The McStay Family Murders: Part Five (Conclusion)

0:00 Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and

0:04 Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and

0:07 Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now.

0:18 Speaker 2: True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,

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0:25 Speaker 2: more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension,

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0:41 Speaker 3: Hey, everybody, I just wanted to start out today by saying,

0:45 Speaker 3: thank you so much for being here. I really do

0:48 Speaker 3: appreciate it. And I know that sounds like something that

0:51 Speaker 3: any podcast host just kind of says at the beginning

0:54 Speaker 3: and maybe doesn't really mean it. But you know that

0:57 Speaker 3: old saying time is money. That's really true. And things

1:00 Speaker 3: are so expensive these days that your time is worth

1:04 Speaker 3: more than ever and you're choosing to spend it listening

1:07 Speaker 3: to me talk. So I really do mean it. I

1:10 Speaker 3: really do appreciate you being here. I am Zevan Odelberg,

1:13 Speaker 3: and this is kind of Murdery and we have arrived

1:18 Speaker 3: at part five, the final episode of The Mixday Family Murders.

1:22 Speaker 3: And yes I did say part five. So if you

1:25 Speaker 3: haven't listened to parts one through four yet, go do

1:28 Speaker 3: that and then come back and join us. And I will,

1:30 Speaker 3: as always say to you a seat, maybe even warm

1:33 Speaker 3: it up for you. And if you're all caught up,

1:36 Speaker 3: we got a lot to get to. So I'm not

1:38 Speaker 3: gonna waste your time waddling around and rambling anymore. This

1:43 Speaker 3: is it, Part five of kind of Murderies. The mix

1:46 Speaker 3: Day Family Murders starts now. The court room in San

2:01 Speaker 3: Bernardino was built for volume, by which I mean physical space,

2:05 Speaker 3: not raised voices, high ceilings, pale walls, wood benches, polished

2:10 Speaker 3: by decades of restless hands, and by the time opening

2:14 Speaker 3: statements began, it held a different kind of pressure, not noise,

2:18 Speaker 3: but compression. Reporters filled the rear. Rose family members took

2:23 Speaker 3: seats in clusters that did not intermingle. The defendant sat

2:27 Speaker 3: at the defense table in a suit that fit correctly,

2:31 Speaker 3: hands folded posture. Still, the state went first. Deputy District

2:36 Speaker 3: Attorney britt Ems did not begin with a timeline. He

2:39 Speaker 3: began with the manner of death. He spoke on a

2:41 Speaker 3: controlled cadence, not theatrical, but deliberate, describing blunt forced traumata skulls,

2:48 Speaker 3: the number of blows required to fracture bone, the size

2:51 Speaker 3: and weight of the three pound sledge hammer recovered near

2:54 Speaker 3: the graves. He did not speculate about rage. He spoke

2:59 Speaker 3: about in ten. It was blow after blow after blow

3:04 Speaker 3: to a child's skull, a three year old and a

3:07 Speaker 3: four year old. He told the jury, that's an intentional killing.

3:12 Speaker 3: The words hung there. From that point forward, the state's

3:16 Speaker 3: narrative moved backward in time, away from the desert and

3:19 Speaker 3: toward February fourth, twenty ten. The prosecution's version of events

3:23 Speaker 3: was linear and disciplined. Joseph McStay left his Fallbrook home

3:27 Speaker 3: that afternoon to meet Charles Chase Merit for lunch at

3:31 Speaker 3: a Chick fil A at Rancho Cucamonga. The meeting lasted

3:34 Speaker 3: several hours. They discussed business, custom water features, vendor payments,

3:39 Speaker 3: outstanding balances. It was the last confirmed in person contact

3:43 Speaker 3: between Joseph and Charles Merit. That night, at a twenty

3:47 Speaker 3: eight p m. Joseph's phone placed a call to Merit.

3:50 Speaker 3: The state emphasized the time stamp the prosecution characterized it

3:54 Speaker 3: as significant. The final documented communication from Joseph's device, Merrit

3:59 Speaker 3: did not answer after that silence, no outgoing calls, no emails,

4:04 Speaker 3: no credit card activity, no financial movement from Joseph or Summer.

4:09 Speaker 3: According to the prosecution, this abrupt cessation of activity did

4:12 Speaker 3: not indicate a family leaving voluntarily. It indicated finality. IIMs

4:18 Speaker 3: then turned to motive. He introduced jurors to earth inspired

4:21 Speaker 3: products Joseph's decorative fountain business. It had grown substantially in

4:25 Speaker 3: the years leading up to twenty ten. There were custom projects,

4:29 Speaker 3: large builds, a potential deal that Joseph's father would later

4:33 Speaker 3: describe as worth up to nine million dollars. Merit, a

4:37 Speaker 3: fabricator and welder, worked with Joseph on the construction side

4:40 Speaker 3: of custom installations. The state described a financial imbalance that

4:45 Speaker 3: Merit owed Joseph's significant sums approximately forty two thousand dollars.

4:50 Speaker 3: They referenced emails and accounting records that, in the prosecution's telling,

4:54 Speaker 3: showed mounting tension over money. The motive, as framed by

4:58 Speaker 3: the state, was simple, the race debt seas opportunity. The

5:03 Speaker 3: prosecution did not yet detail the physicality or mechanics of

5:08 Speaker 3: the killings. They maintained that the McStay family was murdered

5:12 Speaker 3: in their Fallbrook residence and transported north to the desert.

5:16 Speaker 3: They would later argue that the lack of visible blood

5:18 Speaker 3: did not negate that conclusion. For now, they kept the

5:22 Speaker 3: picture tight. Joseph and Summer were alive in the afternoon.

5:25 Speaker 3: By night, all communication ended. Four days later, the family's

5:29 Speaker 3: a Zuzu trooper was discovered near the Mexican border. Three

5:32 Speaker 3: years later, their bodies were located in two shallow graves

5:36 Speaker 3: near Victorville. The through line was intent. Ims returned to

5:40 Speaker 3: the sledge hammer. He described where it was found in

5:43 Speaker 3: proximity to the graves, partially buried. He described the injuries

5:47 Speaker 3: documented by forensic experts, fractured skulls, blunt forced trauma, consistent

5:52 Speaker 3: with repeated strikes. He did not embellish, He used anatomical language,

5:57 Speaker 3: and his implications did not require amplification. Throughout merit sat

6:02 Speaker 3: with little visible reaction. He occasionally leaned toward his attorney,

6:07 Speaker 3: Rajan Malin, but did not interrupt or display outward agitation.

6:11 Speaker 3: The defense table remained quiet, absorbing the state's architecture. I'ms

6:16 Speaker 3: then addressed behavior after February fourth. According to the prosecution,

6:20 Speaker 3: someone accessed Joseph's Quickbook's account after the disappearance and backtated

6:25 Speaker 3: checks worth around fifteen thousand dollars on February fourth to

6:29 Speaker 3: create the appearance of legitimate payment. The state asserted that

6:33 Speaker 3: those digital fingerprints metadata embedded in accounting software would demonstrate manipulation.

