Original subtitles

In this episode of American Greed, in a small American town on a peaceful cul

-de -sac, a five -bedroom, three -bath home sits empty.

There's the house.

This is the house.

A mom, a dad, and two little boys, here one day and gone the next.

You guys say goodbye.

Bye. How does a family of four just vanish from the face of the earth?

It appeared as though...

Somebody had brought out a magic wand and just made them disappear.

And ultimately, no one knew what's happened to this family.

Now, new video could show the family crossing the Mexican border.

American greed goes inside the years -long search for justice.

Family members have been waiting for this day to come. From the reporters on

beach. How does something like this happen without some kind of answer? To a

grandfather in agony.

I didn't want to admit it. I knew I'd never see him again. To a bone -chilling

discovery in the desert.

It was blow after blow to a child's skull.

An emotive so petty it will take your breath away.

Someone who's brought into your business can turn on you when it comes to greed.

The idyllic town of Fallbrook, California, lies among the hills of

Diego County and builds itself the avocado capital of the world.

It is nestled off the 15 freeway, and if you want to be close to

the beaches, if you want to be close to downtown San Diego, it's a great

hideaway, and it's a great place to raise a family.

It's here on Avocado Vista Lane.

that the McStay family decides to settle into a new home.

40 -year -old Joseph, his 42 -year -old wife Summer, and their two little boys,

4 -year -old Gianni and just turned 3 -year -old Joey Jr.

He loved being a father and a husband.

Patrick McStay is the father of Joseph and grandfather to his two little boys.

You could have given him all the millions in the world in business or

And I don't think you could have ever got the smile out of him like he had

he was around his wife and his kids. I mean, that was his life.

What's up, dudes?

Wow, dude!

Joseph takes lots of videos of his kids to share with family.

Oh, good to get you, boy.

They were just a loving family, had just moved into this home in Fallbrook.

That's where we come in down our street.

Five -bedroom, three -bath. Now, this is going to be all white.

In fact, during that time period, they were still in the process of painting

getting it ready to raise a family.

The house, right here.

Yeah. Summer takes the lead on painting and house projects and caring for

their boys.

Go on. Take your time.

While Joseph runs and promotes his growing water feature business called

Inspired Products, or EIP, selling decorative waterfalls.

The first year he had it, he did like $900 ,000.

He was smart.

He could sell, and he was trustworthy, and people liked him.

Joseph McStay is a born entrepreneur.

He gets into the waterfall business while running his first enterprise, a

gift shop, where he sees an opportunity to cut out the middleman.

He was buying these fountains that you sit on your desk that are made of slate

and the water trickles down. And he said, I can make them for $22 a piece,

selling for $225.

Not a bad markup.

Joseph hires a web developer to create a website for direct -to -consumer

shipping of his water features and later expands the business to include custom

projects.

McStay's custom fountains can fetch anywhere from $10 ,000 to $100 ,000

McStay wants to expand this lucrative side of the business and begins working

with a fabricator named Charles Chase Merritt.

Charles Merritt did the welding, creating some of the metalwork, the

and Joseph was the businessman behind it all. And from all accounts, he was

flourishing.

Joseph McStay starts landing huge custom contracts and even fields a buyout

offer that he runs by his dad.

I told Joey, I said, just hang on.

Wait a couple years.

Get those contracts.

Get it going.

Then if you want to sell it, sell it. I said, because it'll be worth five, ten

times what it's worth right now.

And he had been offered over a million to sell out at the time. And he said, I

think you're right, Dad. I want to hang on.

Look who's this.

His business is thriving. His wife and kids happy.

What's up, Jay?

First bike ride ever.

Joseph McStay's home videos captured the optimism of a young family who seems to

be making all the right moves.

Here comes the mama.

You could see that they were a very tight -knit family. They loved the

Joseph was a surfer. And you could see him instilling that type of life in his

kids. Taking a cruise on the beach.

Surf is pretty good today.

An all -American family with a bright future ahead.

I'm having so much fun.

And a plan to move to the beach in a few years so Joseph can surf and the kids

can grow up by the ocean.

Yeah, this is wintertime in Southern California.

Still surf, plenty of sun, paradise.

But that plan would never come to be.

On February the 10th, 2010,

Patrick McStay, who lives in Texas, rings up his younger son Michael and

him to check on Joseph.

