McStays Episode 3: In the Desert

from 2020 in ABC Audio. What happens to the mixed days? Remember you can get new episodes

weekly on Tuesdays, if you follow what happens to the mixed days when Apple Podcasts spotify, Amazon Music, or ever you're listening now. Or you can hear the entire series right now, add free by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to start your free trial today. Now, here's the next episode of What Happens To The Mix Days.

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Of course, in Europe, Rosario said, with the greatest reasons for the development of the world.

Many thousand reasons were found on the website with questions about the blutin and her life in the air.

Did it even cause a young day in? In November 2013, a man named John Bluth took his motorcycle out for an off-road adventure. It was around 7.30 a.m. on Veterans Day. When John wrote a east, up in her state 15, deep into the Mojave Desert. At that time, a year, the sun doesn't come up very early. So it was kind of getting a full light, a little bit cool, nice day. And it looked like good day for a bike ride. John says that on Veterans Day, he thinks about his two brothers,

“veterans who have passed away. Today is usually a sad one for him. He says,”

"And that morning, John took off headed across the scrubby, sparsely populated land, between Los Angeles and Las Vegas." So actually what happened was, I'm hitting west on one of these dirt roads over here towards the mountains that deceived behind me there, and I'm looking for the old Spanish trail. The old Spanish trail is a 200-year-old road, a historic trade route that caught across the southwestern states, used by settlers heading west. It's now a little more than

a dirt track and some stretches, and almost hidden from sight. But John knew where to look. He turned off the highway and started making his way to the trail. I was looking around because I'm going very slow. And I saw what I thought was a kind of like upside down turtle shell. And so I stopped because I'm curious, took a stick and turned it over and it didn't look like a torrential. It looked like a part of a skull. John wondered if it was some kind of historic artifact.

He took a closer look if it was a skull. It was small. So I did turn it over with the stick, but it was no bigger than probably the palm of my hand. John called the police to report what he'd found. How can I help you? I'm out here on motorcycle, out behind the dump, and I found a look like a human skull. Can you give me a location? Yeah. The 911 operator sent an officer to check it out.

“And John went on with his ride. I was in suspense. I was wondering, you know, what is that?”

Is it something ancient? Something new? It wasn't until a few days later, John said, when he turned on the TV, he learned more. It wasn't ancient, but it wasn't exactly new here. On the news, they reported that it was the McState family that they discovered out there and it doesn't, that I had discovered. Nearly four years and a hundred miles away from where the

McState had disappeared. They were finally found. Just not the way their family and friends

were hoping for it. For maybe see audio in 2020, Amash and Sing, and this is what happened to the McState's. Episode three in the desert. The area where John Bluth found the mysterious object was deep in the Mojave Desert, inland and north of the McState's home, was over 150 miles away from where the family's car had been found. Abandoned at the U.S. Mexico border.

The location of the find put it in the jurisdiction of the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department. San Bernardino is two counties over from where the McState's lived, and the family didn't

came in, some didn't immediately think it was connected to the McState case. San Bernardino

“Detective Eddie Bachman said he hadn't even heard of it. In 2013, I was working with the San Bernardino”

County Sheriff's Department of Science in the Specialized Investigations Division on the homicide detail.

Detective Bachman says the first people on scene were local sheriff's deputies from Victorville,

a town a few miles away. They quickly called for reinforcements, a corner, and a forensic anthropologist. The team confirmed that the biker's hunch was right. This wasn't a turtle shell. It was a bone fragged part of a child's skull. And nearby, more horrors were discovered. So once we verified that it was human remains that were out there, they went out and they walked to scene a little further, and they located two shallow graves, a short distance from where

“the skull was located. Two graves, and inside those graves were more human remains.”

That's when Detective Eddie Bachman's homicide team was called, and Bachman went out to the

gravesides himself. One of the things he says he noticed right away was how close to the main road they were. And the way that the graves were located, it was down inside of almost like a wash area. So if you were standing at the graves, you could see portions of the freeway, and it was probably, I would say, a half a mile to a mile away from the exit to the freeway there. The graves themselves were shallow. Investigators would determine that some bone fragments

were buried only six inches deep. Investigators collected the bones from what they labelled as grave A and grave B, and sent them for analysis. Within days, results came back. This collection of skeletal remains was confirmed to be what was left at the McState family. The bones and grave A belonged to Joseph McState, and three-year-old Joey Junior. And grave B, the summer, and the older son Gianni. According to the report, Detective suspected animals had disturbed

the graves. The bone found by the biker was part of Joey Junior's skull, and there were other items in the grave. Potential clues. Joseph McState was wrapped in a cloth woven blanket, and he also had an extension cord that was wrapped around his neck and it had gone down to his ankles. Here, summers remains. Investigators said they found black sweats and the left cup of a bra spattered of paint near Gianni. If I'm a small pair of blue pants, I'll pull up diaper,

and a kids backpack. Inside of the grave with summer and Gianni, there were some other items a cell phone holder, and then ultimately after the victims were removed from there, we located a Stanley Sledgehammer underneath where the victims were placed. John Blut, the biker, discovered the skull fragment on a Monday. By Friday, the 15th of November 2013,

investigators were ready to share the news with the world. The McState's would never be coming home.