6:39 Speaker 3: They indicated that checks were written to Merit or vendors

6:42 Speaker 3: associated with him. They pointed to a call placed to

6:45 Speaker 3: Quickbook's customer service by a man identifying himself as Joseph McStay,

6:50 Speaker 3: seeking to delete the account entirely. The prosecution claimed that

6:54 Speaker 3: the phone used to make that call belonged not to Joseph,

6:57 Speaker 3: but to Merit. The argument was cumulats. Each element alone

7:01 Speaker 3: might invite dispute. Together, The states said they told a

7:05 Speaker 3: coherent story. The defense had not yet responded in detail.

7:09 Speaker 3: They would not do so until their own opening, But

7:12 Speaker 3: even before Maline stood to speak, the adversarial shape of

7:16 Speaker 3: the trial had formed. The prosecution's case rested not on

7:19 Speaker 3: a single eye witness or a singular forensic discovery in

7:22 Speaker 3: the home, but on a lattice of financial records, phone data,

7:26 Speaker 3: and circumstantial inference. When Moline rose, he did not attack

7:31 Speaker 3: the emotion of the desert. He attacked the certainty of

7:34 Speaker 3: the state's timeline. He told jurors the case was built

7:37 Speaker 3: on assumption that no blood was found in the mic

7:40 Speaker 3: stay home, that no forensic evidence placed Merit inside a

7:43 Speaker 3: murder scene, that the state could not pinpoint the exact

7:46 Speaker 3: location of cell phone pings beyond a general geographic area.

7:50 Speaker 3: He suggested that suspicion had hardened into accusation without direct proof,

7:56 Speaker 3: but the first act belonged to the prosecution. They presented

8:00 Speaker 3: a narrative that began with business tension and ended in

8:03 Speaker 3: the desert. They framed the absence of activity on a

8:06 Speaker 3: February fifth not as a mystery, but a consequence. They

8:10 Speaker 3: described the eight twenty eight p m phone call as

8:13 Speaker 3: a final opportunity missed. They treated financial irregularities as behavior

8:18 Speaker 3: inconsistent with innocence. The court room absorbed it all in silence.

8:23 Speaker 3: At this stage, the state's theory was clean motive, money, opportunity,

8:28 Speaker 3: lunch meeting, and proximity means sledge hammer aftermath manipulated accounts

8:34 Speaker 3: and phone data. The prosecution did not need spectacle. The

8:38 Speaker 3: facts arranged in sequence were intended to be enough. Whether

8:42 Speaker 3: they were enough would depend on how the defense fractured

8:45 Speaker 3: the prosecution's sequence in the days ahead. The prosecution did

8:49 Speaker 3: not begin with blood. It began with paper. On a

8:53 Speaker 3: large screen in the court room, jurors were shown a

8:55 Speaker 3: series of checks drawn from Earth inspired products. The dates

8:59 Speaker 3: printed on the check read February fourth, twenty ten, the

9:02 Speaker 3: same day Joseph McStay and his family vanished. The amounts

9:05 Speaker 3: varied several thousand dollars at a time. In total, prosecutors

9:10 Speaker 3: argued roughly fifteen thousand dollars had been written to Merit

9:13 Speaker 3: or to vendors connected to him in the days immediately

9:16 Speaker 3: after the mix days disappeared. Deputy District Attorney Britt Eimes

9:21 Speaker 3: did not raise his voice. He walked the jury through

9:24 Speaker 3: the numbers slowly, calmly. Joseph McStay had emailed Merit on

9:28 Speaker 3: February first, twenty ten, three days before the disappearance, stating

9:32 Speaker 3: that Merrit owed the company approximately forty two thousand dollars

9:36 Speaker 3: for prior work and over payments. The figure was not

9:39 Speaker 3: disputed in court. It was printed in black and white

9:42 Speaker 3: in the email. The tone of the message was business like,

9:45 Speaker 3: but firm payment needed to be addressed. Then came the metadata.

9:50 Speaker 3: San Bernardino County investigators testified that although the checks bore

9:54 Speaker 3: the date February fourth, forensic examination of the quick books

9:58 Speaker 3: records showed they were actually created several days later. The

10:01 Speaker 3: electronic time stamps embedded in the accounting software reflected creation

10:06 Speaker 3: dates after the McStay family had already gone silent. Prosecutors

10:10 Speaker 3: argued that checks had been backdated to make it appear

10:13 Speaker 3: as though they were written during a routine business day.

10:16 Speaker 3: The defense objected to characterization. They did not dispute that

10:19 Speaker 3: Merritt wrote the checks. They disputed the implication. Rajmlin, Merrit's

10:23 Speaker 3: defense attorney, rose and suggested an alternative explanation. Backdating was

10:28 Speaker 3: not unusual in small businesses. Payments were sometimes injured after

10:32 Speaker 3: the fact. The metadata showed when injuries were input into

10:35 Speaker 3: quick books, but not when physical checks were handed over.

10:38 Speaker 3: There was no witness who saw merit Forge's signature. There

10:42 Speaker 3: was no surveillance video of him alone at a computer

10:44 Speaker 3: altering records. The jury was reminded that Joseph and Merritt

10:48 Speaker 3: had met for lunch on February fourth at a Chick

10:50 Speaker 3: fil A in Rancho Cucamonga. The meeting itself was not disputed.

10:54 Speaker 3: What occurred during that meeting was. Prosecutors suggested that Joseph

10:59 Speaker 3: may have conn fronted Merit about the forty two thousand

11:02 Speaker 3: dollars debt. They implied termination of falling out a financial reckoning.

11:07 Speaker 3: They did not present an audio recording of that lunch.

11:10 Speaker 3: They presented inference built on timing and money. The defense

11:13 Speaker 3: countered with context. Merit had been a welder and a

11:16 Speaker 3: fabricator on custom Fountain projects. Payments often flowed unevenly. Vendors

11:22 Speaker 3: were paid as materials were ordered. Cash flow could be erratic.

11:25 Speaker 3: Writing a check after a meeting did not equate to murder.

11:29 Speaker 3: The prosecution shifted to bank activity. After February fourth, there

11:34 Speaker 3: was no further phone usage from Joseph's cell phone beyond

11:37 Speaker 3: the evening call records, no outgoing emails, no logins to

11:41 Speaker 3: business accounts under his name, but the quick Book's injuries continued.

11:45 Speaker 3: Someone was accessing the system. Investigators testified that a call

11:49 Speaker 3: had been placed to QuickBooks customer service from a phone

11:52 Speaker 3: registered to Merit. The caller identified himself as Joseph McStay

11:56 Speaker 3: and attempted to delete the company's accounting records. The senative refused,

12:01 Speaker 3: citing lack of proper authentication credentials that call was logged.

12:05 Speaker 3: The defense again pushed back the identity of the caller

12:08 Speaker 3: was based on phone records, not a recorded voice. Confirmed

12:12 Speaker 3: in court, the jury did not hear an audio clip

12:14 Speaker 3: of Merritt's voice on the line. They heard a customer

12:17 Speaker 3: service employee recount that someone claiming to be Joseph had

12:21 Speaker 3: called from a number later associated with Merit. For his part,

12:24 Speaker 3: Iimes returned to the money. Approximately forty two thousand dollars

12:29 Speaker 3: was owed by Merit to mix Stay. Approximately fifteen thousand

12:34 Speaker 3: dollars was written to Merit or his associates in the

12:37 Speaker 3: days after the family disappeared. If Merrit owed Mixtay forty

12:41 Speaker 3: two thousand dollars, might mic Stay hesitate to write Merit

12:46 Speaker 3: checks for another fifteen And then there was the potential

12:49 Speaker 3: nine million dollar deal Joseph was reportedly negotiating, according to

12:53 Speaker 3: testimony from his father, Patrick McStay. The prosecution's position was simple.

