The McStay Family Murders: Part Four

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,

0:21 Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about

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

0:29 Speaker 2: home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories,

0:32 Speaker 2: the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it

0:37 Speaker 2: all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hello, everybody,

0:41 Speaker 2: welcome and thank you for being here. I am Zevan Odelberg,

0:45 Speaker 2: and this is kind of murdery. We've got a big

0:48 Speaker 2: time episode today. It's episode four of the Mixedday Family Murders.

0:52 Speaker 2: That's right, I said four. So if you haven't heard

0:54 Speaker 2: one through three yet, go ahead and listen to them

0:56 Speaker 2: and then come on back.

0:57 Speaker 3: I'll save you a seat. We've got a lot to

0:59 Speaker 3: get to. It's a big time episode. Today is the

1:02 Speaker 3: day that we uncover the alleged killer of the McStay family.

1:06 Speaker 3: This story is tragic, is held, but it's also compelling,

1:10 Speaker 3: and I want to get right down to it. So

1:12 Speaker 3: let's do that. I'm glad you're here with me. Episode

1:16 Speaker 3: four of kind of Murderies. The Mixstay Family Murders starts now.

1:29 Speaker 3: Three years earlier, when Earth Inspired Products was still a

1:33 Speaker 3: growing online storefront for decorative fountains and water features. Dan

1:38 Speaker 3: Cavanaugh entered the picture quietly. He was not a fabricator

1:41 Speaker 3: or a designer. He didn't weld metal or sketch basin layouts.

1:45 Speaker 3: His domain was digital. He understood search engine rankings, keyword density,

1:50 Speaker 3: web traffic analytics, and how to turn online visibility into

1:54 Speaker 3: steady revenue. Joseph McStay built custom water features. Cavanaugh built

1:59 Speaker 3: the audience that found them, that fell in love with them,

2:03 Speaker 3: that purchased them. By the time the McStay family disappeared

2:06 Speaker 3: in February twenty ten, Earth Inspired Products had become more

2:10 Speaker 3: than a side venture. It was a functioning e commerce

2:13 Speaker 3: operation with measurable growth. Website traffic had increased steadily, Online

2:18 Speaker 3: sales were consistent. The company's name surfaced prominently in search

2:22 Speaker 3: results related to indoor fountains in decorative water installations. Much

2:26 Speaker 3: of that visibility, according to Dan Kavanaugh, was the result

2:30 Speaker 3: of his work. He managed the back end of the

2:32 Speaker 3: website optimized product listings, and monitored conversion rates. He described

2:37 Speaker 3: his role not as tech support, but as partnership. When

2:41 Speaker 3: detectives revisited the structure of the company after the mix

2:44 Speaker 3: day remains were identified in the desert, they were no

2:47 Speaker 3: longer looking at Earth Inspired Products as a simple business venture.

2:51 Speaker 3: They were examining it as a potential motive structure, and

2:55 Speaker 3: they needed clarity on that structure. Who owned the company,

2:59 Speaker 3: whoationally controlled it. Kavanagh characterized the arrangement as shared From

3:04 Speaker 3: early on. He spoke about collaboration, shared profits, a division

3:09 Speaker 3: of labor in which Joseph handled product design and supplier

3:12 Speaker 3: relationships while he handled digital growth and revenue channels. He

3:17 Speaker 3: described decisions being made together, often informally, without rigid contracts.

3:22 Speaker 3: Detectives asked for documentation in corporation records, partnership agreements, tax filings,

3:28 Speaker 3: any written confirmation of equity percentages. Some existed and some

3:32 Speaker 3: did not. The business, like many small enterprises that scale, quickly,

3:37 Speaker 3: appeared to have evolved faster than its paperwork. Operational ownership

3:42 Speaker 3: emerged as a central concept in the investigation. Detectives mapped

3:46 Speaker 3: who could log into the company's web hosting account, who

3:49 Speaker 3: controlled the domain registration, whose email address was attached to

3:53 Speaker 3: payment processing accounts, whose name appeared on merchant services agreements.

3:58 Speaker 3: In small companies, control is off and dispersed. Out of convenience,

4:02 Speaker 3: there are shared passwords, administrative privileges granted to multiple users.

4:07 Speaker 3: That diffusion makes day to day operations easier and forensic

4:11 Speaker 3: clarity harder. Joseph's father, Patrick mcstaye, began to express concern

4:17 Speaker 3: during this phase of the investigation. His suspicion did not

4:20 Speaker 3: surface as accusation, but as unease. He had always believed

4:24 Speaker 3: his son owned earth inspired products outright. It carried Joseph's

4:28 Speaker 3: vision in Joseph's labour. Hearing that another man, Dan Cavanaugh,

4:33 Speaker 3: described himself as co owner of the company unsettled Patrick.

