his truck was in the driveway. dogs were in the backyard with no food, no water. i walked around the house. i didn t see anything suspicious. did it surprise you that the dogs were outside? very much so. so much so that i called susan, joseph s mother and tolder and told her there s something amiss. i said, go down, the dogs are there, move the dog bowls, the food and the water and then we can see if maybe they hired someone to feed the animals. well, then go back two days later and could tell the bowls were moved, obviously fed. so this is why we thought they were out of town. finally, eight days after anyone had heard from joseph, michael mcstay went to his brother s house with chase. who knew exactly how to get inside the locked home.
joey had pretty serious allergies so he always kept his window open, always. they found a mess, rotten food on the counter. popcorn on the futon. clothes tossed all over the place. i don t remember a great deal of it because i was in the house for maybe three minutes, i think. not very long. i told michael at the time, you should probably call the sheriff s department. his response was simply, you know what? let s wait until the end of the weekend. san diego s sheriff, they have a rule anyway. after 10 days, it s automatically, they send out homicide. could you have reported them missing and gotten police action before the ten days? i don t know. i don t know. maybe. it would take until monday, february 15th, 11 days after the family went missing for michael
of it because i was in the house for maybe three minutes, i think. not very long. i told michael at the time, you should probably call the sheriff s department. his response was simply, you know what? let s wait until the end of the weekend. san diego s sheriff, they have a rule anyway. after 10 days, it s automatically, they send out homicide. could you have reported them missing and gotten police action before the ten days? i don t know. i don t know. maybe. it would take until monday, february 15th, 11 days after the family went missing for michael to call the sheriff s department. investigators came to the house. immediately alerted homicide. but chose not to seal off the scene. they don t put any tape, crime scene tape, nothing, just locked the house back up and leave to get warrants.
and mike mcstay took the video card out of the laptop computer, and brought home the laptop computer. how frustrating is that for you? if it is not an obvious murder investigation from the get-go, from the beginning, things like that are going to occur. things that could make chase make proving chase merritt s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt challenging. and how could they show that chase, a close family friend, had motive strong enough to kill two little boys in cold blood? i mean, just unthinkable that anybody could hurt two children like that, and especially being a mom, myself. did it ever play into who you suspected? the only thing that i could think is that perhaps the two children knew the killer and that s why they had to be killed as well. a killer the investigators believe knew exactly what he was doing.
joseph s mother, and told her, there s something amiss. i side, go down, if the dogs are there, move the dog bowls, the food and the water, and then we can see if they hired someone to feed the animals. well, then go back two days later and could tell the bowls were moved, obviously fed. so this is why we thought they were out of town. finally, eight days after anyone had heard from joseph, michael mcstay went to his brother s house with chase. who knew exactly how to get inside the locked home. joey had pretty serious allergies so he always kept his window open, always. they found a mess, rotten food on the counter. popcorn on the futon. clothes tossed all over the place. i don t remember a great deal