12:58 Speaker 3: Financial pressure can create mone motive. A debt can become leverage,

13:02 Speaker 3: a termination can become escalation. The defense warned the jury

13:07 Speaker 3: about stacking numbers into narrative. Owing money is not homicide.

13:12 Speaker 3: Entering payments into accounting software is not evidence of violence.

13:16 Speaker 3: Suspicion built on spreadsheets still requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

13:21 Speaker 3: There was no confession introduced in this fase. No eye

13:25 Speaker 3: witness placing Merit inside the Mixday home on the night

13:28 Speaker 3: of February fourth, no blood in his truck, no murder

13:31 Speaker 3: weapon tied to his fingerprints. The prosecution leaned heavily on

13:35 Speaker 3: pattern and proximity, on the convergence of debt, timing, and

13:39 Speaker 3: digital activity. The court room grew quiet when the prosecution

13:43 Speaker 3: displayed the February first email again. The forty two thousand

13:47 Speaker 3: dollars figure appeared on the screen, clear and unambiguous. The

13:51 Speaker 3: jurors looked at the number, then at Merit seated at

13:55 Speaker 3: the defense table. The defense did not deny the number.

13:58 Speaker 3: They denied the inclusion money can create tension, it does

14:02 Speaker 3: not by itself prove a killing. That tension between arithmetic

14:07 Speaker 3: and accusation settled over the room as the state prepared

14:10 Speaker 3: to move beyond paper and into geography. The numbers were specific,

14:15 Speaker 3: The question was whether they were enough. The prosecution left

14:19 Speaker 3: the spreadsheets behind and moved to the desert. A map

14:23 Speaker 3: of the High Desert was displayed for the jury. Cell

14:26 Speaker 3: tower coverage, radiating outside and irregular arcs. FBI Special Agent

14:31 Speaker 3: Kevin Bowles testified about the technical limits of cell site

14:34 Speaker 3: location data. The evening of February sixth, twenty ten, two

14:38 Speaker 3: days after the McStay family was last heard from a

14:41 Speaker 3: phone associated with Charles Merritt, connected to a tower that

14:45 Speaker 3: serviced an area near where the bodies would eventually be

14:48 Speaker 3: discovered in November twenty thirteen. The prosecution did not claim

14:52 Speaker 3: GPS precision. They did not claim a pinpoint burial location.

14:57 Speaker 3: They claimed presents within a general coverage era. Bulls explained

15:01 Speaker 3: that cell tower pings can establish a broad zone, not

15:04 Speaker 3: a specific coordinate. In rural areas, towers cover larger swaths

15:09 Speaker 3: of terrain. The data showed Merrit's phone in the High

15:12 Speaker 3: Desert region on February sixth, That was a fact entered

15:16 Speaker 3: into the evidence. The defense seized on the limitations. Under

15:20 Speaker 3: cross examination, Bolls acknowledged that the technology could not place

15:24 Speaker 3: the phone at the grave site itself. It could not

15:27 Speaker 3: confirm whether Merret was standing on that stretch of Mojave

15:30 Speaker 3: Desert or driving along Interstate fifteen miles away. The agent

15:34 Speaker 3: concluded that you can get a general idea of where

15:38 Speaker 3: in the High Desert, but not an exact location. The

15:42 Speaker 3: jurors heard the phrase general area more than once. Prosecutors

15:47 Speaker 3: layered the geography over familiarity. Testimony established that Merrit had

15:51 Speaker 3: grown up in the High Desert, he knew the terrain,

15:54 Speaker 3: he had family connections in the region. The implication was

15:58 Speaker 3: familiarity the kind that would make make a remote desert

16:01 Speaker 3: burial site less daunting. The defense countered with ordinary travel,

16:06 Speaker 3: the High Desert was not an exotic destination. It was

16:09 Speaker 3: reachable by freeway. Visiting family or passing through did not

16:13 Speaker 3: equate to transporting four bodies. They reminded the jury that

16:17 Speaker 3: no witness had seen Merit in possession of the mixed

16:20 Speaker 3: days after February fourth. No soil from the grave site

16:23 Speaker 3: was found in his vehicle. No shovel, no tarp, no

16:27 Speaker 3: fiber evidence was presented tying him physically to the graves.

16:31 Speaker 3: Then the sledge hammer entered the frame. A three pound

16:35 Speaker 3: sledge hammer had been recovered from one of the graves.

16:38 Speaker 3: Prosecutors argued it was consistent with the blunt force trauma

16:41 Speaker 3: identified in autopsy findings. They did not present fingerprints from

16:45 Speaker 3: the hammer tying it to Merit. They did not present

16:48 Speaker 3: DNA linking him to the handle. The argument was inferential

16:52 Speaker 3: that a man who fabricated custom fountains would be familiar

16:56 Speaker 3: with tools of that size and weight. The defense objected

16:59 Speaker 3: to cairecharacterizing tool familiarity with evidence of homicide. Thousands of

17:04 Speaker 3: contractors and welder's own sledge hammers ownership does not imply

17:08 Speaker 3: use in murder. No hardware store received connected Merit to

17:12 Speaker 3: that specific hammer. No witness placed it in his hand.

17:16 Speaker 3: The prosecution returned briefly to February fourth. At a twenty

17:20 Speaker 3: eight p m. Joseph mcstay's phone placed a call to Merit.

17:23 Speaker 3: Phone records confirmed the outgoing call. Merrit did not answer.

17:28 Speaker 3: The call lasted seconds. The prosecution suggested that the call

17:32 Speaker 3: was significant because it was the final documented attempt at

17:35 Speaker 3: contact between the two men. They did not claim the

17:38 Speaker 3: call contained a plea for help. There was no recording,

17:41 Speaker 3: they suggested timing. The defense reframed it as routine. Joseph

17:46 Speaker 3: and Merritt spoke frequently about business matters. Multiple calls that

17:50 Speaker 3: day were not unusual. The fact that Merritt did not

17:53 Speaker 3: answer one call did not transform it into prophecy. The

17:57 Speaker 3: prosecution structure was cumulative debt of approximately forty two thousand dollars,

18:03 Speaker 3: roughly fifteen thousand dollars in post disappearance checks, a February

18:07 Speaker 3: sixth phone paying in the high desert, a sledge hammer

18:10 Speaker 3: buried with the bodies a final mist call at eight

18:13 Speaker 3: twenty eight p m. Individually, each piece had room for argument. Together,

18:18 Speaker 3: the state argued they formed a coherent pattern. The defense

18:22 Speaker 3: did not attempt to dismantle every piece of that pattern entirely. Instead,

18:27 Speaker 3: they focused on doubt. Metadata does not equal murder. Cell

18:31 Speaker 3: tower data does not equal burial. Debt does not equal

18:34 Speaker 3: motive beyond speculation. Tool familiarity does not equal weapon identification.

