The McStay Family Murders: Part Two

0:00 Speaker 1: Warning. Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now.

0:11 Speaker 3: I heard.

0:18 Speaker 2: True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic, a podcast that's about more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories, the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, it's your friendly neighborhood true crime podcaster Zevan Odelberg. And this is kind of murdery.

0:48 Speaker 3: We've got a pretty serious story to tell here, so I'm not gonna doddle. This is part two of the mixtape Family Murders. So if you haven't heard part one yet, go listen to it and then rejoin us. I'll save you a seat, and if you're all caught up, let's get straight to it. Kind of Murderies. The McStay Family Murders Part two starts now. On February fifteenth, twenty ten, the McStay Family officially entered the system It didn't happen all at once. There was no sirens and police tape moment, no dramatic escalation, no declaration that something awful had happened.

1:38 Speaker 3: The transition from concern to action came through a phone call, logged like thousands of others, handled by a department accustomed to uncertainty and delay, like every other police department, but the intake process requires structure. A deputy records biographical details, ages, vehicles, occupations, known habits. There are questions designed to determine the urgency. Is there any history of violence, any threats, any medical conditions, any known disputes, and the answers as given as known.

2:11 Speaker 3: In the case of the Micstay family did not demand escalation. There was no immediate evidence of danger, no broken windows, no frantic voicemail, no witnesses claiming distress. What existed was absence, and absence is difficult to categorize. In early missing persons cases, investigators are trained to shave with Ockham's razor, which is to say they're trained to consider the simplest explanation. First, adults leave, families, relocate, plans change without notice. The presence of young children raised the stakes, but it did not override procedure.

2:51 Speaker 3: The report was entered, the family was listed as missing. A welfare oriented approach was therefore followed next. The system is designed to move carefully at this stage. A premature assumption can misdirect resources, can misdirect attention can lead to bad conclusions, and a bad conclusion can linger in a file long after it should have been questioned. On February fifteen, two thousand ten, the Mictay family case existed as a question, not a conclusion. Deputies documented the last firmed communications, some of which we talked about in Episode one.

3:31 Speaker 3: Joseph in summer had exchanged text messages on February fourth. Joseph had last been seen that day. The family's dogs had been left behind the family's vehicle. A white Azuzu trooper had been located days earlier near San ya Sidro, close to the US Mexico border. That fact was noted but not yet elevated at intake. It was one detail among many. The missing persons classification did not automatically trigger a criminal investigation. Instead, it triggered verification. Deputies needed to confirm the family was not staying with friends, not traveling, not avoiding contact for benign reasons.

4:10 Speaker 3: They needed to confirm that the absence was real, sustained, and unexplained. The language used in the report reflected caution. There was no declaration of foul play. There was no assertion of danger. The file described a family that had not been seen or heard from and could not be reached. This distinction mattered. It mattered because within law enforcement, these early hours set the tone. How a cas is framed determines how it moves. At this point, the mix stay disappearance was not a crime scene.

4:43 Speaker 3: It was a missing family. But that missing family's family was understandably worried. They pressed for attention. They emphasized that Joseph in Summer would not leave without telling someone. They pointed to the children. They described routines that had been broken. Their statement were heard, but they were weighed against the absence of physical evidence. Investigators do not ignore family intuition, but they are trained not to substitute it for proof. The Sheriff's Department began standard checks, hospital admissions, jail bookings, border crossings, financial activity, phone records where accessible.

5:21 Speaker 3: Each of these steps took time, each required confirmation. Each assumed that the family might still be alive and mobile. The case did not yet belong to detectives. It belonged to patrol level procedure, welfare checks, database injuries, internal notifications, the kind of work that fills the early days of missing persons investigations, rarely remembered later, but foundational to everything that follows. There was no public announcements, no press conference, no headline. The family was not yet missing in the way that the public understands the word.

5:56 Speaker 3: They were missing in a file. By the end of February fifth, fifteenth, the Micstay family existed in law enforcement systems as unresolved. Their names were searchable, their absence was acknowledged, and their case number had been assigned. Nothing else had changed. The house had not yet been fully examined, the assumptions had not yet hardened. The case had not yet chosen a direction, and had only begun. The Fallbrook House sat on Avocado Vista Lane, on a quiet residential street in an unincorporated part of northern San Diego County.