He's concerned.

And I said, Michael, have you heard from your brother?

I've been trying to reach him over the weekend.

This last week, I can't get hold of him. And I said, I'm worried.

Within a few days, Joseph McStay's close business associates are growing

concerned as well and contact the family.

His brother, Michael, climbs in through an office window.

What he finds inside is disturbing.

What appears to be family life interrupted.

The house was as if somebody just beamed them up to the Starship Enterprise.

There was a couple bowls of, I believe, popcorn that looked like the boys were

eating, possibly watching TV.

There was a carton of eggs on the table as if maybe...

Summer or Joseph, they were about to make some food or something, and the

they had two dogs. They were just left there. It appeared as though somebody

brought out a magic wand and just made them disappear.

On Monday, February 15th, Michael McStay reports his brother's family missing to

the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators search the residence.

and find absolutely no evidence of a struggle or forced entry.

I was working down in San Diego as a reporter, and one of my sources from San

Diego County Sheriff's Department, he called me, and he said to me, Tony,

there's a family missing in Fallbrook. Our detectives are up there at the

This is going to turn into something, because it's very, very strange.

We think they may have been kidnapped.

We don't know.

Two months ago, the McStays moved into this quiet neighborhood.

The couple's two young children, a four and a three -year -old boy, are also

missing.

No one seems to be able to make sense of the family's disappearance.

You know, there is a lack of a crime scene at the house when they go in.

not, you know, blood all over the place. So they're trying to ascertain.

what's happened to this family.

Sheriff investigators don't think the family left on a planned vacation.

Last night, they went from door to door asking neighbors if they'd seen or heard

anything. They interviewed family members. They interviewed friends.

They interviewed business partners. They interviewed anybody that had done

business with Joseph McStay.

Okay, let's start with your name. Charles Ray Merritt, M -E -R -R -I -T

Detectives determined that Chase Merritt is the last known person to see Joseph

McStay. Joseph was one of my best friends and, you know, obviously, and my

business associate.

Merritt says he last saw Joseph McStay on the afternoon of February 4th when

two met at Chick -fil -A in Rancho Cucamonga to discuss their current

As far as I know, well, I know for a fact the only person who saw at Chick

-A is me. Why did Joseph come up here?

We just had to go over all kinds of money stuff, and as a matter of fact...

Barron says he has no clue where Joseph could be.

What do you think happened to these guys?

I really have... I mean, I haven't been able to form any real explanation as to

why Joseph would just disappear, because Joseph has no enemies whatsoever

that I know of.

During the hour -long interview, San Diego detectives pick up on an oddity in

how Chase Merritt is referring to Joseph McStay.

Do you think, or have you ever thought, that some of our kids are dead?

I've tried not to think about that factually.

Do you have any knowledge or information which indicates to you that they're

dead? No. The reason that I ask is because you have used the past tense.

The one thing that did stick out to San Diego investigators was he repeatedly

used the past tense in referring to Joe and the family.

And he seemed caught off

guard. Like, oh, I didn't realize I was doing that. I have no idea.

You know, I'm not sure what I used past tense in context

with, but I have no idea why. You said Joe was my best friend.

Oh.

I did. You did.

And, well, I don't know why. Okay. Okay. Did you guys have a falling out at all?

Never. Never. Okay. Still your best friend? Oh, yeah. Definitely. Okay.

After agreeing to a swab for DNA,

Chase Merritt is free to go, and the search for the McStay family continues.

Police track the plates of the family's missing white Isuzu trooper and quickly

get a lead.

Four days after they were last seen, The McStay's vehicle had been found

abandoned in a parking lot within walking distance of the U .S.-Mexico

But the discovery only leaves investigators with more questions.

Next on American Greed. Now new video could show the family crossing the

border. New evidence leads detectives to a theory.

Well, maybe they just decided to leave their lives behind and start a new life

down in Mexico.

You like the rocks and the dirt, bugs and everything, huh?

Joseph McStay's home videos reveal a young family loving life.

We gotta go. You guys say goodbye.

Bye.

Until one day when they all disappear from their Fallbrook, California home

without a trace.

There is Zuzu Trooper abandoned near the U .S.-Mexico border in San Diego, and

no one knows why.