18:39 Speaker 3: A missed phone call does not equal guilt. By the

18:43 Speaker 3: close of this first phase of testimony, the jurors were

18:46 Speaker 3: left weighing interpretation against limitation. The prosecution had offered specificity,

18:52 Speaker 3: dollar amounts, time stamps, tower sectors. The defense had offered

18:56 Speaker 3: constraint technological boundaries, missing physical links, absence of direct evidence.

19:03 Speaker 3: No confession had been introduced, No eyewitness had testified to

19:07 Speaker 3: seeing Merit commit violence. What stood in the record were numbers, logs,

19:11 Speaker 3: and geography, and the question of whether those elements aligned

19:15 Speaker 3: crossed the threshold from suspicion into proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

19:20 Speaker 3: The courtroom did not erupt. It tightened. The state rested

19:24 Speaker 3: on structure. The defense prepared to dismantle it. They began

19:29 Speaker 3: by refusing the narrative of the prosecution had constructed. Rajmlin

19:33 Speaker 3: did not open with numbers. He opened with absence. No

19:37 Speaker 3: blood was recovered from Charles Merritt's truck, No blood was

19:40 Speaker 3: recovered from his home. No blood was recovered from tools

19:44 Speaker 3: seized from his possession. The mixedday residence itself had yielded

19:47 Speaker 3: no definitive forensic evidence tying Merit to a homicide inside

19:51 Speaker 3: the home. The defense repeated this plainly, methodically, without flourish.

19:57 Speaker 3: If four people had been bludgeoned to death inside that

19:59 Speaker 3: f Abrook house, the defense argued, the physical evidence would

20:03 Speaker 3: not have evaporated walls, flooring, upholstery, vehicles, something would have

20:09 Speaker 3: retained biological trace. The state had presented nothing linking Merit

20:13 Speaker 3: to a violent scene. The prosecution's theory was that the

20:17 Speaker 3: killings occurred in the McStay home on February fourth, twenty ten,

20:20 Speaker 3: and that the bodies were transported to the desert afterward.

20:24 Speaker 3: The defense questioned whether the crime scene had ever been

20:26 Speaker 3: definitively established. No crime scene photographs of blood pools were

20:31 Speaker 3: shown to the jury. No luminol hits tied to merit

20:34 Speaker 3: were introduced as conclusive. The defense then shifted to the

20:38 Speaker 3: Issuzu trooper. The vehicle had been towed from a parking

20:41 Speaker 3: lot near Sanya Sidro on February eighth, twenty ten. Prosecutors

20:45 Speaker 3: had pointed to Merritt's DNA found on the Asuzu's steering

20:48 Speaker 3: wheel and gear shift. Under cross examination, forensic analysts acknowledged

20:53 Speaker 3: that Merritt was a quote trace contributor unquote. The amount

20:57 Speaker 3: of DNA recovered was small, it was consistent with casual transfer,

21:02 Speaker 3: the kind that could occur through ordinary contact. Merritt had

21:05 Speaker 3: worked with Joseph. They met in person, they shook hands,

21:08 Speaker 3: they sat in the same vehicle during business discussions. Transfer

21:12 Speaker 3: was not impossible. The defense emphasized that if Merritt had

21:16 Speaker 3: driven the trooper from Fallbrook to Sanya Sidro up approximately

21:20 Speaker 3: ninety minutes, one would expect him to be the primary

21:23 Speaker 3: DNA contributor on the steering wheel. He was not. The

21:27 Speaker 3: prosecution maintained that DNA evidence placed Merit inside the vehicle.

21:31 Speaker 3: The defense reframed it as evidence that he had been

21:34 Speaker 3: inside the vehicle at some point, not necessarily on February fourth,

21:39 Speaker 3: or during the transport of bodies. Then came the cell

21:43 Speaker 3: data again. Kevin Bules had testified that Merritt's phone pinged

21:47 Speaker 3: off a tower serving the High Desert region on February sixth,

21:50 Speaker 3: twenty ten. Under defense questioning, Bulls reiterated that cell tower

21:54 Speaker 3: data in rural areas is imprecise. Coverage sectors can span miles.

21:59 Speaker 3: A phone can acting to a tower does not prove

22:01 Speaker 3: presence at a specific coordinate. The defense drew out the

22:05 Speaker 3: limitations carefully. The phone could have been traveling along Interstate fifteen.

22:10 Speaker 3: It could have been near a different location within the

22:12 Speaker 3: same coverage zone. It could not be placed at the

22:15 Speaker 3: grave site itself. That was conceded on the record. The

22:18 Speaker 3: prosecution had argued that Merritt's familiarity with the High Desert

22:22 Speaker 3: supported opportunity. The defense responded that familiarity does not establish action.

22:28 Speaker 3: Merit had family connections in the region. Travel to the

22:31 Speaker 3: area was not inherently suspicious. No surveillance footage, no toll records,

22:36 Speaker 3: no eyewitness testimony placed him at the burial site. The

22:40 Speaker 3: defense then returned to the financial evidence. Yes, there was

22:44 Speaker 3: an e mail dated February first stating that Merritt owed

22:47 Speaker 3: approximately forty two thousand dollars. The defense did not dispute

22:51 Speaker 3: the email's existence, They questioned the motive theory built upon it.

22:55 Speaker 3: Business debts are resolved through negotiation, through termination, through litigation,

22:59 Speaker 3: not necessarily through homicide. There was no written termination notice

23:04 Speaker 3: presented in court. There was no documented confrontation at the

23:07 Speaker 3: February fourth lunch meeting. As for the roughly fifteen thousand

23:11 Speaker 3: dollars in checks entered into quick books after February fourth,

23:14 Speaker 3: the defense suggested an administrative explanation rather than criminal intent.

23:19 Speaker 3: In small operations, injuries can lag behind physical payment. Metadata

23:23 Speaker 3: shows when information was input, not when agreements were made.

23:27 Speaker 3: The jury was reminded that quickbook logs are not eye witnesses.

23:32 Speaker 3: The court room dynamics shifted subtly. The state had presented

23:35 Speaker 3: structure and accumulation. The defense presented fracture. Where was the

23:40 Speaker 3: murder weapon tied to merit. Where was the blood? Where

23:43 Speaker 3: was the direct evidence that he was inside the Mixday

23:46 Speaker 3: home on the night of February fourth? Where was the

23:48 Speaker 3: witness who saw him with the family after the Chick

23:51 Speaker 3: fil A lunch? Each question was posed not theatrically, but clinically.

23:56 Speaker 3: The defense did not claim to know who killed the

23:59 Speaker 3: mix Days in this way, They claimed only that the

24:01 Speaker 3: state had not eliminated reasonable doubt. By the time the

24:06 Speaker 3: morning session adjourned, the jury had heard two competing frameworks,

24:10 Speaker 3: one built on convergence, money, metadata movement, the other built

24:14 Speaker 3: on absence, no blood, no precise location, no direct witness.

