11 Days

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Get expert insights from our fantasy analysts and try our new knockout needs, where the lowest scoring team is eliminated each week until one team remains. Download the ESPN fantasy app for free today and sign up to play the number one fantasy game. In November of 2009, family of four moved into a palm tree dotted code attack in the hills of San Diego County. Joseph McStan is wife summer,

wherein there are early 40s and living a seemingly charmed southern California life with their two young sons. Their new neighborhood was surrounded by mountains and farmland. Their new house, a large Spanish style home on Avocado Vista Lane, is around 10 years old, with a stucco exterior and a red terracotta roof.

“The McStan's home videos from around this time show an active, fun-loving family.”

In one, little Joseph Junior runs around the first floor of their new home.

In another video, all four of the McStan's bites of the beef. Over the two McStan boys, Joseph Junior and his big brother Gianni, swing side by side and a playground swing set together. Their mom, summer pushes them, higher and higher. For a couple of months, these were the types of sounds that filled the McStan residents. One day in February 2010, the house and quiet.

Local station KGTV covered the story. The outside of the McStan home remains exactly as the family left.

Their shoes and the newspaper both outside.

There was a carton of eggs left out on the counter and one other thing. Summer McStan left her prescription sunglasses behind. Family left their dogs behind and there had been no activity on their phones. It was as if the McStan's had simply vanished into thin air. Authorities, friends and family were baffled.

“But how does a vibrant family of four suddenly go missing?”

From ABC Audio in 2020, I'm Austin Singh and this is what happened to the McStan's. Episode 1, 11 Days. Joseph McStay, or Joey, had a weekly ritual with this little brother Michael. In a 2011 interview with ABC News, Michael said that every Friday, Joseph would give him a ring on his way to play pick-up soccer.

He would call me and we'd touch base. Hey, how's things going? Hey, Mikey, how's your business? What's going on? How are the girls? I'd ask other boys where and he'd tell me I was going on. What on Friday February 5, 2010? Michael didn't get that weekly call from his big brother. For Michael, this was unusual, but not alarming.

So the miss one Friday, I mean, I didn't think a whole lot of it. But then several days went by without a peep from Joseph. No calls, texts, or emails. It was the same at his work, too. Joseph called the business that sold high-end decorative founds. The kind you might see in hotel lobbies.

The company was in the middle of a couple of projects. When Joseph's colleagues told them to stay a family, they noticed Joseph had gone completely silent. There was customer emails not being answered, which is not like Joe. He was usually right on top of it. Joseph's friends started reaching out to Michael to ask, "Hey, have you heard from Joe?" What's going on? It's not answering his phone.

Joseph's wife's summer wasn't returning calls either. So Michael posted to his brother's Facebook page asking friends, "If you've seen him, we've let the family know." Family and friends got in touch. Michael and Joseph's parents,

They shared any relevant information they had. In Michael piece together that Thursday,

“February 4th, was likely the last day anyone had seen or heard from his brother.”

Michael and Joseph's father said he talked to Joseph that morning. According to Joseph's business associated Chase, he and Joseph met up at afternoon. Love-runs were worried about the mixed states. But Michael tried to remain optimistic. He thought it was possible that the family left on a trip. And just didn't tell anyone. I thought, "Well, maybe they're doing a quick vacate. So I didn't want to jump to any conclusions."

A few days after the mixed days went quiet. Joseph's business partner, Dan Kavanaugh, called the police for a welfare check. San Diego County Sheriff's deputy came out to the home and knocked on the door. No one was home at the time. But with no signs that anything was a mess.

“Deputies followed procedure and did not go inside.”

Joseph's business associate, Chase Merritt, also went to the house a couple times that week. He says to see if he could find Joseph. No luck. And by February 13th, the mixed days hadn't been seen or heard from in nine days. Michael says he decided to check the home himself. He took a trip to Avocado Vista Lane. Chase came along too. I'd went down there, started knocking on doors, asking the neighbors that they seen him. Michael says he let himself into the house through a

back window that was cracked open. He started looking through the home. He says it was messy. Kitchen drawers had been pulled out and placed on countertops. Toys, books, and clothes were scattered around. And the house was barely furnished. The family was using air mattresses instead of beds. To Michael, it was like his brother and his family were camping in their own home.