Adding to the mystery, the San Diego Sheriff's detectives scan video

surveillance at the border crossing on the same day their vehicle is found and

see what appears to be two adults with two small children walking across the

border. Could it be the mixed days?

Could the family have decided to start a new life in Mexico or take a vacation?

And something happened there.

A family went missing like this, the way they went missing, and no evidence of a

struggle. So I could kind of understand at that time why the detectives were

thinking, well, maybe they just up and left their lives for whatever reason.

You don't want to think that possibly they may have been murdered.

San Diego was first confronted with what truly looked like a missing persons

case. The vehicle was found at the border. There is this grainy video of

appears to be a family of four, roughly the same, going across the border.

And so while it wasn't necessarily, I think, a concrete theory that they had

left and gone to Mexico, it was, well, we don't have any other evidence to

us in another direction.

But months later, the McStays still haven't contacted a single person or

accessed a penny of more than $100 ,000 in their personal bank accounts.

Joseph's father, Patrick McStay, says he is certain his son did not take his

family into Mexico.

You got a video, and all you can see is the back of someone.

How in the heck can you tell me that's them?

My son has a distinctive walk, almost like a duck walk.

And that video was not my son.

McStay is disappointed, to say the least, in San Diego's investigation and

decides to take matters into his own hands.

I didn't get much sleep.

I was going over papers, going over things we found, going over records,

out things, calling people.

I mean, this is what we were doing. San Diego wasn't, I had no idea what they

were doing.

Still, the missing McStays never surface, and the case goes cold for more

three years.

The more time that passes, the more unlikely their family believes they

leave. I didn't want to admit it.

I knew I'd never see him again.

Because Joey just wasn't the type to just disappear or walk off.

They would not have left like that.

November 13, 2013.

Off the I -15 freeway, north of Victorville, California, is an

area in the Mojave Desert.

A motorcyclist is out riding the trails.

when he makes a gruesome discovery.

How can I help you?

Hi, I'm out here on a motorcycle, out behind the dump, and I found what looks

like a human skull.

A small, bleached, white skull bone that appeared to be that of a child.

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department responds.

All we got was that there was a motorcycle rider in the area who

portion of a skull cap.

From there, they notified our coroner's detail, and they went out to the scene,

ended up locating two shallow graves.

Two shallow graves.

Inside the first lie what appeared to be the decomposed remains of a grown man.

He was wrapped in like a cloth woven blanket.

The woven blanket was wrapped in a tie -down, and then also there was a white

extension cord wrapped around the neck.

In the same grave, they find a child's rib bone.

which is later connected to the small skull found nearby.

Other bones are believed to have been carried off by animals.

The second grave reveals the decomposed remains of a smaller adult and another

child. There were two shallow grave sites with a total of four bodies.

The sheriff's department released that they found the remains of four people,

two of them children.

As soon as they released that information,

I immediately thought, oh my God, this might be the McStays.

Three and a half years after the family went missing, the worst case scenario is

confirmed. And through the use of dental records, we're able to identify the

adult victims as Summer and Joseph McStay. We believe the other two sets of

remains are that of the boys, their sons.

Police recovered a sledgehammer buried with the bodies.

It's consistent with the damage evident in the skull.

Leaving little doubt, this three -pound sledgehammer is a murder weapon.

I don't know if I can even describe it.

You already really have come to the realization that they're gone.

But now, it starts with the questions. Why?

Who?

How could you kill not only two adults, but how could you kill two little kids?

Next on American Greed, a missing person's case turns into a homicide

investigation.

We're not going in with any preconceived notions.

At that point, essentially, everyone's a suspect.

Never underestimate people who are desperate for money. They break your

He was a pilot and he claimed to transport animals in need.

To snare your cash.

She would just blatantly ask, I'm dying, can you please give me money?

But these do -gooders. The bigger the lie, the easier it is for people to

believe. Are all bad.

Social media scams. Where's the money? Where's the money for Johnny Bob?

All new American Greed, next Monday, 10 Eastern. Set your DVR now.

CNBC, get yours.

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It was a motorcyclist off -roading through a remote California desert who

spotted the remains.

Bones buried in shallow graves now linked to a family that vanished in

2010.

Three and a half years after the McStay family went missing.

Their bludgeoned remains reveal an awful truth.