And while their friends and family had searched for them for years, someone out there had known exactly where they were. A whole time.

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Four days after the skeletal remains were found, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department held a press conference in a well-lipped briefing room. Relatives of the McState's sat at a long table. Many of them wearing sunglasses, and periodically wiping away tears from underneath them.

He told reporters that investigators had found the remains of Joseph and some are McState

“in two shallow graves. It also found the remains of two children, the Sheriff said.”

They presumed that it was Joey Junior and Gianni, but by the day of the press conference, they hadn't confirmed the identities of the children yet. Their DNA evidence is on file with DOJ, and we will be sending that information to DOJ for positive confirmation. Investigators said that the autopsy's would be completed by the end of the day. A while they weren't yet willing to share details of the cause of death,

they did tell reporters that this case was no longer a missing person's investigation. It was a homicide. Michael McState, Joseph's brother, was invited to speak.

“"We're going to find this individual or for individuals. I know that the Sheriff's the FBI”

everybody wants to bring this to justice." Michael told reporters that his family was grateful for the support they received and asked for privacy as they grieved and footage from the event. He looks exhausted and on the verge of tears. It's not really the outcome we were looking for, but it gives us courage to note the third together and there in a better place. That was such a hard day to see Michael on the press conference barely holding it together.

Gina Watson, a friend of Joseph McState, had been working to help track down where the McState's have gone. She stayed in close contact with Patrick McState. Joseph's father.

Patrick and I both thought we would just go to our grave never knowing what happened to them.

Like we had kind of given up. I'm not that we gave up searching for God's sake. We were still probably not every night looking at things, but you know, going back and forth on things. He was at least able to find out what happened, but what a terrible thing to have found out happened that all of your fears came true. Lawrence Hemingway was a surfing friend of Joseph's.

“I remember thinking at least they're going to find who did it. Soon after the bodies were found,”

a paddle out was organized in Joseph's honor. It's a surfing tradition where out in the ocean surfers form a circle on their boards. They often hold hands and remember the dead. Lawrence was there. Joey's paddle out was probably from what I remember about 50 people. It was at the Sancle on any pier. It's a perfect weather, perfect day. In news footage from that day, you can see the surfers sitting out in the ocean wearing floral

necklaces, the style of Hawaiian lace. Sometimes in a paddle out, everyone goes around the circle, sharing stories about the person who's not there. Just your grief and the ocean. It was really neat. It was, it was very touching. The same day as the paddle out, there was also a memorial service that a local church.

I mean, I've never, would have never, in a million years, ever have thought that they would

have disappeared and their lives be ended like that in such a horrific way. Jessie Solvario, a friend of summers, had also waited for news of the mixed days. There's not a word bad enough to be able to say how devastating it was to find out that information. And then waves of sadness come and waves of devastation come. And us as friends, you know, would get together and just cry and sob together over what happened

to them. For some of the friends who waited so long for answers, they said there was a sense of almost relief just in knowing something after all this time. But Jessie said that relief was short lived. It was the one big answer to all the questions we had for all those years. And then another whole set of new questions. And I answered questions began to happen. Because how could somebody

them? Gina Watson again. She's been trying to help to get to the bottom of the mixed days disappearance since 2010. Back then, the case had been investigated by the San Diego County Sheriff's Office. As a missing person's case, the detective said they had exhausted all possible leads. They later handed the case over to the FBI in March of 2013. But now, seven months later, San Bernardino investigators had bodies and grave sites to investigate.

The detective started trying to piece it all together. When you have multiple homicides,

it's always going to be a big deal. Ryan Smith was a homicide detective working in the San Bernardino

Sheriff's Department. As the question of what happened to the mixed days began to resurface, it was assigned to the same San Bernardino investigation team as the detective Eddie Bachman for the detective Smith. The case quickly became personal. I had young kids at the time and you know that there's remains of young children in the graves. And so that's something that is just, it's alarming and it's upsetting because

you who kills children. Smith started digging into the reports made by the graves site

“investigators. What clues could the bodies and the items they were found with reveal?”