4:37 Speaker 3: He asked detectives whether that claim was accurate. Detectives did

4:41 Speaker 3: not answer immediately. They continued gathering documents, tracing corporate filings,

4:46 Speaker 3: examining tax records, and comparing them against Kavanaugh's description of

4:50 Speaker 3: the partnership. The distinction between founder and operator became increasingly relevant.

4:56 Speaker 3: Joseph had created the company and built the product line.

4:59 Speaker 3: Kavanagh had built the digital infrastructure that allowed customers to

5:03 Speaker 3: find and purchase those products. Without the website, there were

5:06 Speaker 3: no online sales. Without the products, there was nothing to

5:09 Speaker 3: sell the business function because both components existed simultaneously. Detectives

5:15 Speaker 3: restructured the early years of the partnership. Email exchanges showed

5:19 Speaker 3: enthusiasm and forward planning, discussions about expanding inventory, projections for

5:24 Speaker 3: revenue growth, conversations about scaling marketing campaigns. Nothing in those

5:28 Speaker 3: exchanges suggested hostility. The language was collaborative. The tone was

5:32 Speaker 3: forward looking, optimistic. But as the company grew, so did

5:36 Speaker 3: its revenue. Revenue raises, questions of percentage, percentage raises, questions

5:41 Speaker 3: of entitlement. Detectives were careful not to assume conflict where

5:45 Speaker 3: none was documented. They focused instead on structure. If Joseph

5:49 Speaker 3: were suddenly unable to participate in the company's operations, who

5:53 Speaker 3: could continue running it without interruption, who had access to accounts,

5:58 Speaker 3: who had the authority to change listing, re route payments,

6:01 Speaker 3: or adjust pricing. The homicide investigation required more than understanding

6:06 Speaker 3: who liked or disliked whom. It required understanding who held leverage.

6:11 Speaker 3: Ownership in legal terms could be contested later, control in

6:15 Speaker 3: practical terms could be exercised. Immediately, as detectives reviewed corporate

6:20 Speaker 3: documents and back end access credentials, a pattern began to emerge,

6:25 Speaker 3: not of overt wrongdoing, but of concentrated authority in the

6:29 Speaker 3: hands of the person managing the digital spine of the company.

6:33 Speaker 3: Patrick mcstay's suspicion remained persistent. He did not accuse Kavanaugh directly.

6:39 Speaker 3: He asked questions about structure, about paperwork, about whether his

6:42 Speaker 3: son had formalized the partnership in writing. Detectives noted his concerns,

6:47 Speaker 3: but continued their methodical review. They were not yet prepared

6:51 Speaker 3: to label anyone as a suspect. They were tracing authority.

6:55 Speaker 3: The business had been growing, the revenue was real, the

6:58 Speaker 3: digital architecture was sophistically enough to operate remotely. Those facts

7:02 Speaker 3: were not incriminating on their own, but they established something critical.

7:06 Speaker 3: Earth Inspired Products was not merely Joseph's livelihood. It was

7:10 Speaker 3: an asset, and like any asset, it could be controlled.

7:15 Speaker 3: By the end of this phase of the investigation, detectives

7:17 Speaker 3: had not drawn conclusions. They had clarified structure. Earth Inspired

7:21 Speaker 3: Products was no longer just background context. It was a

7:24 Speaker 3: framework through which control, authority, and potential motive could be examined.

7:30 Speaker 3: Suspicion had not solidified, but it had begun to orient

7:33 Speaker 3: toward the person who understood the company's inner workings. At

7:36 Speaker 3: the level of passwords, logins, and merchant accounts. The fracture

7:40 Speaker 3: was subtle. It did not appear as an argument or

7:43 Speaker 3: a threat. It appeared as a question, in the absence

7:46 Speaker 3: of Joseph McStay, who, in practical terms, owned the business

7:51 Speaker 3: he built. By the time detectives shifted from defining ownership

7:55 Speaker 3: to defining control, the questions became more granular. It was

7:59 Speaker 3: no longer an enough to understand who believed they were

8:02 Speaker 3: a partner. The focus moved to who could actually act.

8:06 Speaker 3: Detectives began mapping access points one by one. Who registered

8:11 Speaker 3: the domain name under, whose email address was listed, who

8:15 Speaker 3: had the ability to renew it or transfer it. Next

8:18 Speaker 3: came the web hosting account. Hosting credentials allow a user

8:21 Speaker 3: to modify site content, upload files, change product descriptions, adjust pricing,

8:26 Speaker 3: and redirect traffic. Detectives requested records from the hosting provider,

8:31 Speaker 3: account holders, ip log in histories, timestamps of administrative changes.

8:36 Speaker 3: They wanted to see whether access was centralized or dispersed.

8:40 Speaker 3: Payment processing required its own layer of authority. Merchant accounts

8:44 Speaker 3: linked to credit card processors often list a primary account holder.