6:31 Speaker 3: I have described it before. It was a two story structure with light exterior stucco over wood framing typical of late nineteen nineties southern California construction. The lot was modest but not cramped, bordered by neighboring homes, and set back behind driveways and low fencing. I mention it again only to add a new observation that there was nothing about the property that distinguished it from others in the area, and that was a fact that would matter later. When deputies first approached the house in mid February, they did so without the posture of a criminal investigation.

7:05 Speaker 3: There was no warrant at that point, no forced jury, no expectation of finding evidence. The purpose was verification, confirm whether the family was present, whether the absence reported by relatives reflected reality. The initial welfare check did not include jury. Into the home, deputies knocked, They announced themselves. There was no answer. The exterior offered no sign of disturbance. Doors were closed, windows were intact. The yards showed no obvious signs of neglect beyond what might accumulate in a week or two.

7:37 Speaker 3: The dogs were present on the property, alive, alert and contained. That detail was noted. Domestic animals left behind are not, by themselves evidence of a crime. People leave pets with neighbors, People leave pets unattended for short trips. But when pets remain without arrangements. It raises a procedural flag, not a conclusion, just a flag. At that point, deputies still did not enter injury without exigent circumstances requires authority. The house remained closed, its interior undocumented.

8:10 Speaker 3: A few days later, as I mentioned in episode one, Joseph mcstay's brother entered the house through an open window. This was not done under law enforcement direction, but it would later become part of the record. When he went inside, he did not report signs of violence. He reported absence. The family was not there, food had been left out, the dogs had not been fed, and there was no obvious sign that the family had prepared to leave for an extended period. Those observations filtered back to investigators indirectly, not through a formal forensic process.

8:42 Speaker 3: At this stage, the house was still not a crime scene. It was a residence connected to a missing person's report. Then, on February nineteenth, detectives obtained a search warrant. The decision to get a warrant reflected a shift in authorities posture. It's not a declaration of homicide, but it is an acknowledgment that voluntary absence was no longer sufficient to explain the circumstances. A warrant allowed injury documentation and seizure of potential evidence without presuming what that evidence might prove.

9:14 Speaker 3: When investigators entered the house under warrant, they documented what they saw systematically. The interiors showed signs of daily life interrupted but not destroyed. There was food on the kitchen counter in various states, some of it spoiled. Dishes were present. There were personal belongings throughout the house, clothing, shoes, children's items. Nothing appeared packed for travel. There were suitcases present, but they were not filled or staged in a way that suggested imminent departure.

9:42 Speaker 3: There was no blood visible, no overturned furniture, no broken fixtures, Walls were intact, floors were undamaged. Bedrooms showed no sign of forced movement or struggle. Bathrooms were undisturbed. The children's rooms contained toys and clothing in use, not abandoned deliberately. Investigators documented electronics, computers, hard drives, cameras, cell phones. These were collected not because they showed evidence of violence, but because they might show intent, search histories, communications planning.

10:13 Speaker 3: The seizure was broad, consistent with uncertainty rather than direction. With investigation, not conclusion. The house itself offered no answers, and that too, was documented. In the absence of physical evidence, investigators are trained to record restraint. The search did not produce finger prints tied to unknown individuals. There were no weapons recovered, no indications that a violent event had occurred inside the residence. One of the lead detectives later stated under oath that he found no evidence the family had been killed in the home.

10:48 Speaker 3: That conclusion would later be contested, but at this moment it was simply a reflection of what was and what was not present. The house resisted narrative. It did not confirm foul play. It did not confirm voluntary departure. It existed in between a neutral structure filled with ordinary objects whose significance could not yet be assigned. By the end of the search, the house was cattalogged and closed evidence was logged. The warrant was executed without incident. The property remained standing unchanged, waiting.

