Hi, this is Ashen Singh, here with Episode 2 of our latest True Crime series ...
What happened to the mixed days? Remember, you can get new episodes weekly on Tuesdays,
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or whatever you're listening now. You can also get the entire series ad free and early by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to start your free trial. Now, here's the next episode of what happened to the mixed days. Yep, for free today and sign up to play the number one fantasy game. Four weeks had passed since the mixed day family vanished from their fall broke home.
When the investigator assigned to their case, Detective Troy Dugal asked Joseph mixed day's brother to come to the San Diego Sheriff's department. March 1st, 2010, it's president, 1135. I am at my office at my computer with Michael McStay. Dugal believed he could have a promising lead to share with Michael. He pressed play on a silent, blurry and dimly lit video.
I'm about to show Michael the video. That was relayed to me.
In the 15 second clip, a group of four calmly crosses the U.S. Mexico border on foot.
Two of the people in the video appear to be adults, a man and a woman. They have with them two smaller figures who appear to be children. According to police, the individuals are passing from the U.S. side into Tijuana through the San Isidro terminal. See them going through a long, open air corridor with metal gates,
high sides and barbed wire on top. They're going to be walking right here. They're going to come right up this sidewalk. Police say that video of this group of four was captured on the very same day that the McStay's Asuzu Trooper was towed from a shopping center. Also near the border.
The footage is blurry, but the shapes of the people in it still told the story. To detect a Dugal, they look like a mother, father, and two children. Each parent holding a child's hand. There's the male with a kid. There's the female with a kid. Could they speed the McStay's?
Detective Dugal's first impression of the McStay's disappearance,
according to police records, was that something bad had happened to them. He suspected foul play, but they sportored footage, cast new doubt. Maybe the McStay's had left of their own accord. In the weeks following the family's disappearance, those who knew the McStay's were left scratching their heads.
“Was the family alive and well in Mexico or had something terrible happened to them?”
From ABC audio in 2020, a motion saying, "And this is what happened to the McStay's." Episode 2. Missing. When the McStay's vanished, they left behind close family and friends who all wanted answers. In 2011, Patrick McStay, Joseph and Michael's father told ABC news that he started looking into the family's disappearance himself.
"I don't know what happened. I'm looking for answers just like them. Let's look at everything." Patrick enlisted help from Joseph's friend, Gina Watson.
"It's not like I always liked to crime, but I liked mysteries or like I'll go down a rabbit hole,
and I definitely did that in this case because I wanted to be able to make sense of it all, like something that's so incomprehensible." "I will say yeah, I got a little obsessed."
“Remember, Gina Watson had met Joseph McStay through work.”
She says when she learned Joseph and his family had gone missing, she was stunned. Wanting to find a way to help. Gina says she reached out to Joseph's family, and eventually
Connected with Patrick.
Police had executed a search warrant at the McStay's Fallbroke home.
“They seized a number of electronic devices, and did a forensic analysis of them,”
looking to the family's finances and bank records. They checked Joseph and some are cell phone records, too. Gina says she and Patrick did what they could to help investigators. According to Gina, Joseph had given all his email passwords to his dad for safekeeping. So she and Patrick started going through Joseph's emails together. "I was conflicted because it's like I'm in my friend's personal email now.
Like that felt weird, but I want to help go through things as quickly as possible, make sure everything's paid attention to that should be." Gina found a couple of messages that raised bread flags for her. She says she found one email about a counseling session for Joseph and Summer, a month before they disappeared. Gina wasn't sure what to make of this.
“A lot of times, like they say, the husband did it, so you have to be open-minded and say,”
"Well, could Joseph a gone mad and done something to his family?" I mean, of course, you want to say no way, and I did think no way, but you want to be open-minded
and consider everything. Did Summer, like, did she do something nefarious? But we could never
back any of that up." Another discovery that Pete Gina's interest was a set of transactions from a business account. I saw that there were withdrawals from the PayPal account. A PayPal account had been set up for the waterfall company to pay vendors and receive payments from customers. But what caught Gina's attention were the withdrawals from the PayPal account in the days immediately after the mixed days went missing. All told, nearly $7,000 had been withdrawn.
And so I was like, "Hmm, if they say they weren't missing on February 4, could they have brought a laptop with them and he's doing business from a hotel somewhere, is that what happened?" Or, "So we're trying to piece this together." This discovery might have offered a ray of hope that Joseph and his family were still alive. But Gina says she knew it wasn't Joseph initiating these transactions. It was Dan Cavano.
“You'll remember from our last episode, Dan was Joseph's business partner.”
As a web designer, he ran the retail site for earth-inspired products and he was close to the family.
