In the Desert

add free and before they appear in our main feed, I subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus.

Click the link in the episode description to learn more. 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,

premiering September 2nd on Disney Plus or wherever you get your podcasts and catch Star Wars,

the Mandalorian and Groguo on September 2nd on Disney Plus turns apply. In November 2013, a man named John Bluth took his motorcycle out for an off-road adventure. It was around 730 a.m. on Veterans Day when John wrote a east up in her state 15 deep into the Mojave Desert. At that time of 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. On 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 deceive 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 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 in, turned it over and didn't look like a torn machine. But 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. If I did turn it over with a stick, through a snow bigger than probably the palm of my hand. John called the police to report what he'd found. How can it help you? I'm out here on motorcycle, out behind the dump and I've now a look like a human skull. Can you give me a location? The 911 operator sent an officer to

“check it out. And John went on with his ride. I was in suspense. I was wondering, 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, he learned. On the news, they reported that it was the McState family that they discovered out there in the desert that I had discovered. Nearly four years and a hundred miles away from where the McState had disappeared.

It were finally found. Just not the way their family and friends were hoping for.

For maybe see audio in 2020, I'm Washington saying, and this is what happens 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. It 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 have any obvious strong connections to the desert. So when a report of possible human remains came in, some didn't immediately think it was connected to the McState case.

In 2013, I was working with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department of Science

“and 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 in the forensic anthropologist. The team confirmed that the Biker's hunch was right. This wasn't a turtle shell. It was a bone fragment, 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 sort of 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, 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, the 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 was summer, and the older son Gianni. According to their report, detectives 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. Your summer's remains, investigators said they found black sweats and the left cup of a bra, spattered with paint near Gianni. If on 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. 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. 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, living it was crazy. By the dripping sweat for even stars for the stars and stands

“of the Hulu reality birth. 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 and Hulu on Disney Plus, Terms apply. From Executive Producer Ryan Murphy, and based on the best selling thriller by Grant Eastin Ellis, House Terrifying. Infectious, the show arts now streaming on Hulu. Four days after the skeletal remains were found, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department

Many of them wearing sunglasses and periodically wiping away tears from underneath them.

“Sheriff John McMahon stood at the podium and addressed the room. He told reporters that investigators”

had found the remains of Joseph and Summer McStay in two shallow graves. They'd 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. There are DNA evidences on file with DOJ, and we will be sending that information to DOJ for positive confirmation. Investigators said that the autopsy is

would be completed by the end of the day. 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 McStay, Joseph's brother, was invited to speak.”

"But we're going to find this individual 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. In 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 know 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 McStay, had been working to help track down where the McStays have got. She stayed in close contact with Patrick McStay. Joseph's father. Patrick and I both thought

we would just go to our grave never knowing what happened to them. 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 to him.

“Lawrence Hemingway was a surfing friend of Joseph. 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 sandclam any pier, it's perfect weather, perfect day. In news footage from that day, you can see

the surfers sitting out in the ocean wearing floral necklaces and 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 at 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. Jesse 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 had waited so long for answers, they said there was a sense of almost relief just in knowing something after all this time. But Jesse 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

Because how could somebody overtake a family of four and do that to all of them? Was it a stranger?

“Or was it somebody that knew them? Gina Watson again. She'd been trying to help to get to the”

bottom of the mixed days disappearance since 2010. Like then the case had been investigated by the San Diego County Sheriff's Office. As a missing person's case, 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. 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, he was assigned to the same San Bernardino investigation team as Detective Eddie Bachman.