8:48 Speaker 3: That person has the ability to route deposits, alter linked

8:52 Speaker 3: bank accounts, and modify settlement settings. Detectives subpoenaed those records,

8:56 Speaker 3: as well, tracing whose name appeared on the agreements and

8:59 Speaker 3: whose bank accounts were tied to the revenue stream. Kavanaugh

9:03 Speaker 3: explained that much of the technical control rested with him

9:06 Speaker 3: because it had to. He was the one maintaining Search

9:08 Speaker 3: engine optimization's campaigns, updating metadata and responding to traffic fluctuations.

9:15 Speaker 3: It would have been inefficient, he said, for Joseph to

9:17 Speaker 3: handle those technical adjustments. Detectives did not dispute the point,

9:21 Speaker 3: they simply recorded it. They asked whether credentials had ever

9:24 Speaker 3: been shared. In small companies, shared passwords are common. Kavanagh

9:29 Speaker 3: acknowledged that there were times when the passwords and credentials

9:32 Speaker 3: were exchanged for convenience. Detectives noted that shared credentials complicate attribution.

9:37 Speaker 3: If multiple people know a password, determining who executed a

9:41 Speaker 3: change becomes more difficult. They turned to email authority. Earth

9:45 Speaker 3: Inspired Products maintained official company email addresses tied to the domain,

9:50 Speaker 3: who controlled those inboxes, who could send messages appearing to

9:53 Speaker 3: originate from the company. Detectives requested server logs to determine

9:57 Speaker 3: which IP addresses accessed those accounts, and when the pattern

10:01 Speaker 3: that emerged was not dramatic, it was functional. Kavanaugh's role

10:05 Speaker 3: placed him at the center of the company's digital architecture.

10:09 Speaker 3: He had legitimate reason to possess administrative privileges. That authority

10:13 Speaker 3: alone did not imply a wrongdoing, but it established capacity

10:17 Speaker 3: within the company. The Hawaii trip surfaced again during this

10:20 Speaker 3: mapping process, but detectives approached it differently. Instead of framing

10:25 Speaker 3: it as an alibi or absence, they examined it as

10:28 Speaker 3: a question of remote capability. If administrative control could be

10:32 Speaker 3: exercised from anywhere with Internet access, physical distance then did

10:36 Speaker 3: not necessarily limit operational influence. They asked about internet access

10:41 Speaker 3: during that period, Hotel, Wi Fi, personal laptops. The inquiry

10:46 Speaker 3: remained technical, not accusatory, but one man, Dan Kavanaugh, was

10:51 Speaker 3: at the center of everything. Suspicion had not solidified into accusation.

10:56 Speaker 3: It had, however, begun to lean and when it escalated,

11:00 Speaker 3: it did not escalate with an accusation. The escalation began

11:05 Speaker 3: with a document. Detectives were reviewing corporate filings when the

11:09 Speaker 3: transaction surfaced. Earth Inspired Products had changed hands. PaperWorks showed

11:15 Speaker 3: that the company had been sold for approximately two hundred

11:19 Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars, and the date of the transaction mattered.

11:24 Speaker 3: Joseph McStay was reported missing on February fifteenth, twenty ten.

11:29 Speaker 3: The formal declaration of death would not come for years,

11:32 Speaker 3: yet the sale of the business occurred while his legal

11:35 Speaker 3: status remained unresolved. Detectives pulled the exact filing date. They

11:40 Speaker 3: obtained the transfer agreement. They examined the purchase documents line

11:44 Speaker 3: by line, who authorized it. The signature block bore Dan

11:49 Speaker 3: Kavanaugh's name. The paperwork around the sale did not sit

11:54 Speaker 3: quietly once detectives began laying it beside everything else. The

11:58 Speaker 3: transfer of Earth Inspired Products had occurred months after the

12:02 Speaker 3: family disappeared, at a time when Joseph had not been

12:05 Speaker 3: declared dead and no executor had been appointed. The buyer

12:09 Speaker 3: paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the business.

12:12 Speaker 3: That number, standing alone, felt concrete. It suggested valuation, negotiation,

12:17 Speaker 3: and authority, but detectives were less interested in the amount

12:21 Speaker 3: than in the timing. They pulled their calendars back out

12:25 Speaker 3: February fourth, twenty ten, the last confirmed day anyone heard

12:29 Speaker 3: from the Mixed Days February fifteenth. The Missing Persons report

12:34 Speaker 3: the business transfer PaperWorks surfaced more than a year later,

12:37 Speaker 3: in the summer of twenty eleven. By then, the case

12:40 Speaker 3: had gone cold in the public eye. The Mix Days

12:43 Speaker 3: were presumed gone, but legally still alive. No death certificates,

12:48 Speaker 3: no probate, no formal dissolution of partnership. Detectives examined the

12:53 Speaker 3: documents line by line. Who signed, under what authority, What

12:57 Speaker 3: legal mechanism permitted the sale as it structured as an

13:00 Speaker 3: acid transfer, a stock transfer, a liquidation. The answers mattered.

13:06 Speaker 3: If Kavanagh had ownership, he could argue he had authority

13:09 Speaker 3: to sell. If he did not, the sale was something

13:12 Speaker 3: else entirely. Investigator's subpoenaed bank records connected to the transaction.

