Parents of man who disappeared with his wife and kids detail their desperate search for them in Mexico after police said the family had left the country - before learning they had been brutally murdered by son s business partner
Joseph McStay, 40, his wife, Summer, 43, and their sons Gianni, 4, and Joseph Jr., 3, vanished from their home in Fallbrook, California, on February 4, 2010
Baffled investigators initially concluded they voluntarily went to Mexico
The family of four s skeletal remains were discovered in a shallow grave in the Mojave Desert in November 2013, along with a rusty sledgehammer
A year later, Charles Chase Merritt, who was a partner in Joseph s water-fountain business, was arrested for the murders
what does that tell you, anything? number one, we re sitting here, he had access. number two, if he was there after they went missing, he had plenty of opportunity to, hypothetically speaking, clean up. he had plenty of opportunity. and he had the opportunity to cast doubt away from himself. does it surprise you he would go to the house and be the one who showed such concern and alert them missing? no. we ve always heard about individuals that go back to the scene of the crime. it s not something that is uncommon. it s also a form of defense in the future. but while authorities are confident they found their killer, for patrick mcstay, one nagging question remains unanswered. i mean, how he supposedly
it and decided not to answer it. have you thought about or speculated what it might have been, was he in trouble? and that s why it s a regret because there s a hundred different scenarios that could have been. chase says he tried to reach joseph the next morning. i had left a few messages and then the voicemail ended up being full. that s when i got really concerned. 1,500 miles away in houston, patrick mcstay was frantic. he usually spoke to his son every day. i m worried, what happened, is somebody hurt? you know, did they go on a trip? six days would pass with no sign of the mcstays and then on february 10th, chase merritt said he went to check their home for the first time. he wasn t there.
less than a year ago, i made a promise to the family that our department would do everything in our power to solve this case. charles merritt was arrested on wednesday, november 5th, without incident. nearly five years after the mcstays vanished, 57-year-old charles chase merritt was arrested and charged for brutally killing his friend, joseph mcstay, joseph s wife summer and their two little boys, gianni and joey jr. although we can never bring them back, i hope this provides some level of closure. a lot of people say it s like lifting a ton off your shoulders. no, to me, it was more like a boulder falling on me. patrick mcstay s heartbreak was made even worse by the news,