But this was Michael's first time in the mixed day's new house. It only moved in about two months

earlier and they were remodeling. Michael says they'd been doing work on the floors and painting cabinets. So to him, this could have been a normal level of untitiness, given the circumstances, and given the Joseph and Summer, had two young children. But there was one thing Michael noticed right away that he clocked as being very, very off. The dogs were left outside unattended. It didn't make sense. It makes stay family dogs

were left to stay in the hot California sun. By all accounts, the mixed days loved their dogs. A big acita called mayor, and a golden retriever puppy called digger. Friends say they were like

second kids to Joseph and Summer. To leave them alone outside for days on end,

this just didn't sit right with Michael. He asked an neighbor to keep an eye on the dogs. And then, he left, hoping his family would show up soon. But the mixed days had disappeared. Leaving a puzzle that would soon mystify their friends and family. 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.

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One thing about Joseph is he would always talk for hours and I'm not exaggerating like

“sometimes two hours. Gina Watson was one of Joseph McStays friends.”

It meant because Gina also worked in the decorative fountain industry. She says they've gotten to know each other well. And according to Gina, Joseph was a talker. I would call him before I left for lunch to talk about whatever the problem of the day was and then it would evolve into just, I don't know, like conversation goes from one thing to another and then I'm like the phone's getting hot because it's been in your ear so long.

Can we wrap this up? Gina said that Joseph endured his wife's summer and there are two boys.

Joseph's kids and his wife for everything to him. Gina says Joseph would share stories about his

remmonctious little boys. By the time they snuck out of their beds early one morning and started rommaging through their kitchen cabinets. He said one night, Gianni and Little Joe we had gotten into the flower. I guess they kept it in a lower cabinet and your apparent and your tired and your your little kids sneaks out of bed and gets into the flower and they had it all over themselves and they had like hand prints and footprints everywhere and they recovered head to toe.

Gina describes Joseph as a surfer dude. He had wavy shoulder length, light brown hair and pictures. It looks like he would be more comfortable in shorts than a t-shirt and a suit and tie. Joseph and summer sons, Gianni and Joseph Junior were four years old and three respectively at the time they vanished. Photos of the little boys show their hair down to their shoulders, just like their dad. In one photo, Joey Junior holds an ice cream sandwich.

Chocolate all over his mouth. And Gina says their dad, Joseph Senior was generous with his friends. He would buy his friends laptops just because he was excited about technology and he wanted them to be as excited as he was and oh you gotta check out this gaming laptop like oh you need top of the line. No that's not good enough. Let me get you this one. He was just very easy with money.

He never was too uptight about it. He was more so than any person I've ever met to be honest.

Joseph and summer were introduced in the early 2000s. One of his friends set them up and everyone says they hit it off right away. Summer was a very passionate woman who went after what she wanted. That's Jessie Silveria, a friend of summers. I met summer around 2006 and I was living in

“Laguna Beach and I think both of us were Lagunaites. Jessie and summer were both photographers”

at the time and met while working the same shoe. To me, summer was exotic. She had dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, really big cute smile. Jessie says she and summer would go out together. To creatives and join the beachy arts scene of Laguna. One summer got pregnant, Jessie says, she scaled back her active social life, stopped working and became a stay at home mom. They were nesting. That phase in her life was nesting.

Friends and families say Joseph and summer loved the beach. For a time, the couple in their sons lived in San Clametti. Their apartment was on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean with the world-class surfing right outside their door. The kids, they were growing up to be surfer dudes too. They definitely took after Joey, you know, wanting to be close to the ocean. Another big part of the mixed-day lives was Joseph's work. Earth inspired products.

It sold the elaborate custom decorative waterfalls. These were large-scale standalone objects, often six feet tall. Water would be pumped invisibly to the top of tall glass pains, and then cascade down into pools that sparkled with a hidden light fixtures. Earth inspired products also had an online retail side where they sold pre-manufactured water features. Gina Watson worked for one of Joseph's manufacturing partners. As had the two men and became friends.