They were murdered.

We're looking at all options and investigating this crime from the

trying to identify who the suspects are.

San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department calls up a team of homicide

detectives to work on nothing else until the case is solved.

One of the first things that we decided was we're not going in with any

preconceived notions and everyone's just going to start reading.

All this information that's there and taking our own notes. At that point,

essentially, everyone's a suspect until we can rule them out. When you see an

entire family murdered, obviously it's different because you have little ones.

You got a two, you know, a four -year -old killed.

When youngsters are murdered like that, then you have to try to understand why.

Why the youngsters? That was a big question that everyone had.

A question that leads to a theory.

Could the killer be someone close to the family?

Someone the children knew and could identify?

San Bernardino investigators reviewed the case file from the San Diego

missing persons investigation.

Thousands of documents, audio tapes, videos, TV interviews, and records

over more than three years.

From this, they called a master suspect list.

And so then we just went out and we started talking to everybody. We had the

benefit of having some sort of statement from them already because San Diego had

spoken with the majority of these people.

But we wrote search warrants for phone records, biological evidence, DNA. We

took DNA samples from everybody just to include or exclude everyone that we

could, everyone who had ever known that family.

One person detectives decide to take a hard look at is a man named Dan

Cavanaugh, who runs Joseph McStay's Internet sales website.

Cavanaugh raises suspicion when police find out.

he had taken money from the business after the McStay disappearance.

Although Kavanaugh did not legally own any of the business, he claims in a CNN

interview that he and Joseph were informal partners.

We shared ownership from the beginning starting the company, 50 -50.

We basically had a little bit of a gentleman's agreement.

Investigators track Kavanaugh down, and he tells them the same thing he told the

news media.

that he'd used the money to try to keep things going in Joseph McStay's

unexplained absence.

I actually corresponded with his family about that, and I was like, we need a

couple Gs out of the PayPal account to keep this business online or we'll lose

everything. And they're like, okay, well, do what you got to do. Dan was

to keep the business afloat, but he definitely had interest in the business

didn't want it to fail.

Kavanaugh explained, yeah, I took this money, this is why I took it.

So you did have a period where everyone was trying to figure out what's going to

happen to the business and keep this business running when there was this

where no one knew where Joseph was, no one knew what happened to him.

Kavanaugh says he was 2 ,600 miles across the ocean during the time frame

McStay murders.

Dan had an alibi.

At the time, he said he was with his girlfriend in Hawaii, and she flat out

me that...

She broke up with Dan. She's not friends with him anymore.

She doesn't like him.

They're obviously not boyfriend and girlfriend anymore.

But I was definitely with Dan. I was definitely with him in Hawaii.

Detectives tracked down Kavanaugh's plane tickets as well as other evidence

supporting his alibi.

Dan definitely had credit card activity in Hawaii.

He had computer activity in Hawaii.

Kavanaugh's information all verified.

You know, not only were we able to prove it through phone records and purchases,

you know, we were able to talk to people who were there with him and who

verified it.

Dan Kavanaugh has not responded to American Greed's request for comment.

He has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Next, there is one person investigators have not yet been able to eliminate.

You were the last person he saw.

I'm definitely the last person he saw.

There are three questions on the minds of a team of San Bernardino Sheriff's

homicide detectives.

Who killed the McStay family?

Why? And can we prove it?

They've eliminated dozens of possible suspects and begin homing in on the last

person known to have seen Joseph McStay, his business associate and friend,

Charles Chase Merritt.

Charles Merritt was one of many, many people that we looked into. Initially,

there was a business connection there with Joseph.

He was definitely a good friend of mine.

Investigators review a CNN interview that Chase Merritt did six months after

family's bodies were recovered.

We got pretty close. Chase went on TV and talked about his relationship with

Joseph, and one of the key statements that he made was something to the effect

of that he was definitely the last person who saw Joseph alive.

You were the last person he saw.

I'm definitely the last person he saw. That kind of cued into us as a red flag

there because I don't know how any one person could be certain and say that he

was the last person that saw his best friend alive if he...

wasn't in fact the last person that saw him alive.

They listened to the interviews San Diego detectives did with Merritt less

two weeks after the family went missing.

I knew a lot of Joseph's, a lot of his finances and stuff because we were

working so damn close together.