11:24 Speaker 3: Investigators left with documentation not direction. The case still had no center of gravity. By the time investigators closed the door on the Falbrook House, facts had been accumulated without coherence. Absence was confirmed. The family's routines had been interrupted without explanation, but the interior offered no evidence of violence. None of that by itself suggested what had happened or what might happen next. The case's first anchor, first sense of direction came from the vehicle. The mix Station family's white nineteen ninety six Trooper had been located days earlier in Sanya Cidro, parked in a commercial lot near the border with Mexico.

12:08 Speaker 3: At the time it was found, no missing persons port had yet been filed. The vehicle was processed as abandoned property, not as evidence tied to a crime. It was towed and impounded without urgency. Once the family was formerly reported missing, the vehicle re entered the case's narrative with new weight. Investigators reviewed its recovery details. The car seats for the children were still inside. There was no visible damage. There were no signs of forced injury or vandalism. Nothing inside the vehicle suggested distress.

12:40 Speaker 3: The location, however, mattered. Sania CDRO is not simply a neighborhood. It's an international gateway, one of the busiest land border crossings in the world. Vehicles abandoned in the area are not uncommon. Some belonged to travelers who cross on foot, some belonged to people avoiding long term parking fees, some below long to families who misjudge how long they will be gone. In the absence of contradictory evidence, the vehicle's location offered a possibility that aligned with procedure rather than with alarm.

13:11 Speaker 3: The family may have, as we mentioned in episode one, crossed into Mexico voluntarily. This was not a conclusion. It was a working assumption. And as the old saying goes, when you assume, you make an ass of you and me. And while that may be true, it's also true that assumptions have power long before they're proven. Once the possibility of a voluntary trip to Mexico was articulated, investigators began evaluating other facts through that lens. There were no bank withdrawals after February fourth, no credit card activity, no phone usage tied clearly to the family.

13:48 Speaker 3: That absence could indicate harm, but it could also indicate travel with cash, prepaid phones, or deliberate disengagement. None of those explanations could be ruled out. The family's recent move to the Falbrook House was re examined. New homes often precede transitions. Business pressures were noted, but not elevated. No threats had been reported, no disputes had been documented. No history of domestic violence or criminal behavior was associated with the mic stay. Family investigators discussed the children.

14:21 Speaker 3: The presence of two young boys complicated the theory of a voluntary trip to Mexico, but they did not invalidate it. Families do relocate with children, Families do cross borders with children. Families do disappear temporarily for reasons that later proved benign. The case at this stage was governed by probability rather than fear. Internal investigator communications reflected caution. There was no language of abduction, no language of homicide. The absence of blood, the absence of witnesses, the intact condition of the home all argued against immediate escalation.

14:55 Speaker 3: The vehicle's location argued toward travel. As the days passed without contact, the possibility of Mexico gained traction, not because it was proven, but because it organized uncertainty. It gave the case direction. It allowed resources to be deployed along a path rather than scattered across possibilities. On February twenty third, twenty ten investigators notified Interpol. The notification was not a declaration that the McStay family was in Mexico. It was just a procedural step acknowledging that if the family had crossed the border, the search could not remain domestic.

15:30 Speaker 3: INTERPOL alerts are designed to extend awareness across jurisdictions, not to assign guilt or certainty, and the language of the alert reflected that restraint. The family was missing, their vehicle had been found near an international crossing. Authorities were requesting assistance in locating them should they appear abroad, and with that step, the case shifted jurisdictionally. The McStay family disappearance was no longer confined to San Diego County records. It entered an internationals system and built for tracking movements rather than for solving crimes.

16:03 Speaker 3: Because this theory did not require violence, it required geography. The case now had a direction, but no resolutions. The house had yielded nothing, the vehicle had suggested a path. The family remained absent, but their absence had been given a provisional explanation. Mexico was no longer a possibility discussed quietly among investigators. It was now the framework guiding the official search, and the case moved forward with that framework. By late February, the McStay family case had acquired momentum without acquiring answers.

16:38 Speaker 3: The Interpol notification had extended the search outward, but it had not produced contact, sightings or confirmations. What it had done was reposition the disappearance geographically. The working assumption that the family might have crossed into Mexico was no longer speculative. It was now embedded in how investigators asked questions when they looked for responses, and sumption gained additional weight when surveillance footage entered the case. The video came from the Sanya Sied Report of injury, recorded on February eight, twenty ten, four days after the Micstays were last known to be in contact with anyone.