Especially with graves, we're going to want to see what was left over. That's the name of

the game of any investigation. What got left behind that we can try to find to help solve the crime. Now, unfortunately, especially with the mixed days in that grave, they were in the ground for three years. Detective Smith says, those years in the ground meant that it was harder to collect evidence. DNA was less likely to be present. Remains were now skeletal. There's no soft tissue left that would normally reveal something about the manner of death. But once the autopsy is

complete, San Bernardino investigators were able to determine how the mixed days died. The corner did their autopsy and determined that the causes of death were blunt force trauma.

According to police, Joseph Skull had a large indentation. A bone in his leg was badly broken.

Some were Skull was severely damaged, suggesting that someone had hit her head several times. Investigators were able to compare the injuries to the size and shape of the three-pound Stanley sledgehammer that they found in grave B. They thought it was a match. Establishing a murder weapon was a step forward for the investigation. But only added to the horror of the case for Detective Smith.

You know, this wasn't a drive by. This wasn't someone who, unfortunately, got struck or became a victim. Because they were in the wrong place for a long time, this was up close and personal. And the graves had more to say. Smith reviewed the old case files from 2010, and discovered information in them that helped to make sense of the other items found with the remains. In the graves, we found blue painters tape. We found woven fabric.

And when we reviewed pictures that were taken of the mixed days residents, what we saw is that the house was under construction, there was blue painters tape.

“There were rags. Remember, summer and Joseph had been in the middle of renovating their house.”

Right when they went missing, they were painting the walls. Detective's wondering if this meant that the family had been killed at home. There were no shoes in the graves. Also, you know, you're probably not going out without shoes. You know, there's no wallets. So, really led us to believe that the family wasn't out traveling. They weren't doing something and then abducted. They were out home.

The details, as they emerged, were hard to hear for the people who knew the family. Like Gina Watson. You think about what they possibly saw or feared. You think about as a mother. Wanting to protect those children. And it's heartbreaking, really is.

Routality of the murders only added to the confusion around the mixed days deaths. Who would want to kill this young family? Detective is wondering if the answer to a buried in the old case files before them.

“Was there a person previously questioned that might now have more to say?”

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term supply. Detective Ryan Smith says that the San Bernardino Sheriff's department was given over 4,000 pages of case files. Investigators reviewed old interviews that San Diego had done and combed through old documents. But a homicide investigation is different from a missing person's case. San Bernardino wanted to conduct new interviews. Some of them, with people who had already spoken to San Diego years before. Now, we know this isn't a family that just went on

vacation and didn't tell anybody. This is a family that got murdered. So, information they

“may not have thought was important during a missing person's investigation is very important”

for us. Investigators made a list of everyone's San Diego had spoken to. We put them all on a big board and then we did our research about them, you know, what they did, where they lived, all that stuff, and then we could go out and talk to them. In the San Bernardino Police Report, the detective has mentioned four people. All of them had been close to the mixed days at some point in their lives.

First was Michael McFadden. McFadden was married to Joseph McStay's ex-wife and was stepfather

to Joseph's oldest son. According to the report, the detective said learned that McFadden and Joseph used to be friends. But detective Bachman said that in the months before the family's disappearance, things weren't good between them. There were some issues between Michael McFadden and the mixed days just over some stuff to do with the children. Detectives met with Michael McFadden. They told him everyone's a suspect until San Bernardino says they aren't. He was frustrated that

“he was being looked at as a suspect, I think, which is understandable for anybody. However,”

he was very open to us when we interviewed him and provided the records to say, hey, I wasn't in the area. San Bernardino investigators cleared Michael McFadden of any involvement in what happened to the mixed days. Next was Vic Johansson. Police reports say Vic and Summer had dated for around five years, as Vic and Summer's relationship was coming to an end. That's when Summer met Joseph. And when Gina searched Joseph's email, she said she found something that concern her.

An email summer had forwarded to Joseph. Message from Vic to Summer right before the mixed days went missing. It said, I love you forever, happy birthday summer forever and ever. It was just odd. Vic had a criminal record. He had pleaded no contest to a charge of making criminal threats to a neighbor in 2004. But when detectives interviewed Vic, he said he didn't know where the mixed family were living at the time they went missing. And when detectives pulled his cell records

for that period of time, it showed that his phone was out of state. Detectives smith again. We were able to contact him, we were able to verify his whereabouts, and it excluded him from the list of suspects. San Bernardino investigators were also taking a close look at Joseph's business associates, Dan Cavanagh, and Chase Marit. Dan, again, was Joseph's business partner in their decorative waterfall business. Who's the company's webmaster? The sponsor for their company's website