13:18 Speaker 3: They traced the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. They

13:21 Speaker 3: examined whether the money passed directly to CAVANAUGHH or to

13:25 Speaker 3: an intermediary corporate account. First, they mapped the routing paths.

13:29 Speaker 3: What they did not find, at least not immediately was

13:33 Speaker 3: an obvious procedural violation that screamed fraud. The transaction appeared documented,

13:39 Speaker 3: It appeared processed. It appeared, at least on its surface,

13:43 Speaker 3: administratively valid. That did not settle the question of legitimacy.

13:48 Speaker 3: Patrick mcstay's insistence that Dan quote owned nothing unquote remained

13:54 Speaker 3: in the file. But detectives knew that family indignation was

13:58 Speaker 3: not corporate structure contracts in corporation filings tax documents. They

14:04 Speaker 3: requested the original articles of incorporation for Earth Inspired Products.

14:08 Speaker 3: They reviewed whether Kavanaugh's name appeared anywhere as a formal officer, shareholder,

14:13 Speaker 3: or managing member. The paperwork showed Joseph as the principle,

14:17 Speaker 3: but small businesses often evolved faster than their filings. Detectives

14:21 Speaker 3: had seen that before. Still, something subtle began to bother

14:25 Speaker 3: analysts reviewing the sale. The valuation. Earth Inspired Products had

14:29 Speaker 3: been profitable. Sales were strong in the months before the disappearance,

14:33 Speaker 3: Web traffic was up, revenue had grown. Yet the final

14:37 Speaker 3: sale price did not reflect a distressed liquidation, nor did

14:41 Speaker 3: it reflect the kind of premium often associated with a

14:44 Speaker 3: thriving niche e commerce company. It sat smack in the middle,

14:49 Speaker 3: not a fire sale and not a windfall. Detectives brought

14:52 Speaker 3: in a forensic accountant to review comparable businesses from that period.

14:57 Speaker 3: What was a company of that size with that revenue

15:00 Speaker 3: realistically worth In twenty eleven. The estimate range overlapped with

15:04 Speaker 3: the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars figure, but barely.

15:08 Speaker 3: It was not wildly off. It was not dramatically low.

15:12 Speaker 3: It was arguable that ambiguity complicated motive. If someone murdered

15:18 Speaker 3: Joseph to gain control of the company, the financial payoff

15:21 Speaker 3: would need to justify the risk. Two hundred and fifty

15:24 Speaker 3: thousand dollars, while significant, was not generational wealth. It was

15:28 Speaker 3: not a life altering sum in the context of a

15:32 Speaker 3: quadruple homicide. Motive built solely on that number felt thin,

15:37 Speaker 3: But then, of course people had been killed for far less.

15:40 Speaker 3: But something about it didn't satisfy detectives, so they returned

15:45 Speaker 3: to the timeline. When the mix days disappeared, Earth Inspired

15:49 Speaker 3: Products did not immediately change hands. There was no rapid

15:52 Speaker 3: seizure of control, no sudden announcement, no immediate restructuring. The

15:56 Speaker 3: business continued operating. Online orders were processed, and the website

16:01 Speaker 3: remained functional. That continuity suggested forethought, but it also suggested

16:06 Speaker 3: patients if the goal had been immediate financial gain, why wait.

16:11 Speaker 3: Kavanaugh's Hawaii trip still hovered in the background. Airline records

16:15 Speaker 3: confirmed Dan had been on the islands during the early

16:18 Speaker 3: days after February fourth. Credit card transactions supported that he

16:22 Speaker 3: was physically present there. Cell tower data from his phone

16:25 Speaker 3: aligned with the geography. Remote access remained technically possible that

16:30 Speaker 3: fact never left the board, but the physical alibi held.

16:34 Speaker 3: Detectives were careful not to discard a suspect simply because

16:38 Speaker 3: an alibi existed. They had seen orchestrated crimes before, but

16:42 Speaker 3: they also knew when suspicion began to outrun evidence. The

16:47 Speaker 3: sale created heat, it created motive. On paper, it made

16:51 Speaker 3: narrative sense. But as analysts widened the lens beyond the transaction,

16:56 Speaker 3: inconsistencies began to surface, not explode of contradictions, but small misalignments.

17:03 Speaker 3: Login records tied to the company's back end showed activity

17:06 Speaker 3: that did not neatly match Hawaii timestamps. Certain administrative changes

17:11 Speaker 3: occurred during windows when Dan's confirmed location data did not

17:15 Speaker 3: support live logins. The discrepancies were minor. They could be

17:19 Speaker 3: explained by saved credentials or automated systems, but they required explanation.

