On November 11, 2013, a motorcyclist riding in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert came across something that did not belong to the landscape. The area lay north of Victorville, not far from Interstate 15 but far enough that engine noise fades and the wind carries most of the sound. The ground was hard and pale, broken by scrub and scattered rock. In that dirt, the rider saw what appeared to be a human skull. He stopped. He called authorities. Deputies from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department responded. The location was isolated but accessible by dirt road. The initial discovery was small — a skull partially exposed in desert soil — but the scene widened quickly. Deputies secured the area and began a systematic search. Within hours, investigators realized the find was not a single set of remains. Two burial sites were identified. They were shallow. The soil was loose compared to the surrounding terrain, disturbed and then pressed back down. The graves would later be referred to in reports as Grave A and Grave B. In total, four sets of human remains were recovered. On November 15, 2013, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon addressed the media. He confirmed that the remains recovered in the desert had been identified as belonging to Joseph McStay, age 40; his wife, Summer McStay, age 43; and their two sons, Gianni, age 4, and Joseph Jr., age 3. The McStay family had been missing since February 4, 2010. For nearly four years, their case had lived in a different category — disappearance, possible voluntary departure, international travel theory, Mexico speculation. The discovery in Victorville ended that ambiguity. The McStays had not relocated. They had not started over. They had not walked across a border and vanished into another country. They had been killed.
Sources:
https://coronadotimes.com/event/down-to-the-bone-caitlin-rother-and-the-mcstay-family-murders/
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/judge-unseals-court-records-in-mcstay-murder-case/509-5297be95-2f41-4ce7-931e-8c3dc98e0918
https://allthatsinteresting.com/mcstay-family-murders
https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/missing-mcstay-family-cross-mexico/story?id=10042816
https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/mcstay-family-murder-trial-charles-merritt-closing-arguments-jury/159073/
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mcstay-family-deaths-20190120-story.html
https://www.sbsun.com/2019/03/11/key-prosecution-evidence-flopped-in-mcstay-family-murder-case-defense-contends/
https://www.sbsun.com/2019/03/11/key-prosecution-evidence-flopped-in-mcstay-family-murder-case-defense-contends/
https://abc7.com/post/mcstay-murders-merritt-attorneys-poke-holes-in-timeline/5190475/
https://www.cnn.com/2014/07/01/justice/mcstay-case-five-questions
https://press.wbd.com/us/media-release/investigation-discovery/go-inside-controversial-and-shocking-trial-charles-chase-merritt-mcstay-family
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery--5496890/support.