“and online marketing. Chase, remember, was a welder who worked with the company. He was the one”

who built the towering structures made of glass and steel. At the time, Joseph won missing. He and Chase were in the middle of some lucrative custom projects, including one in Saudi Arabia. San Diego investigators had interviewed Dan Cavanagh back in 2010, soon after the family disappeared. It had questioned why he'd removed funds from the company PayPal account after the family went missing. Dan had explained that the money around $7,000 was for keeping the business afloat. The detectives were

detectives were interested in Dan and Joseph's business. An instance of some seemingly bad blood

between them. There was a string of messages between the two men, months before the family went missing. Messages show an angry Dan threatening retaliation against the business. Geno Watson, who had access to Joseph's emails, came across the back and forth between the two men. Oh yeah, here's the big part. It will be about 30 days from today that your site has gone

“from the search engine if you just want to ignore me. Joseph says, "Why is that? Why not?”

You treat me like a kid like I'm dumb or some ****." One, your site will be gone from the engines. Two, I'll make my own fountain site. And three, I don't need in any way a **** killing it on

other ****. Joseph says, "I, summer, and kids know the real you and what you would potentially do

to harm me and my family. You're a great guy down, F and sad." That just sounded like a fake answer to me. That was not not being accountable and that was just dodging accountability. That was not being real, you know? All I'm saying is that I can stop the marketing to the site. This is Dan Kavanaugh in an interview with ABC News. He admitted that it did sound like a threat. But he said, Joseph left him no other choice. That's all I could do at that

point to make him take it seriously. Detective Ryan Smith. As you read the messages, you see that

“he's threatening to remove the site. And that's Joseph's livelihood. Dan Kavanaugh says that the”

interaction with Joseph didn't come out of the blue. As business partners, he and Joseph had an

agreed split of profits and responsibilities. Customers were ordered through the fountain website which Dan maintained and promoted. Joseph would handle customer communication. And when necessary, Joseph would contract Chase Merit to fabricate custom fountain orders. But around this time, Dan said he started to notice something strange happening. He said their websites rankings were up. They're online sales numbers weren't. I had a new girlfriend that I got and I was like,

I need more money to support this hot girl. And so I'm like, but I thought I already created a business that should be making me enough money to support this. And so then I was like, I started putting two to two together. I'm like, maybe I do have that company, but it's just, I'm not getting money from it. Dan said that he could see and shared company spreadsheets that there were other customer orders. One's not made through the website. It looked to Dan like Joseph had contacted

potential customers who had made inquiries through the website and backchannel with them. Dan accused

“Joseph trying to exclude them from the profits and keep it all a secret. Dan said that's what”

his heated messages to Joseph were about. He thought Joseph was withholding money from him. And the website was Dan's leverage. I had ways that I could deal with it. They weren't violent ways. And I put him out in the open. I'm like, hey, dude, I'm going to do something about this, and I'm going to do it related to the business. And said the situation affected his friendship would Joseph. But it didn't go further than that. It's like demoralizing for me to see that,

you know what I mean? But I'm not like, I'm going to kill someone or something like that. I just, I think more like non-violently in my grandpa taught me to use my brain and he didn't teach me to use violence to solve things. Dan told detectives in 2014 that after he confronted Joseph, Joseph had agreed to pay him back. He said that even after this disagreement, he and Joseph had a good relationship that they still talked every day. Dan also told detectives that he had wondered

while the McStays were missing. If Joseph had been killed, he said he could see Joseph treating another person the way he treated Dan. Maybe someone, quote, "wasn't as nice as me." So Dan was adamant that he was not anywhere in the area at the time the family went missing. Detective Bachman confirmed Dan's alibi with a window of time when the McStays went missing. During the investigation, we ended up interviewing Dan's ex-girlfriend,

who had a strained relationship with Dan, but she was able to cooperate the fact that he was out in Hawaii with him at the time that the family went missing. In the end, San Bernardino investigators is cleared Dan Cavanaugh of any involvement in the McStay Rovers. As detectives ran down their list of names, all of them could be cleared. All except one. As you exclude people, you know, there's only one person left.

Well where is Chase? Chase married. The man who welded the fountains for Joseph and Dan's business.

dive on the timeline of the McStays disappearance, Chase married looked increasingly suspicious.

What's that, Chase? You looked better down for you right now. Get your line about this stuff.

“Why would Chase's vehicle be leaving the McStay residents on the night that they did disappear?”

What happens to the McStays is a production of ABC audio in 2020,

hosted by me, Ashan Singh, produced by Madeline Wood, Vika Arancin, Audrey Mostack, and Kiara Powell, with help from Sabrina Fang and Camille Peterson,

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