17:26 Speaker 3: At the same time, detectives revisited early financial movements from

17:31 Speaker 3: February twenty ten itself. They looked not just at Earth

17:34 Speaker 3: inspired products as a whole, but at personal accounts connected

17:38 Speaker 3: to Joseph's business circle. Some transactions did not belong to

17:43 Speaker 3: Dan at all. They belonged to someone closer. The name

17:48 Speaker 3: had been in the file since the beginning. It had

17:50 Speaker 3: been interviewed early. It had sat quietly in the background

17:54 Speaker 3: while attention drifted toward Mexico, toward digital travel searches, toward

17:59 Speaker 3: corps for ownership. Now analysts began cross referencing that name

18:04 Speaker 3: with time stamps from February fourth. The pivot was not dramatic.

18:08 Speaker 3: No one declared, Kavanaugh cleared, no one erased his photograph

18:12 Speaker 3: from the wall, But the certainty that had begun forming

18:15 Speaker 3: around the sale began to soften. The tensions in the

18:18 Speaker 3: business still mattered. The two hundred and fifty thousand dollars

18:22 Speaker 3: still mattered. Ownerships still mattered. Yet detectives were no longer

18:27 Speaker 3: asking only who benefited from Joseph being gone. They were

18:32 Speaker 3: asking who was present. That question narrowed the board. The

18:36 Speaker 3: sale remained a powerful narrative thread, but it was no

18:40 Speaker 3: longer the only thread pulling tight and as analysts reconstructed

18:44 Speaker 3: February fourth, minute by minute, a different set of numbers

18:48 Speaker 3: began to demand attention. A twenty eight p m. A

18:52 Speaker 3: phone call not answered, the file shifted again. By the

18:57 Speaker 3: time investigators reached the end of the business trail, they

19:00 Speaker 3: they were no longer looking at Earth inspired products in isolation.

19:03 Speaker 3: The sale, of the ownership, language, the administrative access, all

19:06 Speaker 3: of it remained relevant. But something quieter had begun to

19:10 Speaker 3: surface beneath the financial layers. It started with the calendar

19:15 Speaker 3: February fourth, twenty ten. Detectives rebuilt the day again, not

19:20 Speaker 3: from the perspective of web traffic or corporate filings, but

19:23 Speaker 3: from physical movement. Joseph's schedule, his meetings, his calls, his

19:29 Speaker 3: last confirmed face to face interaction that brought them back

19:33 Speaker 3: to lunch in Rancho Cucamonga. Joseph had met Charles Chase

19:38 Speaker 3: Merritt at a Chick fil at that afternoon. The two

19:41 Speaker 3: men had known each other for years. Their relationship was

19:44 Speaker 3: not limited to Earth inspired products. Merit built custom waterfalls

19:48 Speaker 3: and indoor water features. Joseph designed and sold them. The

19:52 Speaker 3: partnership was operational and frequent. They spoke often, they met often.

19:57 Speaker 3: The business depended on their coordination. The lunch itself was

20:01 Speaker 3: not dramatic. It was business. Receipts confirmed both men were present.

20:06 Speaker 3: Witnesses placed them there. Surveillance footage captured them entering and leaving.

20:11 Speaker 3: Detectives noted the duration of the meeting. They noted the

20:14 Speaker 3: time it ended. They noted that Joseph returned home afterward.

20:18 Speaker 3: That detail mattered. It placed Merit as the last verified

20:23 Speaker 3: in person contact outside the family. Investigators did not immediately

20:28 Speaker 3: treat that as suspicious business partners meet. They talked numbers,

20:32 Speaker 3: they part ways, But as February fourth was reconstructed minute

20:36 Speaker 3: by minute, the proximity of that meeting to the disappearance tightened.

20:41 Speaker 3: Phone records showed frequent communication between the two men earlier

20:45 Speaker 3: in the day. That pattern was not unusual. What stood

20:48 Speaker 3: out was the call that came later eight twenty eight

20:51 Speaker 3: p m. Joseph's phone dialed Merit. Merit did not answer.

20:56 Speaker 3: He later acknowledged seeing the call come through. He did

20:59 Speaker 3: not dispute that He said he was busy, He said

21:02 Speaker 3: he was tired. He said he'd already spoken to Joseph

21:05 Speaker 3: multiple times that day. Investigators logged the call as the

21:09 Speaker 3: last known outbound communication from Joseph's phone. They asked Meret

21:13 Speaker 3: to describe his movements that evening. He provided a timeline.

21:17 Speaker 3: He described where he was, He described who he was with.

21:20 Speaker 3: Detectives cross checked those statements against available records. Some elements aligned,

21:26 Speaker 3: others relied on memory rather than documentation. Unlike Cavanagh, Merit

21:31 Speaker 3: had been in southern California on February fourth, He had

21:35 Speaker 3: not been in Hawaii. He had not been twenty five

21:38 Speaker 3: hundred miles away. He had been within driving distance of Fallbrook.

21:43 Speaker 3: That fact alone did not elevate him above other possibilities.