24:19 Speaker 3: The prosecution's case was not undone, but it had been tested,

24:24 Speaker 3: and the defense was not finished. The defense next turned

24:28 Speaker 3: to time. On the stand was Sarah Taylor Jarvis, Charles

24:32 Speaker 3: Merritt's oldest daughter. She testified that she was present on

24:35 Speaker 3: the evening of February fourth, twenty ten, when Joseph McStay

24:39 Speaker 3: called her father. She remembered the call because it led

24:42 Speaker 3: to an argument between her parents. Merritt's phone rang, he

24:45 Speaker 3: looked at it, he did not answer. Sarah Jarvis placed

24:49 Speaker 3: the timing of the call in the evening. The prosecution

24:53 Speaker 3: had built its timeline around the assumption that the McStay

24:56 Speaker 3: family was killed on February fourth. The eight twenty eight

24:59 Speaker 3: pm out going call call from Joseph's phone to Merrit

25:01 Speaker 3: was already in evidence. What Sarah Jarvis's testimony suggested was

25:06 Speaker 3: that Merrett was at home when the call came in.

25:09 Speaker 3: She described the setting without embellishment, a domestic environment, her

25:13 Speaker 3: parents in the same room, a dispute about Merrett's habit

25:16 Speaker 3: of ignoring calls. The call from Joseph went unanswered. That

25:20 Speaker 3: was the detail she remembered. Under cross examination, Deputy District

25:24 Speaker 3: Attorney Melissa Rodriguez pressed her on precision. You're certain it

25:28 Speaker 3: was February fourth, You're certain it was Joseph McStay. You're

25:32 Speaker 3: certain of the time. Jarvis acknowledged that she was recalling

25:35 Speaker 3: an event from nine years earlier. Memory is not a

25:38 Speaker 3: time stamped document. The prosecution then introduced phone records indicating

25:43 Speaker 3: that the call in question was out going from Joseph's

25:46 Speaker 3: phone at eight twenty eight p m. They questioned whether

25:49 Speaker 3: the call she remembered matched the data, or whether she

25:51 Speaker 3: was conflating routine calls that were common between the two men.

25:55 Speaker 3: Rodriguez also addressed Jarvis's involvement in her father's defense. You've

26:00 Speaker 3: actually assisted in your dad's defense with the case, right,

26:03 Speaker 3: she asked. Jarvis responded, I mean I've tried to be involved.

26:08 Speaker 3: I think they are patient with me, tolerate me. Maybe

26:11 Speaker 3: because I'm going to law school this fall. I'm trying

26:13 Speaker 3: to keep up with what is happening. The exchange was measured,

26:17 Speaker 3: but the implication was clear. The prosecution sought to suggest bias.

26:21 Speaker 3: The defense sought to present memory on redirect. Rajmalin asked

26:26 Speaker 3: a different question. In the entire four and a half

26:29 Speaker 3: year period that you've been visiting your dad, has he

26:32 Speaker 3: ever once told you to lie for him? Jarvis answered

26:35 Speaker 3: tearfully no. The jury observed not just the words, but

26:39 Speaker 3: the demeanor, memory versus motive, loyalty versus fabrication. The defense

26:45 Speaker 3: then introduced testimony from Catherine Jarvis, the mother of Merret's children.

26:49 Speaker 3: She described Merit as creative, focused on fabrication and building

26:53 Speaker 3: rather than bookkeeping. She testified that she had handled much

26:57 Speaker 3: of the household in business finances during earlier ventures. Her

27:00 Speaker 3: portrayal was of a man who worked with his hands,

27:03 Speaker 3: not someone meticulously orchestrating digital cover ups. The prosecution countered

27:08 Speaker 3: by returning to a twenty fourteen interview Catherine had given

27:12 Speaker 3: to detectives in which she described Merritt as quote irresponsible

27:16 Speaker 3: with money unquote. When asked whether she had used that phrase,

27:19 Speaker 3: she acknowledged that she had. The defense did not argue

27:23 Speaker 3: that financial tension never existed. They argued that financial disorganization

27:28 Speaker 3: does not equate the calculated murder. They reminded the jury

27:31 Speaker 3: that Merritt had continued working on projects in twenty ten

27:34 Speaker 3: even after the mixt Days disappeared. He had not fled

27:37 Speaker 3: the state, He had not altered his identity. He had

27:40 Speaker 3: remained visible. The prosecution, in rebuttal questioning, implied that visibility

27:45 Speaker 3: does not in the gate guilt. Criminal defendants often remain

27:48 Speaker 3: in plain sight. The issue was not flight, It was

27:51 Speaker 3: whether the pattern of conduct pointed toward intent. That eight

27:55 Speaker 3: twenty eight p m. Phone call hung in the air again,

27:58 Speaker 3: If Merritt was home now that evening, as his daughter testified,

28:02 Speaker 3: what did that mean for the prosecution's theory of when

28:05 Speaker 3: and where the murders occurred. The defense did not claim

28:08 Speaker 3: to have solved the timeline. They claimed only that the

28:11 Speaker 3: timeline was not fixed beyond doubt. By the close of

28:15 Speaker 3: the afternoon session, the jury had heard emotional testimony from

28:18 Speaker 3: family members and pointed questioning from the state. The financial

28:22 Speaker 3: narrative had been softened by human context, the technological narrative

28:26 Speaker 3: had been constrained by acknowledged limits. Reasonable doubt was not declared,

28:31 Speaker 3: but it was suggested the defense had not yet rested,

28:36 Speaker 3: and they closed their case by widening the lens. If

28:39 Speaker 3: Charles Merit did not kill the McStay family, then someone

28:42 Speaker 3: else did. The defense did not need to prove who

28:45 Speaker 3: that someone was. They needed only to demonstrate that the

28:48 Speaker 3: investigation had focused too narrowly, too quickly, and had failed

28:52 Speaker 3: to exhaust other viable possibilities. They began with access Joseph

28:58 Speaker 3: mcstay's business, Earth Inspired. The products had multiple individuals with

29:02 Speaker 3: administrative privileges at different times. The website back in could

29:06 Speaker 3: be accessed remotely, passwords were sometimes shared. Small businesses do

29:11 Speaker 3: not always maintain airtight compartmentalization. The defense asked jurors to

29:15 Speaker 3: consider whether digital injuries in quick books or access to

29:19 Speaker 3: financial records necessarily pointed to one individual. They revisited the

29:24 Speaker 3: business conflict with Dan Cavanagh. By twenty eleven, Cavanaugh had

29:28 Speaker 3: sold Earth inspired products to an outside company for approximately

29:32 Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Patrick McStay had testified

29:36 Speaker 3: that Joseph did not authorize that sale. Of course, Joseph

29:39 Speaker 3: couldn't have he was missing at the time, but Patrick

29:43 Speaker 3: set in court that Cavanagh owned nothing. The defense did

29:47 Speaker 3: not accuse Cavanagh outright in this phase. They raised the

29:50 Speaker 3: fact that there had been tension over ownership and control.

29:53 Speaker 3: They pointed to the transfer of the company after Joseph's disappearance.