I mean, you know, we were just kind of co -mingling with the businesses.

They too were curious about Merritt's use of the past tense when referring to

his recently missing friend.

At the time, you're talking within days after his business partner, his best

friend, goes missing. He's referencing him in the past tense, already

that he believes that he's no longer around.

Did you guys have a fall down at all? Never, never.

Okay.

Merritt says he last saw Joseph on February 4th at a Chick -fil -A in

Cucamonga, where Merritt lives, about an hour north of McStay's Fallbrook home.

Why did Joseph come up here?

We just had to go over all kinds of money stuff.

He claimed that Joseph gave him some checks at that point to pay some of the

projects. Then they went their separate ways from there.

Why did he need the peace of face with you? Was it physically checks?

Yeah, they were physical checks.

Charles Merritt told San Diego investigators that these checks were all

They were all signed by Joseph and given to Charles on the 4th.

Detective Dan Hanke follows the money.

He digs into Merritt's story about the checks.

and discovers something suspicious.

The evidence comes from Joseph McStay's QuickBooks account.

Records there show that the checks Merritt claimed to receive from Joseph

February 4th were not actually created until after McStay and his family

disappeared.

Checks were written to Charles Merritt. There were a couple other checks written

to a vendor that Charles Merritt owed money to. And all the checks that were

written after February 4th were backdated.

On its face, a check like this one might appear to be written on February 4th,

2010.

But down in the QuickBooks metadata, Detective Hanke discovers a posting date

February 9th, 2010, meaning it was created five days after the McStay's

disappearance.

And the date was set for the last day that Joseph was seen alive.

So that's when Charles Merritt's story started falling apart and really gave us

the motive.

The evidence shows that someone had control of Joseph McStay's checking

right before and after his disappearance.

Someone who wrote a total of nine checks to Chase Merritt and a vendor Merritt

owed, totaling nearly $15 ,000, and then took steps to make it look like all

those checks had been written by Joseph McStay before he suddenly left.

So who would do that, and why?

The answer comes from a suspicious phone call to QuickBooks customer service on

February 9, 2010, five days after Joseph McStay vanished.

Detective Hanke tracks down the service rep who took the call.

When I called him and he reviewed the call notes, he was shocked and

the call and said it was one of two calls that he's remembered in his entire

career and he takes hundreds of calls a day.

The rep says the call was memorable because the customer was adamant in

demanding that all traces of his account be erased.

The caller told the representative that his name was Joseph McStay.

He said that this caller was insisting on deleting his account, deleting all

information off the account, canceling the subscription, and then deleting all

the information on the account.

There was a phone number attached to the caller, and that automatically

populated.

That phone number was Charles Merritt's cell phone number.

Five days after the disappearance, Charles Merritt is pretending to be

McStay and trying to delete McStay's QuickBooks account.

But lacking the master passcode, he fails.

And the damning digital evidence of his forgery is preserved.

Investigators access cell phone records to track some of Merritt's whereabouts

during the week the McStay family vanished.

What they find puts Merritt at the scene of a crime.

And after we looked at that, we saw two days after they went missing, his cell

phone pinged in the area of the gravesite.

The area of the gravesite is known as the High Desert.

He grew up in the High Desert.

He had ties to the High Desert. He knew the roads.

He knew the area very well.

Is there any reason that anyone would have seen you or your vehicle up in the

High Desert area?

Four years after he was first interviewed by San Diego, San Bernardino

detectives decide it's their turn to confront their prime suspect.

Why would people put you up in the high desert on February 6th?

No idea.

Merritt adamantly denies being at the desert gravesite location.

He sticks to his guns. If he was in the desert, he was visiting family.

The only reason I'd ever go to the high desert is for my brother, my sister.

Problem is, his family has already told police that Merritt had not been

visiting them.

Why would your phone show you at the gravesite on February 6th?

Not possible. I wasn't there.

Why would your phone records show you there?

Couldn't have.

Oh, they do?

They couldn't.

He didn't have any good excuse. He didn't have a good alibi. Everything

said, it was either a lie or he was trying to minimize his involvement.

Chase, you need to be able to explain some of these things and you're not able

to explain them.

Detectives believe Merritt also lied about how great he and Joseph's business

and personal relationship was going.