21:47 Speaker 3: Geography creates opportunity. It does not create guilt, but investigators

21:52 Speaker 3: could not ignore physical proximity. They also revisited the custom

21:57 Speaker 3: water feature projects that two men were developing together. Contracts,

22:01 Speaker 3: pending deals, commission structures, payment schedules. Some invoices had been

22:05 Speaker 3: drafted but not yet settled. Certain deposits were anticipated but

22:10 Speaker 3: not yet cleared. Financial tension did not leap off the page.

22:13 Speaker 3: There was no obvious blow up in the paperwork, but

22:16 Speaker 3: small businesses often carry strain beneath surface optimism. Detectives examined

22:22 Speaker 3: whether Joseph had been fronting materials, whether Merit had been reimbursed,

22:27 Speaker 3: whether balances were owed in either direction. Nothing definitive emerged

22:31 Speaker 3: in the early passes. Still, the file again began to

22:35 Speaker 3: change shape. Kavanaugh represented digital leverage and post disappearance benefit.

22:41 Speaker 3: Merit represented proximity and immediacy. Investigators reviewed Merit's past interactions

22:47 Speaker 3: with Joseph in the days leading up to February fourth emails,

22:51 Speaker 3: text messages, voicemails. The tone was business like. There was

22:56 Speaker 3: no recorded argument, no documented threat, no abrupt severing ties.

23:00 Speaker 3: The lunch meeting at Chick fil A remained ordinary on

23:03 Speaker 3: its face, but the eight twenty eight p m call

23:06 Speaker 3: would not leave the board. Detectives asked themselves a narrow question,

23:11 Speaker 3: if Joseph felt the need to call Merit that evening,

23:14 Speaker 3: what prompted a follow up to lunch? A clarification A

23:18 Speaker 3: problem HM They did not know. What they did know

23:22 Speaker 3: was that after that call, Joseph's phone went dark. The

23:26 Speaker 3: Desert Graves had introduced homicide. The business sale had introduced motive.

23:31 Speaker 3: Now the timeline introduced presents. Investigators did not shift their

23:36 Speaker 3: full weight away from Cavanagh. The struggle for business control

23:40 Speaker 3: still carried logic, but the circle tightened. They began overlaying

23:44 Speaker 3: Merrit's movements with cell tower data from the high desert

23:47 Speaker 3: region north of Victorville. They examined tower pins in the

23:51 Speaker 3: days immediately following February fourth. They mapped them geographically. Some

23:56 Speaker 3: data points placed Merrit's phone within a broad swath of

23:59 Speaker 3: the high desert. The coverage area was not precise. It

24:03 Speaker 3: did not put him at the grave site. It placed

24:05 Speaker 3: him somewhere within a range of multiple towers that served

24:09 Speaker 3: a wide rural region. The ambiguity neither cleared nor condemned.

24:14 Speaker 3: But the desert had already yielded the McStay family's corpses,

24:19 Speaker 3: and now Merritt's phone had touched the same general terrain.

24:24 Speaker 3: The shift in focus was not loud, It was methodical,

24:28 Speaker 3: and it centered on February fourth. Detectives pulled Merrit's bank

24:33 Speaker 3: records alongside Joseph's. They charted transfers, deposits, withdrawals and patterns

24:38 Speaker 3: that predated February fourth. Small business finances often move in

24:43 Speaker 3: uneven bursts, vendor payments, contractor checks, material purchases. Detectives were

24:48 Speaker 3: not looking for volatility alone. They were looking for timing.

24:52 Speaker 3: What drew attention was not a single dramatic transaction, but

24:56 Speaker 3: the rhythm of activity. Immediately after the disappearance, Joseph's accounts

25:00 Speaker 3: stopped moving. Merits did not. That fact, by itself meant

25:05 Speaker 3: little Merritt had his own household, his own expenses. But

25:09 Speaker 3: investigators noticed that certain business related checks were deposited and

25:13 Speaker 3: certain communications with clients continued in the days and weeks

25:17 Speaker 3: after February fourth, as though the operation were still functioning.

25:21 Speaker 3: They asked a simple question, who had the authority to

25:24 Speaker 3: act on behalf of the custom water feature projects once

25:27 Speaker 3: Joseph was gone. Some checks bore Joseph's name, Some correspondence

25:33 Speaker 3: referenced ongoing installations. Detective scrutinized handwriting, endorsement patterns, email headers.

25:39 Speaker 3: They tracked IP addresses associated with account logins and online

25:43 Speaker 3: banking activity. They requested subpoenas where necessary. The financial trail

25:48 Speaker 3: did not explode, it accumulated in parallel. They returned to

25:52 Speaker 3: the cell data. The earlier high desert pings were broad

25:56 Speaker 3: an expanse that could encompass miles of scrub land and highway.