29:57 Speaker 3: They reminded jurors that investigators had considered Kavanagh a person

30:02 Speaker 3: of interest early in the reopened homicide investigation. The prosecution

30:06 Speaker 3: objected to characterization beyond evidence. The judge sustained were appropriate,

30:11 Speaker 3: and the defense stayed within documented testimony. Then came the

30:15 Speaker 3: handling of the Mixtay home. Joseph's brother, Michael McStay had

30:19 Speaker 3: entered the house through a window on February thirteen, twenty ten,

30:22 Speaker 3: before it was formerly processed as a homicide scene. He

30:25 Speaker 3: removed a computer and an SD card, later stating that

30:28 Speaker 3: he had done so with the belief that digital information

30:31 Speaker 3: might help locate his missing family. The defense highlighted that

30:35 Speaker 3: the home had not been sealed immediately, family members had

30:38 Speaker 3: cleaned food from the kitchen, items had been removed. If

30:42 Speaker 3: forensic evidence was absent, the defense suggested jurors should consider

30:46 Speaker 3: whether the integrity of the scene had been compromised early

30:50 Speaker 3: in the investigation. They did not accuse Michael of wrongdoing.

30:53 Speaker 3: They introduced the concept of lost evidence. The prosecution countered

30:58 Speaker 3: that the absence of blood what evidence did not prove

31:01 Speaker 3: a killing had not occurred in the home. Homicides can

31:04 Speaker 3: be cleaned, scenes can be staged. Lack of visible forensic

31:08 Speaker 3: recovery does not equal absence of violence. The defense shifted again.

31:13 Speaker 3: They reminded the jury that no DNA belonging to Merit

31:16 Speaker 3: had been found on the sledge hammer recovered from the graves,

31:19 Speaker 3: no fingerprints, no skin cells conclusively tied to him. The

31:23 Speaker 3: hammer itself was not traced to a specific purchase by Merit.

31:27 Speaker 3: It was a common tool. The prosecution maintained that forensic

31:31 Speaker 3: absence does not equate to innocence. Not every murder weapon

31:34 Speaker 3: retains recoverable prints after years buried in desert soil, back

31:39 Speaker 3: and forth, back and forth. By the time The defense

31:42 Speaker 3: rested they had presented a mosaic of doubt, alternative access

31:46 Speaker 3: to business accounts, ownership disputes with Kavanaugh, scene contamination at

31:51 Speaker 3: the Mixed Day residence, limitations of cell tower data, lack

31:55 Speaker 3: of direct forensic link between merit and the murder weapon.

31:59 Speaker 3: They did not provide a complete alternative theory. They did

32:02 Speaker 3: not identify a single replacement perpetrator with certainty. They didn't

32:06 Speaker 3: need to. The standard was not who might have done it.

32:09 Speaker 3: The standard was whether the state had eliminated reasonable doubt.

32:13 Speaker 3: The courtroom shifted once more as both sides prepared for

32:16 Speaker 3: closing arguments. The jurors now held two competing narratives, one

32:21 Speaker 3: of financial motive, metadata and desert geography, the other of

32:25 Speaker 3: investigative blind spots, technological limits, and incomplete proof. What remained

32:30 Speaker 3: was interpretation. The state would soon ask for conviction, the

32:34 Speaker 3: defense would ask for restraint for acquittal. The jury would

32:38 Speaker 3: decide which story held. Closing arguments began without theatrics. Deputy

32:43 Speaker 3: District Attorney Britt IIMs stood before the jury and returned

32:47 Speaker 3: to the structure he had built over weeks of testimony.

32:50 Speaker 3: He did not reopen every exhibit. He selected the pieces

32:53 Speaker 3: he believed formed a line that could not be broken.

32:56 Speaker 3: On February first, twenty ten, Joseph McStay emailed Charles Merit,

33:00 Speaker 3: stating that Merritt owed the company approximately forty two thousand dollars.

33:04 Speaker 3: That number was not hypothetical, It was documented in writing.

33:07 Speaker 3: It was not framed as a casual oversight. It was

33:10 Speaker 3: framed as money do. On February fourth, Joseph met Merit

33:14 Speaker 3: for lunch in Rancho Cucamonga. The meeting was confirmed by

33:17 Speaker 3: both sides. That same evening, at eight twenty eight pm,

33:21 Speaker 3: Joseph's phone place to call to Merit. The call lasted seconds.

33:24 Speaker 3: Merrit did not answer. After that night, there was no

33:27 Speaker 3: further verified contact from Joseph McStay, no emails, no banking

33:31 Speaker 3: activity initiated by him, no additional phone usage beyond what

33:36 Speaker 3: was already entered into evidence. Within days, approximately fifteen thousand

33:40 Speaker 3: dollars in checks were entered into Earth Inspired Products Quickbook system,

33:44 Speaker 3: payable to Merit or to vendors connected to him. The

33:47 Speaker 3: electronic metadata showed those injuries were created after February fourth,

33:52 Speaker 3: but backdated to that day. IMS did not ask the

33:55 Speaker 3: jury to speculate about why someone might backdate a check.

33:58 Speaker 3: He suggested that backdate and creates the appearance of normalcy.

34:02 Speaker 3: It situates a financial transaction before a disappearance, rather than

34:06 Speaker 3: after it. Then he moved to geography. On February six,

34:10 Speaker 3: twenty ten, Merrit's phone connected to a cell tower servicing

34:13 Speaker 3: the High Desert region near where the Macday family's remains

34:16 Speaker 3: would be discovered. In November twenty thirteen, the FBI agent

34:20 Speaker 3: had testified that cell tower data provides a general location,

34:23 Speaker 3: not a pinpoint. The prosecution did not claim pinpoint. They

34:27 Speaker 3: claimed presence within the service area. Imes layered familiarity onto

34:32 Speaker 3: that presence. Merit had grown up in the High Desert.

34:35 Speaker 3: He knew the terrain the burial site was not random wilderness.

34:38 Speaker 3: To him, it was a region he understood. The sledge

34:42 Speaker 3: hammer recovered from one of the graves weighed three pounds.

34:45 Speaker 3: Autopsy testimony established blunt force trauma consistent with a heavy instrument.

34:50 Speaker 3: Imes did not claim the hammer bore Merrit's fingerprints. He

34:53 Speaker 3: argued that the type of weapon aligned with a man

34:56 Speaker 3: accustomed to working with tools of that size. He then

34:59 Speaker 3: addressed the defense's core argument absence no blood in Merit's truck,

35:04 Speaker 3: no direct forensic tie between merit and the hammer. No

35:07 Speaker 3: eyewitness to the killings. Tims acknowledge those gaps. He told

35:11 Speaker 3: the jury that murder cases are often built from circumstantial evidence.

35:15 Speaker 3: Circumstantial does not mean speculative, It means inferred from connected facts.

35:21 Speaker 3: The law does not require an eyewitness to convict, it

35:24 Speaker 3: requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. He urged the jurors

35:28 Speaker 3: to consider convergence debt of approximately forty two thousand dollars

35:32 Speaker 3: financial injuries totaling roughly fifteen thousand dollars after the disappearance

35:37 Speaker 3: a February fourth lunch meeting an eight twenty eight p

35:40 Speaker 3: m missed call a February sixth high desert cell tower

35:44 Speaker 3: connection a burial site in terrain familiar to the defendant.

35:48 Speaker 3: He did not raise his voice. He repeated the timeline

35:52 Speaker 3: February first, February fourth, February sixth. He asked the jury

35:56 Speaker 3: to look at the sequence and decide whether it was

35:59 Speaker 3: coincidences or cause. When Rajmalin rose for the defense, he

36:04 Speaker 3: did not attempt to dismantle the timeline. He questioned the

36:07 Speaker 3: strength of its joints. Dead is not a motive for murder,

36:10 Speaker 3: he said, business resolves disputes through civil mechanisms. The forty

36:14 Speaker 3: two thousand dollars email proved tension, not violence. The fifteen

36:18 Speaker 3: thousand dollars in quick book injuries proved accounting activity not homicide.