They locate an email sent from Joseph McStay to Chase Merritt three days

their last meeting that shows Merritt owes McStay nearly $43 ,000.

Could Joseph McStay have had enough of Charles Merritt? Could he have found out

that Merritt had accessed his QuickBooks account?

The theory is Joseph was going to fire him or report him to the Sheriff's

Department, and Chase has a criminal record.

Detectives learn that Merritt has two felony convictions for burglary and an

outstanding warrant at the time of Joseph's disappearance.

A third strike would mean automatic lockup for at least 25 years.

He's in big trouble.

If he gets another one, he's going to go to jail.

That right there to me is a big motive.

Jail.

Next on American Greed, detectives believe they've made their case, but

DA agree?

They put together a really solid investigation, but it was very clear to

It was highly circumstantial, a very tough case.

Let's make no mistake about it. Mr. Merritt is innocent.

Using hand tools to dig up this hard desert dirt, these Victorville residents

are putting up crosses where Joseph, his wife Summer, and two sons, Johnny and

Joey Jr., were buried in shallow graves.

We were here to pay our respects.

To the family, we know this pain. We know how it feels.

After the bodies of the McStay family are found in the Mojave Desert, the head

of the team of investigators working the case makes a promise to Joseph McStay's

father, Patrick.

He told me that they will solve this case, and he gave me his word.

I believed him.

Charles Chase Merritt was identified as the suspect responsible for the death of

Joseph Summer.

Gianni and Joseph McStay.

Almost a year to the day since the McStay's family remains were located,

Chase Merritt is charged with four counts of first -degree murder.

I remember when I first saw the video from the news where they were walking

from the car into the sheriff's office there and he's in handcuffs.

Honestly, God, people may hate me for it. I don't care.

I was glad to see him in cuffs.

When the capital murder trial of Chase Merritt opens, the San Bernardino County

Superior Courtroom is packed.

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

Just up and gone.

Cameras are in the court, and the trial is being live -streamed for the public.

The prosecution lays out a theory of greed, murder, and cover -up at the

of Charles Merritt.

Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence in this case will show you not only the

how...

but the why, and especially the who.

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

They put together a really solid investigation, covered every base that

available to them, but it was very clear to us that it was a very difficult

case, that it was clearly circumstantial. You did not have an

confession. You didn't have an outright... eyewitness.

It wasn't on video, so it was going to be a difficult case.

It was blow after blow after blow to a child's skull.

Evidence from the graves clearly shows how the family died, but prosecutors

struggle to show where the murders occurred.

Let's make no mistake about it.

Mr. Merritt is innocent.

Merritt's defense team goes straight to this glaring flaw in the state's case.

There is absolutely no physical evidence leaking Charles Merritt to a murder

scene. In fact, they can't even prove where the murder took place.

No blood was found in the residence.

The prosecution's theory was that Chase would have had to have driven to

Fallbrook, killed the family, load them up right into the truck and then drive

them out in order to kill the family and clean the house to a T, by the way.

With all that blood, remember, they were killed with a sledgehammer. We're

talking violent impacts that shattered skulls.

Blood would be everywhere.

But he manages to clean it all up spotless where there's not even a trace,

trace of blood in the residence.

The defense maintains that not only could the family not have been killed in

their home, that more than one person was involved.

They discovered a trove of aerial photographs routinely taken by county

surveyors.

Upon closer examination, they find one taken shortly after the disappearance

that appears to show two sets of tire tracks leading directly to the graves.

You can see the two graves. You can kind of see the tracks driving into them.

Just the two graves alone tell you it's two teams.

We've never ruled that possibility out.

You can have a murder case without answering those questions.

Prosecutors sidestep the possibility of an accomplice and say that's not the

question at hand. They focus instead on the circumstantial evidence connecting

Chase Merritt to the crime.

Given the fact that you have to transport four individuals, either dead

alive, away from a residence and clean up a mess if it occurred in the house,

dig two graves.

bury them.

That's a lot.

Is Mr. Merritt capable of doing it by himself?

Sure. Is it likely or possible he had help? Sure.

Next on American Greed, prosecutors are caught off guard by the defense's

biggest play, DNA evidence from the graves.

But the evidence in the grave says it's not him.

I don't have to take my client's word.

The evidence says he didn't do it, so let's do these tests. Let's find out

happened.