26:00 Speaker 3: Investigators refined the analysis. They plotted call details. Records from

26:05 Speaker 3: February fourth through February eighth were overlaid with known tower

26:09 Speaker 3: sectors and signal strengths. They compared those patterns against Merit's

26:14 Speaker 3: stated movements. There were moments where the phone appeared to

26:17 Speaker 3: travel north along the fifteen Freeway corridor. There were moments

26:21 Speaker 3: where it fell silent. There were moments where it reappeared

26:24 Speaker 3: within range of desert serving towers. None of it in

26:28 Speaker 3: isolation proved burial rural coverage can span wide distances, but

26:33 Speaker 3: when mapped against the eventual discovery site near Victorville, the

26:37 Speaker 3: proximity narrowed the margin. Detectives returned to the lunch meeting.

26:41 Speaker 3: Timeline receipts showed the afternoon encounter. Surveillance placed both men

26:46 Speaker 3: inside the Rancho Cucamonga Chick fil A. They walked out separately.

26:51 Speaker 3: Joseph's vehicle was later captured on neighborhood cameras near the

26:54 Speaker 3: Fallbrook home. Merit's truck appeared in separate footage in its

26:58 Speaker 3: own vicinity, but in investigators had begun reconstructing something else,

27:03 Speaker 3: the emotional temperature between the two men. They interviewed acquaintances again, contractors, friends,

27:10 Speaker 3: family members. Did Joseph express frustration, did he mention money?

27:15 Speaker 3: Did he hint at dissatisfaction? The responses were mixed. Business

27:20 Speaker 3: stress is common, conflict is not uncommon. But nothing in

27:24 Speaker 3: those interviews screamed rupture. What did stand out was familiarity.

27:30 Speaker 3: Merrit knew the mix Stay home he had visited. He

27:33 Speaker 3: knew the layout, He knew the rhythms of Joseph's work day.

27:37 Speaker 3: He knew when projects required late night calls and when

27:40 Speaker 3: materials were delivered. That knowledge did not implicate him. It

27:45 Speaker 3: contextualized access. Then came the digital overlap. Investigators compared timestamps

27:52 Speaker 3: of online activity tied to the custom water Feature business

27:56 Speaker 3: with Merit's known movements. There were logins that occurred at

27:59 Speaker 3: ten times Joseph's phone was inactive. There were communications with

28:03 Speaker 3: clients that suggested continuity, even as the McStay family had vanished.

28:09 Speaker 3: Who was keeping the machine running. When they re interviewed Merit,

28:13 Speaker 3: his tone shifted from cooperative to cautious. He answered questions,

28:18 Speaker 3: he did not refuse, but he began to parse language.

28:21 Speaker 3: More carefully. He framed his involvement as operational necessity. Projects

28:27 Speaker 3: could not simply halt clients needed responses. Materials had already

28:32 Speaker 3: been purchased. Investigators did not confront him with every data point.

28:36 Speaker 3: They asked about sequence, They asked about memory, They asked

28:40 Speaker 3: about why certain decisions were made on certain dates. The

28:44 Speaker 3: eight twenty eight pm missed call resurfaced in questioning. Merit

28:48 Speaker 3: acknowledged it again. He reiterated that he did not answer.

28:52 Speaker 3: He reiterated that he had spoken to Joseph earlier that day.

28:55 Speaker 3: Detectives pressed, did Joseph sound agitated at lunch, raised financial concerns?

29:01 Speaker 3: Did he mention plans for travel? Did he discuss Mexico?

29:05 Speaker 3: Merrit denied any indication of distress. As interviews concluded, the

29:10 Speaker 3: investigative board began to tilt. Kavanaugh still held financial motive

29:14 Speaker 3: through ownership questions and the business sale, but the sale

29:17 Speaker 3: occurred after Joseph had already vanished. It was an event

29:21 Speaker 3: that followed the disappearance. Merit's contact, by contrast, occurred on

29:26 Speaker 3: the day itself. Proximity in time, proximity in geography, continuity

29:31 Speaker 3: of business control. None of it declared guilt but all

29:35 Speaker 3: of it narrowed focus. By late February twenty fourteen, detectives

29:40 Speaker 3: had reassembled the timeline so many times that the edges

29:43 Speaker 3: had worn thin. February fourth was no longer just a date.

29:47 Speaker 3: It was broken into segments, morning activity, afternoon lunch, late day,

29:51 Speaker 3: phone traffic, evening silence. Each segment had been cross referenced

29:55 Speaker 3: with bank records, cell tower sectors, computer logins, and witness inches.

30:00 Speaker 3: When they laid Kavanaugh's movement beside the growing stack of

30:03 Speaker 3: digital evidence, something continued to miss align. The business transfer

30:08 Speaker 3: and the money it generated had looked like motive, but

30:11 Speaker 3: the timing of certain account activities and access points did

30:14 Speaker 3: not require him to be anywhere near Fallbrook. The Hawaii

30:18 Speaker 3: travel documentation, once created as a soft alibi, hardened under verification.