“She says Joseph was a designer at heart. He actually started his business, I think,”

like in his garage, designing his own features by hand. Gina says Joseph was taking on more and more custom work, and the business was doing really well. According to people familiar with the company, Earth inspired products had gotten big contracts.

and even a project in Saudi Arabia. In late 2009, the mixed-day family moved from their

“small beachside apartment in San Clemente to their house on that palm tree line called a sack.”

Their new town of Fallbrook is better known for its avocado orchards than its proximity to the coast. It's a 30-minute drive to the beach. A trade-off for the surf-loving big states. But it was big. Five bedrooms with a back yard. Here's summer's friend, Jesse again. All the outside was completely populated with kids, toys, and trucks, and boy stuff, and she was growing flowers and gardens. Again, they had plans to remodel the home.

In my early 2010, some of the renovations were underway. Joseph would fill his brother's

Michael A. on the progress. Okay, the remodel in the house, and it's kind of crazy, you know, the furniture still in storage. I February of 2010, Joseph was doing well professionally.

“The couple was working on upgrading their new house. Family seemed settled.”

Joseph didn't invest, you know, like $30,000 into a house to renovate it because he's going to leave tomorrow. That doesn't drive. He doesn't walk out on his friends and his family. And yet, that house in Fallbrook, no one was home. And for over a week, there had only been silence from the family who lived there. It didn't add up. Michael McStaz says he decided that if his brother and family were, as he hoped, just on an extended vacation. It should be back

by February 15th. He says he told himself that if by 9 a.m., he still hadn't heard from Joseph. You'd file a missing person so far. That's exactly what Michael did. As Luigi Mangione prepares to stand trial for the murder of United healthcare CEO Brian Thompson,

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So many people, Luigi Mangione is a modern-day Robin Hood. People were cheering that demise

of this person they'd never met. It was a father of two and a husband and had a life and was just

doing a job from the manhood, ending in a McDonald's in Al tuna, Pennsylvania. To what authorities are saying about a possible motive, I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to burning a proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts. One, two, three, go! Oh, man, the house! You guys are too drunk already! Now, infant. No new info on the guy who did it.

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Until their friends started going missing. There's some thing going on. From the executive producer Ryan Murphy, and based on the best selling thriller by Grant Easton Ellis, House Terrifying. Infectious, the shards, no streaming on the hood. By the morning of February 15, 2010, Michael McStay had reached his personal deadline to sound

the alarm. No one had heard from Joseph or Summer in 11 days. Michael called the police. He asked for a welfare check, and the troll deputies came out and checked the house. Lieutenant Dennis Proveaus from the San Diego Sheriff's Department over saw the investigation. According to police, at 10.32 a.m., Michael, along with officers from the San Diego Sheriff's Department, arrived at the McStay's Fallbroke House.

They knocked on the door and checked the exterior for signs of forced entry. When they got in no response, they entered the residence and started a search. They began by looking for people, either people in distress or bodies.

With some water and food left out for them. That raised red flags because, and by all accounts, it took very good care of the dogs. And when police heard from Michael that the McStay's had left without notifying any friends or family, that raised immediate alarm bells too. What the deputy initially learned was this was a really nice family,

and they never made plans to leave. And so that raised the suspicion level to the point

where he said, you know what, or should probably call a homicide and let them know what's going on out there. Lieutenant Brugos says suspicious circumstances, cases like this one are handled by the homicide unit. Whether there's a dead body or not, police say that when homicide detective has joined the search at the McStay residents, they checked again for any signs of foul play. Any clue as to what may have happened to the McStays.

Officers looked all over the home, inside the kitchen pantry, in the den, the garage, in a recycling bin outside, in the trunk part in the driveway. As detective searched, they noticed a few curious things.

To start, it was the food that was left out.

According to police and court documents, downstairs in the living room, there were two small bowls of popcorn, half eaten, left on a futon, bananas that had started to rock. And the carton of eggs were sitting out on the kitchen counter. You don't need perishable food out if you're going to be gone for an extended period of time generally. It seemed like the family may have left the house suddenly, even unexpectedly.