17:13 Speaker 3: It was not discovered immediately. Like many pieces of surveillance, it existed before it was recognized as relevant, and when it did service, it did so quietly, reviewed first by investigators rather than the public. The footage showed a family of four walking south through a pedestrian crossing into Mexico, two adults, two small children. Each adult held the hand of one child. The video quality was poor. Faces were indistinct, clothing details were minimal. There was no audio. There was no timestamp visible to the casual viewer, only metadata available to those with access to the original recording.

17:48 Speaker 3: What the footage did show clearly was posture. The group was upright, The children were walking under their own power. There was no visible resistance. No one appeared to be restrained, No one appeared to be fleeing. San Diego County Sheriff's Sergeant Roy Frank addressed the footage publicly when it was released, and as was now a theme with the case, he chose language that emphasized restraint rather than certainty. He described the family in the video as appearing to be quote casually strolling into Mexico unquote.

18:19 Speaker 3: He stated, quote there was no sign any of the family members were in distress unquote. That phrasing mattered. It did not identify the mixdays conclusively. It described demeanor rather than identity. Frank acknowledged the limits of the evidence, saying, what we see in this video is a lead, and that lead is encouraging to us. We can't be sure that it's the Mixtay family, but we do know their vehicle was parked about five minutes away walking distance. On the same day, the video shows a family of four walking across the border.

18:51 Speaker 3: The proximity of the vehicle to the crossing bridged two previously separate facts. The Azuzu trooper abandoned near Sanya Sidro and the unidentified family and the footage were now linked. Conceptually, the connection was circumstantial, but it was logical the vehicle had been found close to the border. The video showed the family crossing on foot The timing aligned. Investigators did not announce a positive identification. They did not claim facial recognition or biometric confirmation. They framed the footage as consistent with the working theory, rather than as proof of it.

19:24 Speaker 3: Internally, however, the video functioned as confirmation. Once a theory gains visual reinforcement, even ambiguous visuals, it becomes easier to accept. The footage did not contradict the Mexico assumption. In fact, it supported it, just enough to stabilize it. In investigative work, that distinction can be decisive. Family members, however, reacted with understandable caution. Joseph mcstay's brother reviewed the footage and publicly questioned whether it showed his family. He wrote that the quality was too poor to make a positive identification.

19:57 Speaker 3: He noted differences in gait and posture. He pointed out that multiple families appeared in the same footage. Those objections were noted, but they did not dislodge the institutional direction of the case. Investigators are trained to weigh family perspectives alongside evidence, but not above it. At this stage, the footage was treated as corroborative rather than conclusive, but it was still action directing. Media coverage followed quickly. Headlines emphasized the possibility that the Mixtays had crossed into Mexico.

20:28 Speaker 3: The language used was careful, but the implication was clear. A disappearance that had once suggested danger now suggested choice. Assumption was taking firm, institutional actionable hold of the narrative. That shift affected how the case was perceived by the public and by agencies tasked with assisting. If the family had crossed voluntarily, the absence of contact could be explained by intention rather than harm. The lack of financial activity could be strategic rather than alarming. The presence of children, while concerning no longer demanded immediate criminal interpretation.

21:06 Speaker 3: Within law enforcement, the footage reduced pressure to escalate. There was no longer a vacuum demanding explanation. There was a plausible narrative that fit the available facts, and that led to investigative inertia. By early March, the border footage had become central to the case file. It was referenced in briefings, its shaped outreach. It justified continued coordination with Mexican authorities rather than a pivot back to domestic criminal investigation. The case had not been solved, the family had not been located, but uncertainty had been narrowed.

21:42 Speaker 3: Apparently, the disappearance now had a direction, and that direction pointed south. Once the border footage entered the file, the mix stay case began to move with a different kind of energy. It was no longer propelled by uncertainty, but by coordination. The working assumption that the family had crossed into Xico voluntarily did not close the case, but it gave it a map. San Diego County Sheriff's investigators began reaching outward. Communication expanded beyond local agencies and into federal and international channels.