So close Dan says the mixed daykins called him Uncle Dan. Remember, Dan was the first one to
call on a welfare check for the family. The detective knew all of the San Diego Sheriff's department asked Dan about the PayPal transactions. Dan had an explanation for the withdrawals. Let me ask you, Dan, I know you have access for PayPal and PayPal transfers. I know there was been several all the way back to the fifth. Dan explained he needed the money to keep the business afloat. He said the website caused money to maintain. Dan also told investigators he wasn't anywhere
near the mixed day's house at the time of their disappearance. He was in Hawaii with his girlfriend. When investigators looked into flight information and Dan's girlfriend, his story checked out. They cleared him from the list of parties, potentially involved with the mixed day's disappearance. Dan wasn't the only person in the mixed day's circle that police spoke to. There were a few others that detectives interviewed, hoping to learn something, anything while where the family had gone.
Among the people on that list was Charles Merrick. Better known as Chase. He was a welder who built custom fountains for earth inspired products. Joseph and Chase had worked together for around three years. The world of custom water features is small. And Gina Watson had worked in the space for years. She says not everything that she'd heard about
Chase was positive.
customer service issues. I did ask Joseph during one of our last conversations,
“long conversations that I remember. I asked him point blank. Like you're going to use Chase,”
like exclusively that's your guy. And he was like, yeah, I know I've heard the things and I know that he's had trouble in the past, but I'm trying to help him. Authorities said what they really wanted to talk to Chase about was his calendar. I was on Joseph Thursday around Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday, the fourth. Chase sat down with Detective Troy Dugal and his partner Susanne Fisk
for an in-person interview. Chase said he had a meeting with Joseph the day the mixed days went missing
to discuss work. Two projects we were in the middle of we were in the middle of we had to go over them and get make sure all the specs were right. Where are the different electricals coming out? Where did you go? At Chick-fil-A. Right. He met me at Chick-fil-A and he bought lunch there. At that February fourth meeting, Joseph and Chase spoke about all kinds of money stuff as Chase put it. Hey, Mr. Vendors, payments from Joseph to Chase. There was nothing out of the ordinary
about the meeting, according to Chase. But during this interview with Detective Chase said something that caught their attention. Joseph was one of my best friends. Joseph was one of my best friends. Detective Susanne Fisk blocked this choice of words immediately.
“If Joseph was still Chase's best friend, why did he use the past tense?”
I don't have anything to do with anything whether it was then going somewhere. You didn't help participate. No, not in any way. Shape reform. Nothing to do with this appearance, but there's good or not. Absolutely not. I don't know if anybody that has anything to gain by Joseph being gone. I think everybody that I know has everything to lose. Chase told detectives that his whole business depended on Joseph McStay that he and Joseph were close
and talked almost every day for the last two years. Plus Chase told them he was one of the first
people in the McStay's inner circle to help search for the family. On the day Michael McStay went
“into his brother's home through a back window. It was Chase who had met him there.”
Before detectives ended their interview with Chase, asked to collect his DNA. You agreed to a cheekswob. Ultimately, San Diego police determined that was no crime to charge anyone with. No arrests were made and no indictment found in the McStay's disappearance. But interviewing people wasn't the only avenue detectives pursued. They also chased and
combed through potential evidence. Like the family's assoos are trooper. One found near the southern border. It's something inside the vehicle, tell detectives what happened to the McStay's. Mysteries unravel and stunning truths are revealed when 2020 investigates. Follow the clues, the evidence, the breaking new details. ABC's 2020 needs true murder mystery shocking. If you follow true
crime in 2020, then you've got to listen to this. Subscribe now to 2020 True Crime Plus. Add free exclusive true crime content. Search 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple podcasts and start your free trial. Terms apply. There's a headline every 30 minutes for our show. I'm pretty sure. Welcome to Get Real. I'm your host Amanda Hirsch. This is the show for the reality TV Obsessed.
You thought the show was crazy.
I even stopped for the stars and stands of the Hulu reality verse. Do we think she's
stirring the pot to secure a place on the show? Find and listen to Get Real wherever you get your podcasts and stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Terms apply. Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. There are three victims we know of. The suspect is female, white, late 20s. Female serial killer is killed for power, control. I believe there's a deeper
“motivation here. You have to know I care who you're telling us and you are going to end up dead.”