Halfway through a six -month quadruple murder trial, the defense representing

Charles Merritt in the murders of the McStay family drops a bomb, claiming to

have developed three unknown DNA profiles from items recovered inside the

graves. And guess what? It doesn't match Chase. Those three profiles don't match

Chase. The question is, who do these three profiles match?

in the grave says it's not him.

If that's not reasonable doubt, I don't know what is.

They wanted to create this idea in the juror's mind.

First of all, one man couldn't do this. Second of all, hey, there's a

possibility there was DNA from multiple people up at the burial site. Because

remember, they just need to find at least one juror who's going to say, I'm

sorry, this is a hung jury.

There's reasonable doubt.

The DNA evidence could be game -changing, but the prosecution has

the same items tested and did not find usable DNA profiles.

Our lab in San Bernardino had tested certain items, and they indicated that

because of the level of decomposition, that you weren't going to be able to get

something that was going to be trustworthy.

It wouldn't meet the standards of what was necessary for a lab.

So Marriott's defense team searches out the newest technology and finds a lab

working in the field of cyber genetics.

The company essentially uses algorithms to create statistically probable DNA

profiles from fragments of DNA, known as probabilistic genotyping.

And there's three separate profiles, which means three individuals, because

they're different profiles.

And they don't match Chase, and they don't match any of the family members.

That flies in the face of reliable science.

The prosecution counters, pointing out that the defense exhibits are not valid

scientific DNA profiles.

They are mathematical predictions of profiles extrapolated from degraded,

insufficient samples.

So it's not really a genetic profile.

It's an assumption and an inference.

Not supported by actual genetic activity.

What the defense came out with was there was a partial profile on, let's say,

for example, one of the cups of a bra.

What wasn't found on there was any of the victim's DNA. So it makes absolutely

no sense at all that her DNA would not be on that at all, but yet some unknown

touch DNA source would survive.

It just makes no sense.

Finally, the trial goes to the jurors.

Weighing the facts of a circumstantial case with no murder scene, a vote to

convict is anything but certain.

But the evidence pointing at the defendant stacks high and heavy on the

Prosecutors allege that Charles Merritt took control of Joseph McStay's checking

account after McStay vanished.

He wrote checks to himself and to vendors he owed.

He took steps to make it look like the checks were written by Joseph before he

disappeared.

He then tried to delete the checking account and cover all traces of the

activity. And he lied about all of it to San Diego investigators when they were

desperately searching for the missing McStay family.

Who else would do all of that besides the killer?

When you look at the totality of the picture, you just came right back to,

Charles Merritt.

We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Charles Ray

Merritt, guilty of the offense of murder in the first degree. On June 10th,

2019, the jury finds Chase Merritt guilty on four counts of first degree

three counts with special circumstances.

There was a huge sigh of relief.

There was finally some closure for the family.

They wanted justice.

And I know that as they sat through and saw the evidence,

they believed that he was responsible for it as well. That evidence was too

overwhelming. And the jury saw that because they convicted.

That says a lot when you get a jury looking at all this circumstantial

and saying he's guilty.

My son, Jerry, did nothing but help you and your family.

Patrick McStay has no doubts that the jury made the right call.

and lets Charles Merritt know it.

You and no one else can be blamed.

I hope you burn in hell.

He's a scumbag.

He's a creep.

He doesn't deserve to walk the earth or take a breath.

He killed somebody that trusted in him and gave him a chance when a lot of

people knew he was a crook.

And then he kills my grandsons?

Brutally?

How do you do that?

What happened here is wrong.

After the family members give their victims impact statements, it's Chase

Merritt's turn to address the court.

There was a deep sadness in his face, but I think it was for himself.

I don't deserve this.

I did not do this.

I will give him one thing.

He stuck to his story.

It is therefore the judgment sent to this court that the defendant, Charles

Merritt, be sentenced to death.

The man convicted in the murders of the McStay family has now been sentenced to

death. Merritt is 62 years old. He will eventually be sent to San Quentin State

Prison, where he will spend the rest of his life.

One way or the other, he's going to pay, whether he sits in there for the rest

of his life or whether he...

You know, whether it's executed, he's going to pay.

The governor of California has issued a moratorium on executions.

Merritt will remain on death row at San Quentin.

He is appealing his case.

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