And then, those are the mess. Police documented. Wows powered up on the bathroom counter. Suitcases left open with clothes spilling out in a pile. A tall lamp that looked like it had been knocked over. If the McStays had gone on vacation, like Michael so hoped was the case,

“why would they have left suitcases full of clothing behind?”

And detectives also uncovered something else. The tenant burgers again. We knew that one of the vehicles was parked here in the driveway and the other one wasn't here. The McStays 1996 White Assuzu Trooper was missing. If police could find the vehicle, maybe they could find the McStays.

They ran a search on the Assuzu Trooper, and immediately came up with a hit. According to police records, the check revealed that the vehicle was recently towed from a parking lot about 60 miles from the McStays home near the U.S. Mexico border. So near, in fact, that it was walking distance to the border terminal. According to police, the car had been towed from that lot on February 8th,

four days after the McStays vanished.

“Now, police had to find out. What did this clue mean?”

Did the McStays leave for Mexico altogether? And if so, did they go voluntarily or by force? Were they hiding, kidnapped? Police couldn't yet say. The search of the McStays residents took all day.

And in the end, police determined it was no sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle or act of violence. No blood. In other words, no apparent signs of foul play. No clear crime. But that didn't mean that detectors were confident that all was well with the McStays. The abandoned dogs, the spoiled food left out. The family car found at the McSkin border

as the tenant brews puts it. When you put the whole picture together, it raises the level of suspicion that something's not right. One's officers wrapped up the search of the home, a couple of the detectives, Troy Dugal and Suzanne Fisk pulled Michael aside for an interview in their police car. In the tape from this interview, Michael still hopes that his big brother's family could be perfectly fine.

“What's the percentage of these like being in a situation like this and then, uh, it just being some totally innocent?”

I can tell you that I'd never had one like this, or a family is just totally missing, ever.

That's all I can't give you. I can't give you a good statistic. Detective Dugal has Michael for more information about the missing family. How is Joseph and summer's relationship? Who are their closest friends? Did he add problems with anyone?

Do you know if there's any money involvement with your brother,

“owning someone money, or would somebody try to take advantage of your brother?”

I don't know enough about what's going on with his business. Why is I have no idea? It dug deeper, asking about Joseph's finances. How much is your brother worth? Oh, I don't know. I have no idea.

Do you know what he's here early? Do you know?

Dugal asked if Joseph might have been involved in narcotics.

My brother doesn't even do drugs. So, that's an out. Detectives also asked about the Asuzu Trooper.

“Did Michael have any idea what Joseph and his family might be doing walking distance from Tijuana?”

I don't know. I don't know what he's doing down there. I have no idea. I don't think he knows anybody down there. The whole situation still didn't sit right with Michael or the detectives. That's probably not true. I just walked through, but I didn't get it.

Let me help you out. Inside the walking closet, there's suitcases. And there's little kid suitcases with suitcases wrapped up. And we've bolted little kid laundry. Clean laundry in the suitcases.

“Yeah. They want a vacation. The kid suitcases would have been with him.”

In his official account of the day, Detective Dugal concluded that there had been no apparent sign of a crime. But he also said this, "It is my opinion the mixed-day family is the victim of foul play. The police knew this wasn't over. It was more work to be done." Now the race was on. To find out one had to actually happen to the family of four. Before it was too late. What happens to the mixed-day is a production of ABC audio in 2020.

Posted by me, Ocean Singh, produced by Madeleine Wood, Vika Aeronson, Audrey Maastek, and Kiara Powell. With help from Sabrina Fang and Camille Peterson, edited by Guyana Palmer, a supervising producer of a Susie Luke, music by having by Ola, scoring by Kiara Powell, mixing by having by Ola and Bob Mallory.

Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janis Johnson, Chris Donovan, Joseph Reed, Sunny Anthrum, Alyssa Stullard, Zenderson Morris, Tom Burmett, Hindra Delisacham, and Blue Brown. Gosh Cohen is our director of podcast program. Even McNath is our executive producer. Can't wait for more? Listen to the next episode ahead of everyone else,

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