thing sometimes, like, where he would just go off and unplug and. Look, I'm not saying that Michael McSay didn't do weird shit, because he also did do something quite dodgy. He did get out a bank loan by lying and saying that he was the CEO of Earth Inspired Products, which is his brother Joe's company. But he did this long before Joe died, right? Long before the family go missing, he did this and he was already paying the price for that because the bank had found out that he was lying and they were pressing charges of fraud against him.

[B]

Fucking good.

[A]

Yes. But why would killing his brother help him think he's already in trouble for that? Like, you know what I mean?

[B]

And so, while there was, and still is, plenty of online suspicion aimed at Michael, the police turned their attention to Joe's business. After all, it was worth a lot of money. And they soon discovered some very odd behavior. Firstly from Dan Cavanaugh, one of Joe's business partners, the one who'd been in Hawaii and had called Joe's dad when Joe vanished. As early as 6 February, just two days after Joe and his family went missing, Dan had started taking money out of the company bank accounts. Dan said that he had approval to access those funds and that he was only using the money to keep the business afloat. But then, in summer 2011, a year after the McStays vanished, Dan sold the business for just $200,000, claiming that he had shared ownership.

[A]

And this is where it gets super confusing. Dan claims that he and Joe had started Earth Inspired Products together. So with Joe gone, the company was rightfully all his. But Everyone else disputes this, saying that Joe had set up the business alone and only brought In a then 18 year old Dan to manage the company's website. And Dan did only seem to be listed in Joe's accounts as an employee, not as a 5050 fucking business partner.

[B]

Do they not have company's house in America?

[A]

I do not know how this whole situation gets as confusing as it does. I don't understand why there isn't just a solid paper trail of who has what ownership or like what's going on. I think, look, I think Joe was an incredibly nice guy and an incredibly naive person and I think he didn't square everything away properly. I think he was paying people ad hoc, like Chase, like Dan, like there's no boundaries, too many people have access to everything. Like it's very, very, very confusing. And basically Dan claimed that Joe had agreed to buy him out because Dan had been involved in the business for years. He had set up the website, he was managing the website and he was taking a percentage of sales on any water features that were sold through the website. Right, that was the agreement. But apparently it wasn't working. He and Joe were getting into a lot of fights and so Joe had agreed to buy him out. This is what Dan claims. And the police did find a document with figures on, on Joe's computer titled Dan Buyout. So Dan said that he was well within his rights to sell off the business because he said he and Joe had a gentleman's agreement. Joe hadn't finished paying him off. So with Joe now out of the picture, he could sell it off to recoup what he was owed. The family said this was complete nonsense and they were furious at Dan for selling the company without their input, saying that he had stolen all of the profits from Jonah, Joe's only remaining son.

[B]

And then there were also some pretty aggressive messages that Dan had been sending Joe in the weeks before the McStays vanished. Dan was blackmailing him, demanding that Joe give him more money or he'd take the business's website down. Joe was not a particularly tech savvy person, so he was stuck. He was trying to negotiate with Dan to stop even messaging Dan, saying, now I, Summer and the kids know the real you and what you would do to potentially harm me, my family. That is exactly why everything needs to be written down and notarized so you don't get in situations like this.

[A]

And when the family are like, he's stolen this business, which they probably could have proven, the police, and this was shocking to me, but I get. I. I guess I get it. The police are like, but Joe's dead. That means there's no victim to what happened. Therefore, we won't press charges. So if you steal the business of a dead person, you won't have charges pressed against you because there's no victim? Apparently, that's the explanation.

[B]

Let's give it so Dan Kavanagh definitely had motive. The problem comes with means and opportunity.

[A]

It seemed that Dan had been in Hawaii for over a month before the McStays vanished and hadn't returned to California for nearly a week after. The police even got photos from his then girlfriend, which had been posted to social media of her and Dan in Hawaii. At the time the McStays disappeared, Dan's bank cards were also being used in Hawaii, and his phone was being used to call Hawaiian numbers over the time the family went missing. And look, could those things be faked? Absolutely. Like, here you go, love, take my card. Have a great time. I'm sneaking back to California to murder a family. So it looks like his bank card is still being used. His phone's only being used to call Hawaiian numbers, which you could do from anywhere. And the photos that the police get have been posted onto social media on those dates. I don't know that they're checking the metadata of when they were actually taken to prove that they were taken during the time that Joe and the family went missing. And look, could he have stayed in Hawaii and hired a hitman to carry out the kills? Maybe, but the state the house was left in and the way the murders were carried out doesn't scream clinical hit to me.

[B]

And the police were satisfied with Dan's story that he had been in Hawaii, coupled with the fact that he had been the one who'd alerted Joe's dad, Patrick. And Dan had also called the San Diego Police Department four times, asking them to do a welfare check on the McStays. Even when they had a witness come forward, they didn't buy it. An old friend of Dan's called Tracy Riccabenni went to the police in 2019 and claimed that Dan had confessed to her about murdering Joe and his family. Which sounds pretty damning, but the police didn't take Tracey that seriously, or any serious at all. And to be fair, Tracey did have some pretty intense substance abuse issues. And you can see in the clip, if you're watching, she's not coming across as totally sound minded. This is my best friend of 10 years. I would not make this up. And this individual that you're talking about when you say we probably had the wrong man, who are you talking about that you think could potentially be involved in this?

[A]

Yeah, like, I mean, look, you just heard the clip. She sounds a bit all over the place. She looks even more all over the place. I'm not saying she's lying, but I just think they're like, shh. Tracy.

[B]

And the police decided that she wasn't a reliable witness, and investigators didn't take it any further. And when Dan was questioned about it, he just said, oh, the Tracy girl. What a joke, huh? She's just a friend who kind of lost her mind.

[A]

Which left another man firmly in the spotlight, Chase Merritt. Chase had been interviewed by CNN for a documentary on the missing McStan days before the bodies were found. So when they're still just a missing family and something he said stood out to everyone watching. He says, I was definitely the last person he saw. And look, again, we can quibble over that. They hung out that day. So maybe he's just saying it as like a, you know, a turn of phrase. But for a lot of people, this raised some alarm bells and. Because how can you be so sure that you were the last person he saw and then you're not convinced by that? There was an email that Joe had sent Chase three days before the family disappeared in which Joe told Chase, you owe me $42,000.

[B]

The end. You're gonna have to join us next week to find out the rest.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In our concluding part of our series on the McStay family murders. And that is when and where we'll tell you all about Charles Chase Merritt and his $42,000.

[A]

We'll see you then. Goodbye.

[B]

I can't wait. I need to know.

[A]

Let's.

[B]

Sa.