22:13 Speaker 3: The FBI became involved not because a crime had been declared, but because of jurisdiction if the family had crossed into another country, federal resources were better suited to assist. The FBI's role was limited, and specific agents did not take over the case. They supplemented it. Their involvement centered on information sharing, cross border communication, and the logistical challenges of locating US citizens who may have traveled internationally without formal notice. Mexican authorities were contacted through established law enforcement channels.

22:45 Speaker 3: Requests were made to check airports, bus terminals, and known transit hubs. The inquiries were framed around location, not recovery. There was no allegation of harm attached to the requests. The goal was confirmation of presents interpose alert functions. Similarly, it did not accuse or warn. It informed. Should the mix stay family appear in another country through identification checks, hospital visits, or legal encounters, authorities would be alerted. It was a passive net cast wide designed to catch movement rather than resolve mystery.

23:19 Speaker 3: Media coverage adapted to this new posture. Early stories that framed the disappearance as troubling but unclear began to emphasize possibility. Headlines reflected cautious optimism. The narrative shifted from fear to curiosity. A family missing under unknown circumstances became a family possibly starting over. Officials echoed that tone carefully. Public statements avoided definitive language. Investigators emphasized that the case remained open, that no conclusions had been reached, but they also spoke about the border footage as encouraging.

23:55 Speaker 3: The absence of visible distress in the video was repeated, often, sometimes more so than its ambiguity. The fact that everybody seemed fine was more important than the fact that that everybody might not be the McStay family. Behind the scenes, the Mexico assumption began to shape priorities. Resources were allocated accordingly. Searches focused on travel records rather than forensic re examination. Interviews explored lifestyle and financial decisions rather than threats or conflicts. The house in Falbrook receded from focus.

24:28 Speaker 3: It had been documented, it had yielded nothing. There was no reason under the current theory to return. This is how investigations settle into grooves, not because evidence demands it, but because procedure rewards consistency. Once a theory allows multiple facets to coexist without contradiction, it becomes efficient to keep using it. I think the appropriate saying would be go along to get along? And how frustrating would that cliche be if your family would missing? And indeed, family members continued to press for answers.

25:04 Speaker 3: They questioned the assumption of voluntary departure. They pointed to the children, they pointed to the lack of communication. Their concerns were acknowledged, but they did not redirect the case. At this stage, there was no counter theory strong enough to displace the existing one, so all the mix Stay family members left behind could do as grind their teeth in frustration, as no real progress was made. Because the case of the missing McStay family was active and it was moving, but it was also increasingly defined.

25:38 Speaker 3: By late March and early April of twenty ten, the Mixtay investigation entered a quieter phase. There was no formal announcement marking the shift, no memos stating that urgency had passed. The cooling just happened gradually through absence rather than action. No confirmed sightings emerged from Mexico. Airports returned nothing, hospitals returned nothing, Border authorities returned nothing. The passive systems in place, alerts, notifications, coordination continued to function, but they did not produce results.

26:13 Speaker 3: Public updates became less frequent. When statements were made, they reiterated known facts rather than introducing new ones. The family remained missing, the investigation remained open. Authorities continued to ask for information. The language did not change, but the cadence slowed. Internally, the case remained categorized as missing persons under a voluntary travel assumption. That classification mattered. It affected priority, It affected resource allocation, It affected how often files were revisited, and how aggressively unanswered questions were pursued.

26:50 Speaker 3: Cases like this do not end abruptly. They settle. They take on a status that is neither resolved nor urgent. Detectives move on to other work, checking back periodically, waiting for something, anything, to break the pattern. So the micstaphile. It didn't close, It waited. I'm getting frustrated just telling this part of the story, so as you can imagine, family frustration intensified during this period. Their attempts to re energize the investigation were met with procedural explanations, without new evidence, without contradiction to the prevailing theory.