“For Detective Smith, the case quickly became personal. I had young kids at the time and you know”

that there is remains of young children in the graves. And so that's something that is just it's alarming and it's upsetting because who kills children? Smith started digging into the reports made by the gravesite 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 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. The remains were in house skeletal. There was no soft tissue left that would normally reveal something about the manner of death. But once the autopsy is

incomplete, San Bernardino investigators were able to determine how the mixed days died. The corner did their autopsy and they determined the causes death were blunt force trauma. According to police, Joseph Skull had a large indentation. A bone in his leg was badly broken. Summer 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, wrong 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. Detectors wondered 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. No, they were at home. The details, as they emerged, were hard to hear for the people who knew

the family. Like Gino 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. It really is. Routality of the murders only added to the confusion around the mixed days deaths. Who would want to kill this young family? Detectors wondered if the ancestral a buried it in the old case files before them. Was there a person previously questioned that might now have more to say?

our 17-not a mid-a-mid-a-mid-a-mid-a-mid-a-a-mid-a-a-mid-a without parents.

You'll have to take a pre-check, global entry for an executive producer Nick Crawl. Going out alone is a weird, it's mature. I asked my mom. FX is adults, premier's August 27 on FXX. All episode streaming on Hula. The Hula Original, Chad Powers, some of the obsessed with Chad Powers, he really is a master of disguise. Chad is hot. From plain power and the creator of Loki, I might be an over my head.

Please, do not get caught. The Hula Original, Chad Powers,

from the source they can happen. The coach finds out your best holiday and actually murders you.

September 3rd, streaming on Hula and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundled subscribers, 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. It 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 would go out and talk to them. In the San Bernardino Police Report, the tech does mention 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 McStays X-wife and was stepfather to Joseph's oldest son. According to the report, the techators had 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 McStays 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 Victor Hansen. Police reports say Vic and Summer had dated for around five years. Miss 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 day 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, responsible 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

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 satisfied. There was no evidence tying him to the family's disappearance. San Bernardino detectives were interested in Dan and Joseph's business, and an instance of some seemingly bad blood between them. There was a string of messages between the two men, months before the family won missing. Messages show an angry Dan threatening retaliation against the business.

Gina 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, Dan, 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 the money from it. Dan said that he could see an 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 back channeled

with them. Dan accused Joseph trying to exclude him 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 with 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, my grandpa taught me to use my brain and he didn't teach me to use violence to solve things. Dan told the detective 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 the detectives that he had wondered while the mixed day is remissing. 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 mixed days 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 of the family went missing. In the end, San Bernardino investigators is cleared Dan

all of them could be cleared. All except one. As you exclude people, you know, there's only

“one person left. Well where's Chase? Chase married. The man who welded the fountains for Joseph”

and Dan's business. Man who said he'd seen Joseph, today the family went missing. As investigators did a deep dive on the timeline of the mixed day's disappearance, Chase married, looked increasingly

suspicious. Why would Chase's vehicle be leaving the mixed day residents on the night that they

did disappear? What happens to the mixed days is a production of ABC audio in 2020,

“hosted by me, Oshin Singh, produced by Madeleine Wood, Vika Arensson, Audrey Maustack,”

and Kiyara Powell, with help from Sabrina Fang and Camille Peterson, edited by Guyana Palmer,

our supervising producer is Susie Lut, music by having by Ola, scoring by Kiyara Powell,

mixing by having by Ola and Bob Mallard. Special thanks to Katie Dendos, Janice Johnson, Chris Donovan, Joseph Ree, Sunny Andrew, Alyssa Stolar, Zenderson Morris, Tom Burmie,

“Indra Delisaha, and Blue Brownie. Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming.”

Even McMath is our executive producer. Can't wait for more? Listen to the next episode ahead of everyone else, add free. Subscribe now to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcast. Click the link in the description to start your free trial today. On Reddit, True Crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves. Every Tuesday on Crimes of Reddit, we read these posts

out loud. I'm Sabrina Dianna Roga, and I'm Alexis Lindglutter. One of us brings the story, the other goes in blind, reacting in real time, just like you. New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, a source sent me a tip. It tied baseball's biggest star to a vast, illegal sports betting operation. But then, someone surprising confessed to me, his best friend.

I'm Epemi Zohara, and you did have permission to record me. From 30 for 30 podcasts, this is the betrayal of Showhail Tony. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.