I've been waiting for you. Watch the Hulu original series, furious. Now stream on Hulu and Hulu
on Disney+. When police located the mixed days white is Susan Trooper, it took it to the
crime lab and processed it. What I remembered that they recovered from the vehicle was some I believe as a asthma medicine and I think one of the boys was taking asthma medicine which hits essentially a red flag when you see some of them left medication in the car, especially if, you know, if they were going into another country, why wasn't his medication taken with him? This is Lieutenant Dennis Brugos. We heard from last episode. He's Detective Troy Dugal's
boss and oversaw the mixed day investigation for the San Diego Sheriff's Department. Investigators collected DNA swabs, lifted fingerprints, and searched the SUV. According to authorities, there were no signs of struggle in the vehicle. If the Asuzu Trooper itself offered little information, the investigation around the mixed day's home offered more leads. A police report shows that detective spoke with the residents of Avocado Vista Lane.
There was one neighbor that came forward with a surveillance video. A few doors down from the mixed day residents. A neighbor had installed a security camera facing the street. Lieutenant Brugos's team took a look at the footage from February 4th. The day the mixed day is one missing. And lo and behold, at 747 p.m. Here to be a vehicle, which looked like it might be the Asuzu backing out of the driveway and driving
out of the street, but we weren't able to get any kind of license plate number on anything like that. Detectives also couldn't tell who was inside the car as a drove away. The video was dark and only showed part of the vehicle. But assuming it was the mixed day's Asuzu Trooper, leaving their driveway, police say there was a four-day gap before it appeared again at that shopping center near the border. The drive from Fallbroke to the Mexican border takes about one hour.
“So where had the car been for the rest of the four days?”
While detective's puzzled over this new information, Gina Watson, who'd been doing her own digging, found a new potential clue. An email in Joseph's account about purchasing the Spanish language software. I see an email to someone to get Rosetta Stone Spanish. And it was winner as
that a stone first came out and everybody was touting it as like you're going to learn the language,
like you'll be fluent if you just do this Rosetta Stone. So I think summer was excited in the email. Was it possible the family had been learning Spanish to prepare for a plan trip to Mexico? It's not, I might try to go. In March 2010, a month after the mixed day's went missing, Detective Dugal called Michael McState to share another discovery he'd made. A little bit of information, finally got a little bit of a lead.
That's good. Yeah, he well, it doesn't tell me where your family's at, but it does tell me which direction they may have went. Dugal said the forensic analysis of the family computer had come back. It showed that about a week before the mixed days were last seen, somebody had searched for information about crossing into Mexico with children, including requirements for children's passports. For Detective Dugal, the theory that the family had gone to Mexico voluntarily was looking
“more and more viable. It was only possible, I think it's above possible now, with that information.”
Earlier in the month, Detective Dugal asked Michael to his office at the police station
Showed him that blurry surveillance video of the four people crossing the bor...
US into Tijuana. Police felt that if they could say definitively that the people in the video were
Joseph, summer, and the boys, then the footage could serve his visual proof that the mixed days were alive and well in Mexico. Dugal and Michael watched the videos several times, pouring over every detail.
“You recognize that Jack? The kids are the right size for GI and Joseph?”
Yeah, it seems that well, if I had to guess if they would be the younger one, Jay, I would be in GI, I can't do it. Can I watch it in the real time track and tell my brothers how you lost, you know? The detective pointed out that the children were wearing beenies, like Johnny and Joseph Jr. often did, and that the height and size of the adults and children seemed to
roughly match the mixed days, but Michael said he needed a better shot, a better angle to
know for sure. The detective Dugal said that wasn't likely. Yes, what I can tell you, we frequently get cases that involved next time. We know where cameras are and we know what images are good for people going into the border. This camera is my part of this. It may have been the best footage available, but Michael still wasn't convinced it was, in fact, his family in the video. He said the walk of the female adult wasn't consistent with
summer's walk, and he didn't recognize the jackets the adults were wearing. With these four figures on the screen, the mixed-day family, were not. I can't talk about this,
“but I'm annoying. Detective Dugal, how does doubts, too?”
I don't know that anyone will be able to tell, because that was my sister walking across for
I don't know if I'd be able to tell so I can't imagine it. You don't know good or bad. This was unfortunately neither tonight, and I'll tell you what, this whole case has been a lot like that. A mystery that was feeling impossible to make sense of. Dark, blurry image offering nothing recognizable. After weeks of looking for evidence of foul play, Detective Dugal hadn't found any. In fact, to him, all the available evidence was pointing
in the same direction. At the mixed-days, had left the country voluntarily. Michael, I currently can convince somebody who has nothing to do with this case that there's a stronger likelihood that they're alive and south than I can convince somebody that they were abducted or being helped. There's no ransom, no long-twistness come across any suspicious circumstances, persons, people who've been killed. And then we have things like this.
“As in this border crossing video, but was there more to the story of what happened to this family?”