27:25 Speaker 3: There was little justification for escalation. Law enforcement does not move on instinct alone. It moves on provocation. Media interest waned accordingly. Stories became occasional rather than continuous. The disappearance faded from headlines, replaced by newer, louder events. The border footage, once fresh, became familiar. Its ambiguity remained unresolved, but it was no longer debated publicly. The house in Falbrook remained empty, Its contents stayed where they'd been documented. Time pass without reinterpretation.

28:01 Speaker 3: What it once looked interrupted began to outside observers to look abandoned. By early April, the case had reached a stable equilibrium. It existed within systems designed for long term uncertainty. It was not solved, It was not declared cold. It was simply waiting, waiting for contact, waiting for confirmation, waiting for contradiction. None arrived. The Mexico assumption held not because it was proven, but because nothing had yet arrived to break it. And then, on November eleventh, twenty thirteen, the Mix Stay case re entered the world without warning.

28:43 Speaker 3: For nearly four years, the disappearance had existed in a suspended state, documented, referenced, occasionally revisited, but largely governed by the assumption that the family had left of their own accord. There had been no confirmed sightings, no financial activity, no community locations, and no definitive evidence of harm. The case remained open, but its posture had long since stabilized. That morning, November eleventh, twenty thirteen, the break came not from law enforcement, not from a tip, not from any system designed to locate missing people.

29:17 Speaker 3: It came from a motorcyclist. The rider was traveling through a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert north of Victorville, California, near Interstate fifteen, an area characterized by uneven terrain, scrub vegetation, and informal trails used by off road vehicles. The Mojave Desert a place so rife with murder that it inspired me to create this podcast in twenty twenty one. This particular patch of Mojave where our motorcyclist road was open and exposed, cut through by dirt paths that wind away from the highway and into areas rarely visited except by those familiar with the region.

29:58 Speaker 3: Visibility is wide, but detail is easily lost against the uniform palette of sand, rock and brush. At some point during the ride, the motorcyclist noticed something out of place on the ground. What he saw didn't look like debris or refuse. It didn't resemble animal remains. It was small, rounded and unmistakably human bleached bone an unmistakably human skull. The rider contacted authorities. San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department deputies responded to the location. The call was treated seriously but cautiously.

30:37 Speaker 3: Reports of bones in the deserts are not, as I'm sure you can imagine, unheard of, and initial assessments often involved determining whether remains are human, how old they are, and whether they represent a single individual or something more complex. When deputies arrived, they secured the area and began a preliminary examination. The skull was confirmed to be human. Its size indicated it belonged to a child. What had begun as a recovery inquiry escalated into a potential homicide investigation.

31:10 Speaker 3: The site was expanded, Additional personnel were called in the area surrounding the discovery point was treated as a possible burial location rather than an isolated find. As investigators widened their search, they located additional remains nearby. The bones were not scattered randomly across the desert floor. They were concentrated, positioned, buried. Two shallow graves emerged from the sand. The graves were close enough to suggest a single event, but distinct enough to indicate deliberate placement.

31:43 Speaker 3: In one grave, remains consistent with an adult and a child were found together. In the second grave, additional remains were uncovered. The configuration suggested of family grouping rather than unrelated individuals. The recovery process unfolded. Methodic forensic specialists, including an anthropologist, were brought to the scene. The work extended across daylight hours and into the night. Each bone was documented, each fragment was mapped. The soil was sifted carefully to ensure nothing was overlooked.

32:16 Speaker 3: As the excavation progressed, investigators located an object buried with the remains a sledge hammer. The graves were no longer ambiguous, the remains were no longer unexplained. This was a homicide site. Sheriff's officials did not immediately release identities. The process required confirmation through forensic means. Dental records would be needed. DNA analysis would be required, particularly for the children. Investigators were careful with language, aware of the weight of premature statements.

32:50 Speaker 3: What they did confirm publicly was the scope of the discovery. Four sets of remains had been located. Please join me on Thursday, February fifth for part three of the McStay Family Murders. And Hey, if you like the show, please tell your family, tell your friends, Tell anybody you know who enjoys a true crime podcast. I sure would appreciate it. Thanks. I'm Zevan Odleberg and this has been kind of murdery.

33:21 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell your friends. You can find us on social media at Kinamurdery or email at Kinomurdery at gmail dot com.