30:23 Speaker 3: Airline manifests, matched lodging records, matched phone data matched. The

30:28 Speaker 3: control theories, still explained the sale. It did not explain

30:34 Speaker 3: the desert. Investigators zeroed in on merit. They revisited the

30:40 Speaker 3: cell data with updated mapping software, refining sector ranges and

30:44 Speaker 3: narrowing down the geographic footprint of February sixth activity. Two

30:48 Speaker 3: days after the mixdays disappeared, the tower. Hits placed Merrit's

30:52 Speaker 3: phone in the high Desert region, in proximity to the

30:55 Speaker 3: area where the graves would eventually be found. The margin

30:58 Speaker 3: of error had shrunk. It was no longer a broad

31:01 Speaker 3: regional sweep. It was specific enough to draw a circle.

31:05 Speaker 3: They overlaid that circle with merits known associations. He had

31:09 Speaker 3: family in the desert, he had grown up familiar with

31:12 Speaker 3: portions of the terrain. He did not dispute being in

31:15 Speaker 3: the region that weekend, but his explanations varied in detail

31:19 Speaker 3: over time. Detectives logged each version. Meanwhile, the financial review deepened.

31:26 Speaker 3: Nine checks written from Joseph's business accounts after February fourth

31:32 Speaker 3: were examined line by line. The metadata within the accounting

31:36 Speaker 3: software showed creation dates that did not match the handwritten

31:40 Speaker 3: dates on the checks themselves. They had been backdated, Some

31:44 Speaker 3: were payable to Merit, others were payable to vendors to

31:48 Speaker 3: whom Merit owed money. I'm going to repeat that again.

31:53 Speaker 3: Metadata within the accounting software showed creation dates for nine

31:57 Speaker 3: checks that did not match the handwritten dates on the

32:02 Speaker 3: checks themselves. They had been backdated, Some were payable to Merit,

32:07 Speaker 3: and some were payable to vendors to whom Merit owed money.

32:12 Speaker 3: These were checks written to appear as though they had

32:14 Speaker 3: been created before Joseph's disappearance, but the software showed that

32:20 Speaker 3: they had been created afterward. This suggested not just access

32:25 Speaker 3: to Joseph's accounting software, but active manipulation, and investigators subpoenaed

32:32 Speaker 3: phone records connected to customer service calls placed to the

32:35 Speaker 3: accounting software provider, where a representative recalled a man identifying

32:40 Speaker 3: himself as Joseph McStay, requesting deletion of the company account.

32:45 Speaker 3: The caller could not provide the correct passcode, and so

32:48 Speaker 3: the request was denied. Ultimately, it was shown that the

32:52 Speaker 3: call originated from a phone associated with Chase Merit. Then,

32:58 Speaker 3: when investigators placed the sledge dge hammer recovered from the

33:01 Speaker 3: graves into evidence inventory, its three pound weight and blunt

33:05 Speaker 3: face became part of the forensic equation. The tool had

33:09 Speaker 3: been buried with the family. The burial site showed familiarity

33:13 Speaker 3: with the desert landscape, shallow graves dug in terrain that

33:17 Speaker 3: did not draw casual foot traffic. That familiarity, too, narrowed

33:23 Speaker 3: the field because that familiarity was something that Chase Merit

33:27 Speaker 3: was known to have having grown up in the region

33:31 Speaker 3: and having family there still and so finally, by October

33:35 Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, detectives believed that cumulative evidence had crossed the

33:41 Speaker 3: necessary threshold. They presented their case to the District Attorney's office.

33:46 Speaker 3: Financial fraud, post disappearance activity, desert cell data accounting manipulation,

33:52 Speaker 3: the mist call, the lunch meeting, the continuity of business control,

33:56 Speaker 3: the geographic overlap with the burial site. On November umber fifth,

34:00 Speaker 3: twenty fourteen, Charles Chase Merritt was arrested and charged with

34:06 Speaker 3: four counts of murder in the deaths of Joseph McStay,

34:09 Speaker 3: Summer Mixday, Jeanny McStay, and Joseph McStay Junior. There was

34:14 Speaker 3: no press conference declaring victory, there was no public certainty.

34:18 Speaker 3: There was a booking photo and a transport And please

34:22 Speaker 3: do tune in next week for the conclusion of the

34:26 Speaker 3: McStay family murders, where we'll talk about the trial, the outcome,

34:31 Speaker 3: and doubts that still remain. And again, if you've enjoyed

34:35 Speaker 3: the show, please do tell your friends, tell your family,

34:37 Speaker 3: tell anyone you know or happen to run into who

34:41 Speaker 3: likes a true crime podcast to listen. I sure do

34:44 Speaker 3: appreciate your efforts and I will see you here again

34:48 Speaker 3: next Thursday, February nineteenth, for the conclusion of the McStay

34:53 Speaker 3: family murders. I'm Zevan Odleberg and this has been kind

34:58 Speaker 3: of murdery.

35:01 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell

35:04 Speaker 1: your friends. You can find us on social media at

35:06 Speaker 1: Kinamurdery or email at Kinomurtery at gmail dot com.