This is the way. Hi, I'm John Favre. We are launching the all new Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Groguo official podcast. I'm sorry, I can't focus at the moment. We're going behind the scenes, but the casting crew sharing stories from the set, creative insights, and a few surprises from across the galaxy. I think he's earned a little snack. Watch and listen to Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Groguo official podcast,
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September 3rd, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers, term supply. FX presents the shards, Los Angeles, 1981. We're going to roll the school. Don't we already? It was supposed to be the best year of their lives.
Oh, it's dark, someone for a drink right now. Until their friends started going missing. There's some thing going on.
From executive producer Ryan Murphy,
and based on the best selling thriller by Grant Easton Ellis, House Terrifying.
Infectious, the shards now streaming on Hulu. When Joseph's father, Patrick McStay, saw the surveillance footage from the Samus Syndrome border crossing. It wasn't convinced it was his family. It's blurry, you can't see it. It's a jerky motion, and the man does not have long here. That's not Joey.
Summer doesn't own a coat like that. That's not summer. Also, Patrick wondered, "What about the surveillance cameras on route from the car to the border terminal?" weren't there, Annie?
“And wouldn't they have caught a clearer picture of the McStays?”
They had two little boys, three and four years old.
Daddy, I got to go to the bathroom. Daddy, I'm hungry. And I know I had two little boys. I know what they do. And you mean to tell me that they didn't go to a restroom. They weren't in and out of stores. They didn't go to a restaurant.
In his interview with ABC News, Patrick was clearly upset, and his message to investigators was clear. "Get off your rear end, get out there, and find them." Gina Watson also wanted investigators to do more. Lieutenant Vrugos, one of the statements I remember him making,
"Is that it's not a crime to go missing?"
“And I remember being so angry when I heard that because I'm like,”
"Oh, of course, it's not a crime to go sit on the beach in Mexico and sit my ties." But that's not what they're doing. Like, I know Joseph, I know he loved his kids. Like, if I disappeared and my kids were gone with me, I get emotional because it's like, I would want somebody to do something
and not just say, "Well, it's not a crime." While detectives worked on the case, the media seized on the story, both local and national. The McStays disappearance was featured on Nancy Grace's headline news. "An entire family, vanishes, including the small children, what do we know?"
America's most wanted, covered it too.
“" Tonight, you could help solve this agonizing mystery."”
Joseph's family brought attention to the case, giving interviews to news outlets, and sending missing flyers down to Mexico. Websites and Facebook pages, soliciting tips, went up to in Michael McStay, told ABC News in 2011, the public did reach out. The suggestions from across the country about where his family could be.
Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Montana. The San Diego Sheriff's Department followed up on tips that came in. Detectives notified Interpol to be on the lookout for missing family that might be in Mexico. Local authorities worked with Mexican authorities to check hospitals and airports. But according to San Diego Police, detectives eventually exhausted all their leads.
Police ultimately put out a statement saying the family left home of their own free will
and turned the case over to the FBI. If there were any sightings of the McStays in Mexico, the FBI had the resources to follow up. Early on, Joseph's family hoped that the four missing McStays would turn up safe and sound. But months, even years in, the hope of a return was given way to fearing the worst.
Something's not right, someone needs to come forward, someone saw something, someone knows something. I'm suspecting the worst, I'm suspecting foul play. And the worst would come. What happens to the McStays is a production of ABC audio in 2020, hosted by me, Ocean Singh, produced by Madeline Wood, Vika Arancin, Audrey Moestec, and Kiara Powell,
with help from Sabrina Fang and Camille Peterson, edited by Gianni Palmer, our supervising producer and Susie Luke, music by Heaven by Ola, mixing by Heaven by Ola and Ob Mallory. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnson, Chris Donovan, Joseph Rene,
Sonny Andrew, Alyssa Stuller, Zenderson Morris, Tom Birmingham,
Indra Delisaha, and Blue Browning. Gosh, Cohen is our director of podcast programming.
Even McNath is our executive producer.
“Can't wait for more? Listen to the next thing. Something is happening in Dawson Creek.”
A wave of violence has swept over this community of just 13,000 people.
It's like they had a stuff you only care about on TV. 15 murders in the last five years.
“Some criminals, I put them into the category of supervillains.”
I'm Timothy Sawa, and from CBC's uncover and the fifth estate, an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Dawson Creek, and what's behind it all.
“I'm not saying in other words, leave me alone.”
The mile zero murders. Available now on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.
Some cases fade from headlines. Some never made it there to begin with.
I'm Ashley Flowers, and on my podcast The Deck, I tell you the stories of cold cases featured on playing cards distributed in prisons designed to spark new leads and bring long overdue justice. Because these stories deserve to be heard and the loved ones of these victims still deserve answers. Are you ready to be dealt in? Listen to the deck now wherever you get your podcasts. Episode ahead of everyone else, add free. Subscribe now to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts.
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