36:23 Speaker 3: He returned to the cell tower testimony. General area was

36:27 Speaker 3: the phrase repeated under oath the high desert spans miles.

36:31 Speaker 3: Being within a coverage sector does not equal being at

36:34 Speaker 3: a grave site. No GPS or veillance footage, no eyewitness.

36:38 Speaker 3: He reminded the jury that Merit's DNA and the Azuzu

36:41 Speaker 3: trooper was a trace contributor, casual transfer was possible. He

36:45 Speaker 3: reminded them that the sledge hammer bore no identifiable print

36:49 Speaker 3: tied to Merit. He reminded them that no blood evidence

36:52 Speaker 3: linked Merit to a killing inside the Mixday home. Mauleine

36:56 Speaker 3: emphasized that the state had not even proven where the

36:59 Speaker 3: murder occurred. The prosecution theorized the Falbrook residence, yet no

37:05 Speaker 3: conclusive forensic evidence established it as the crime scene. He

37:09 Speaker 3: urged the jury to resist narrative neatness. He suggested that

37:13 Speaker 3: the state had built a story that fit its chosen

37:16 Speaker 3: suspect while overlooking alternative explanations and investigative missteps, including early

37:22 Speaker 3: access to the mix stay home before it was treated

37:24 Speaker 3: as a secured homicide case. The arguments did not escalate

37:28 Speaker 3: into shouting. They narrowed. The jurors were instructed that circumstantial

37:32 Speaker 3: evidence is not inferior to direct evidence, but that each

37:36 Speaker 3: element must be weighed carefully. They were reminded that reasonable

37:40 Speaker 3: doubt is not imaginary doubt. It must be grounded in reason.

37:45 Speaker 3: The judge delivered the final instructions on the elements of

37:48 Speaker 3: first degree murder and special circumstances. If the jury found

37:52 Speaker 3: Merit guilty, they would proceed to a penalty phase. If not,

37:56 Speaker 3: he would walk. When the attorneys sat down, the courtroom

37:59 Speaker 3: did not erupt. The jurors filed out to deliberate. The

38:03 Speaker 3: numbers were now in their hands, approximately forty two thousand dollars,

38:08 Speaker 3: approximately fifteen thousand dollars February fourth, February sixth, and a

38:13 Speaker 3: desert that had held its silence for three years. The

38:17 Speaker 3: decision would determine whether that silence had been broken beyond

38:22 Speaker 3: a reasonable doubt. The jury returned with a guilty verdict,

38:26 Speaker 3: and the courtroom shifted once again. After the guilty verdict

38:30 Speaker 3: was read. The question of whether Charles Chase Merit killed

38:34 Speaker 3: Joseph in Summer mis day and their two young sons

38:37 Speaker 3: was no longer before the jury that decision had been made.

38:41 Speaker 3: What remained was punishment, because San Bernardino had charged Merit

38:46 Speaker 3: with four counts of first degree murder with special circumstances.

38:50 Speaker 3: As the case entered the penalty phase, the jurors now

38:53 Speaker 3: had two options, life in prison without the possibility of

38:56 Speaker 3: parole or death. The prosecution did not need to prove

39:00 Speaker 3: guilt again. They needed to argue aggravation. They began by

39:05 Speaker 3: revisiting the manner of the killings, but with sharper focus.

39:08 Speaker 3: The Mixtays had been buried in two shallow graves in

39:11 Speaker 3: the Mojave Desert near Victorville. Joseph and his younger son

39:14 Speaker 3: were placed together in one grave. Summer and Johnny were

39:17 Speaker 3: placed in the other. Each had been killed by blunt

39:20 Speaker 3: force trauma. Prosecutors emphasized the vulnerability of the children four

39:25 Speaker 3: years old and three years old, and the physical force

39:28 Speaker 3: required to inflict the injuries documented by forensic pathologists. The

39:32 Speaker 3: weapon recovered near the graves, the three pound sledge hammer

39:36 Speaker 3: that was shown to be consistent with the skull fractures.

39:39 Speaker 3: Again returned to the narrative. Jurors had already heard this

39:43 Speaker 3: in the guilt phase, but in the penalty phase it

39:46 Speaker 3: was framed differently, not as evidence of identity but as

39:49 Speaker 3: evidence of brutality. The prosecution also returned to motive, this

39:54 Speaker 3: time in moral terms rather than evidentiary ones. They revisited

39:58 Speaker 3: the approximately four forty two thousand dollars in bad checks

40:02 Speaker 3: that Merit had written to himself from Earth inspired products

40:06 Speaker 3: and its quick book accounts in the weeks surrounding the murders.

40:10 Speaker 3: They referenced Merret's gambling activity that showed tens of thousands

40:14 Speaker 3: of dollars moving through casino transactions in the months before

40:18 Speaker 3: and after February tenth. The implication was that financial pressure

40:23 Speaker 3: had escalated into violence, and that Merit was clearly a

40:27 Speaker 3: man already struggling with self control. Then they introduced aggravating background.

40:34 Speaker 3: Jurors learned of Merit's prior convictions, including burglary and receiving

40:38 Speaker 3: stolen property. These were not presented as proof of murder.

40:42 Speaker 3: That issue was closed, but as part of the calculus

40:45 Speaker 3: jurors were legally allowed to consider in determining punishment. The

40:49 Speaker 3: defense responded with mitigation. They did not challenge the facts

40:53 Speaker 3: of the death. They did not reargue the desert. Instead,

40:57 Speaker 3: they tried to humanize Merit before twelve people who had

41:00 Speaker 3: just convicted him of killing a family of four. They

41:03 Speaker 3: called family members. His daughter, Sarah Taylor Jarvis, who had

41:07 Speaker 3: testified during the guilt phase, appeared again. She spoke about

41:11 Speaker 3: visiting her father in jail over four and a half years.

41:14 Speaker 3: She described him as present, as engaged, as someone who

41:18 Speaker 3: never asked her to lie for him. The defense returned

41:21 Speaker 3: to the moment from earlier testimony. In the entire four

41:24 Speaker 3: and a half year period that you have been visiting

41:26 Speaker 3: your dad, has he ever once told you to lie

41:29 Speaker 3: for him? No, she said. The defense asked jurors to

41:33 Speaker 3: weigh not just the crime, but the person they saw

41:35 Speaker 3: in court, a father, a man who maintained his innocence,

41:39 Speaker 3: someone whose family continued to stand beside him. They argued

41:43 Speaker 3: that life without parole was punishment enough that he would

41:46 Speaker 3: die in prison regardless the execution could not restore the

41:50 Speaker 3: Mictay family. Throughout the penalty phase, Merit remained composed. He

41:55 Speaker 3: took notes, he leaned toward his attorneys during side bars.

41:59 Speaker 3: He did not display visible emotion. When photographs were revisited,

42:03 Speaker 3: Observers in the gallery described him as steady, sometimes expressionless,

42:08 Speaker 3: occasionally shaking his head slightly. During prosecution arguments, the jury

42:12 Speaker 3: instructions were lengthy and technical. Jurors were told that they

42:16 Speaker 3: were not required to impose death even if aggregating factors

42:20 Speaker 3: outweighed mitigating ones. The decision was moral and individualized. They

42:25 Speaker 3: were instructed to consider the totality of circumstances. Deliberations began.

42:30 Speaker 3: Unlike the guilt phase, which had stretched over several days,

42:33 Speaker 3: the penalty deliberations were shorter. Jurors requested transcripts of specific testimony.

42:39 Speaker 3: They reviewed evidence exhibits. They asked for clarification on instructions

42:43 Speaker 3: regarding special circumstances. When they returned, the courtroom was again full.

42:48 Speaker 3: Family members of Joseph and Summer McStay sat together. Patrick

42:52 Speaker 3: McStay was present, so were other relatives. Some held photographs

42:56 Speaker 3: of the children. There were no outbursts as the clerk

42:59 Speaker 3: read the decision. The jury recommended death under California law.

43:04 Speaker 3: At the time, the judge formerly imposed the sentence. Charles

43:08 Speaker 3: Merritt was sentenced to death for the murders of Joseph mxsday,

43:11 Speaker 3: Summer mix Day, Gianni McStay, and Joseph Junior mcx stay.

43:15 Speaker 3: There was no applause, no visible reaction from Merit beyond

43:19 Speaker 3: a tightening of his jaw. He did not address the court.

43:22 Speaker 3: He did not confess, He did not apologize. After sentencing,

43:27 Speaker 3: reporters asked him if he wanted to speak. He maintained

43:30 Speaker 3: that he was innocent. California's death penalty system does not

43:34 Speaker 3: move quickly. Governor Gavin knew Some's moratorium on executions meant

43:38 Speaker 3: that while Merrit was sentenced to death, no execution date

43:42 Speaker 3: would be set. The sentence functioned in practical terms as

43:46 Speaker 3: indefinite incarceration on death row. Outside the court house, reactions

43:50 Speaker 3: divided along familiar lines. Joseph's father, Patrick, spoke to reporters

43:55 Speaker 3: about closure, though he did not use that word lightly.

43:59 Speaker 3: He reiterated his belief that justice had been served. Other

44:03 Speaker 3: family members described the sentence as appropriate given the loss

44:06 Speaker 3: of the two young children. Supporters of Merit continued to

44:10 Speaker 3: question aspects of the investigation. They referenced the defense's arguments

44:14 Speaker 3: about alternative suspects about alleged gaps in the timeline about

44:19 Speaker 3: whether financial evidence proved homicide or merely mismanagement. Some pointed

44:23 Speaker 3: to the complexity of digital access within Earth inspired products.

44:27 Speaker 3: Others questioned the interpretation of cell phone pings in the desert.

44:31 Speaker 3: But these questions were just that Merit was no longer

44:35 Speaker 3: a suspect. He was a convicted murderer sentenced to death.

44:40 Speaker 3: The court room emptied slowly. Jurors avoided eye contact with

44:44 Speaker 3: the gallery. The McStay family members gathered their belongings deliberately.

44:49 Speaker 3: Detectives who had worked the case for nearly a decade

44:52 Speaker 3: stood along the back wall before exiting through a side door.

44:56 Speaker 3: The case that began as a missing person's report in

44:59 Speaker 3: February tith twenty ten, had concluded in formal terms nearly

45:04 Speaker 3: ten years later. In fact, the jury had recommended death

45:08 Speaker 3: for Merit nine years later, in June of twenty nineteen,

45:12 Speaker 3: but after Merit filed a motion to fire his attorney

45:16 Speaker 3: and a motion for a retrial, actual sentencing took another

45:22 Speaker 3: seven months. There was no retrial, and so it was

45:25 Speaker 3: indeed nearly ten years later. On January twenty first, twenty twenty,

45:32 Speaker 3: Charles Merit was sentenced to death. He filed an appeal.

45:36 Speaker 3: That appeal was automatic. In a capital case, the California

45:40 Speaker 3: Supreme Court would review the entire trial record, transcripts, motions,

45:45 Speaker 3: jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, looking for reversible error. The process

45:50 Speaker 3: would take years. Capital appeals in California often do outside

45:55 Speaker 3: the formal appellate tract. The case took on a second

45:58 Speaker 3: life in the public sphere. In d Investigative journalists revisited

46:01 Speaker 3: the evidence. Documentary crews examined the trial footage. One series

46:06 Speaker 3: entitled Two Shallow Graves, presented extended access to both prosecution

46:11 Speaker 3: and defense teams, offering viewers a layered look at strategy

46:15 Speaker 3: and argument. It did not retry the case, but it

46:18 Speaker 3: amplified the questions that surfaced during the proceedings. Years after

46:23 Speaker 3: his sentencing, Merit has continued to maintain his innocence. He

46:27 Speaker 3: did not confess, he did not recant, he did not

46:30 Speaker 3: offer an alternative perpetrator by name and open court. His

46:34 Speaker 3: public statements have centered on wrongful conviction claims and criticism

46:37 Speaker 3: of investigative interpretation. The state's position has not changed from

46:42 Speaker 3: the perspective of the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.

46:46 Speaker 3: The case is closed, four counts of first degree murder,

46:49 Speaker 3: four special circumstances findings, a death sentence imposed. The investigative file,

46:55 Speaker 3: once active with missing persons, flyers and border surveillance reviews,

47:00 Speaker 3: has moved to the archives. The physical locations remain. The

47:04 Speaker 3: house in Falbrook still stands, a two story property with

47:08 Speaker 3: a small yard and a driveway that once held the

47:10 Speaker 3: family's vehicles. The Mojave Desert remains wide and indifferent, wind

47:15 Speaker 3: moving across terrain that concealed two shallow graves for more

47:18 Speaker 3: than three years. The Sanya Sied Report of injury continues

47:22 Speaker 3: to process travelers daily, long after that February eighth, twenty

47:26 Speaker 3: ten footage that briefly suggested the Micstays had walked away voluntarily.

47:31 Speaker 3: The murders of Joseph McStay, Summer mix Stay, Johnny McStay,

47:35 Speaker 3: and Joseph Junior are no longer a mystery in the

47:38 Speaker 3: eyes of the court. A jury has rendered its decision.

47:41 Speaker 3: A judge has imposed punishment. The criminal case ended in

47:46 Speaker 3: the court room. The questions for some did not. But

47:49 Speaker 3: the law has spoken, and we can only pray that

47:53 Speaker 3: its decision brings a modicum of comfort. To the mic

47:57 Speaker 3: stays grieving family. I'll see next next week on Thursday,

48:02 Speaker 3: February twenty sixth, with a new kind of Murdery story.

48:06 Speaker 3: Thanks again for being here, and if you like the show,

48:08 Speaker 3: please do tell your friends, your family, anyone you know

48:11 Speaker 3: who enjoys a true crime podcast. I certainly would appreciate it.

48:16 Speaker 3: I'm Zevan Odleberg and this has been kind of Murdery.

48:22 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell

48:25 Speaker 1: your friends. You can find us on social media at

48:27 Speaker 1: kinda Murdery or email at kindamurderyat gmail dot com.