February 10th, 1990. Saturday morning in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The place is Las Cruces Bowl—nothing special from the outside. Low building, wide parking lot, the kind of spot people go to because they’ve been going there for years. Inside, it’s exactly what you’d expect. Long rows of lanes stretching out under fluorescent lights, the steady smell of oil and cleaner baked into the wood and carpet. Front counter off to one side where they handle shoes and payments. And behind that, a small office—tight, functional, where they keep the safe, the paperwork, the money from the night before. Mornings like that don’t carry much weight. You’re not dealing with a crowd yet. It’s just opening up—lights, registers, getting everything ready before the first customers drift in. The routine doesn’t change. Unlock the doors, count the cash, check the drawers, make sure nothing’s off from the previous night. It’s muscle memory more than anything. People move through it without thinking. There were seven people inside that morning. Employees getting the place ready, moving between the counter and the office, handling the same tasks they handled every weekend. A couple of kids were there too. That wasn’t unusual. Bowling alleys always had that overlap—work and family, people hanging around because they were part of the place, not just passing through it. Nobody’s on edge. Nobody’s watching the door or thinking about who might come through it. There’s no reason to...

Sources:
https://lascruces.gov/las-cruces-mass-shooting-unsolved-after-35-years/
https://www.borderreport.com/regions/new-mexico/las-cruces-bowling-alley-massacre-still-unsolved-after-nearly-4-decades/
https://kfoxtv.com/news/local/las-cruces-police-seek-new-leads-in-1990-mass-shooting-case
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Cruces_bowling_alley_massacre
https://www.krwg.org/regional/2017-02-10/27-year-anniversary-of-las-cruces-bowling-alley-massacre?

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

Swabs were taken from areas where biological material might still exist, even if it was not visible. Fragments of fabric used for binding were collected and separated. Bullets recovered during autopsies were preserved and logged. Even debris from the burned room—pieces of flooring, charred material, residue—was stored when it could potentially contain trace evidence. For years, those items sat in storage. They were not forgotten, but they were not actively producing answers. The DNA testing available in the early 1990s required larger, cleaner samples than the yogurt shop scene could reliably provide. The fire had broken down much of the biological material, and what remained was often too degraded to generate a complete profile. Investigators could test, but the results were limited—partial readings, inconclusive comparisons, fragments that did not match anyone in available databases. That changed gradually. By the late 2000s and into the 2010s, forensic science had advanced in ways that directly addressed the kind of evidence preserved from the yogurt shop. Techniques for extracting DNA from degraded samples improved. Analysts were able to work with smaller quantities of biological material and reconstruct profiles from fragments that would previously have been unusable. The case file did not change, but the tools used to read it did. When investigators returned to the evidence, they approached it with a narrower focus. They were no longer looking for a full, clean profile that could immediately identify a suspect. They were looking for anything that could survive the conditions of the scene—anything that could be amplified, stabilized, and compared. From that process, a profile began to emerge...


Sources: 
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

The verdicts held—for a time. Robert Springsteen IV had been sentenced to death in 2001. Michael Scott had been sentenced to life in prison in 2002. The prosecution had secured convictions in one of Austin’s most notorious unsolved cases. For several years, the outcome appeared settled. But the foundation of those convictions was never physical evidence. It was the confessions. As the appeals process began, defense attorneys focused on how those confessions had been obtained and how they had been used in court. They examined the transcripts. They reviewed the recordings. They compared what each defendant had said and how those statements had been introduced to the jury. A central issue emerged from that review. At trial, the prosecution had used each defendant’s confession to support the case against the other. Michael Scott’s statements referenced Robert Springsteen. Robert Springsteen’s statements referenced Michael Scott. Jurors heard both accounts as part of a single narrative of the crime. But Scott and Springsteen had been tried separately. Because of that, neither man had the opportunity to directly question the other about those statements in court. The issue reached the appellate courts as a constitutional question...

Sources: 
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

DELAY - This is NOT part 3 of the Austin, Texas Yogurt Shop Murders.  Please don't be mad - I'm at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and couldn't put out a new episode this week.  Don't worry, part 3 of the Austin, Texas Yogurt Shop Murders will be coming next Thursday, March 19th.   In the meantime, since I'm in San Francisco, staying just off O'Farrell Street, please enjoy this Kinda Murdery Classic about the Mitchell Family Murders...

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery--5496890/support.

Like nearly everyone who had grown up in Austin at the time, Springsteen remembered the crime clearly. The murders had dominated local news for weeks. The photographs of the four girls had appeared on television and in newspapers. The story had been discussed in schools, homes, and workplaces across the city...

Sources: 
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

On the night of December 6, 1991, the Northcross shopping center in Austin, Texas was closing down the way it always did. The parking lot lights hummed. The storefronts dimmed one by one. Cars pulled out in slow arcs, headlights sweeping across brick and glass before turning toward Burnet Road. Inside the “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt!” shop, the lights were still on...

Sources: 
https://time.com/7321492/yogurt-shop-murders-suspect/
https://people.com/austin-police-significant-breakthrough-murders-4-teen-girls-yogurt-shop-new-suspect-34-years-later-11820020?
https://www.statesman.com/news/local/article/archives-no-dna-match-yogurt-shop-case-21069666.php?
https://allthatsinteresting.com/austin-yogurt-shop-murders
https://allthatsinteresting.com/robert-eugene-brashers


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

The courtroom in San Bernardino was built for volume meaning physical space, not raised voices. High ceilings. Pale walls. Wood benches polished by decades of restless hands. By the time opening statements began, it held a different kind of pressure — not noise, but compression. Reporters filled the rear rows. Family members took seats in clusters that did not intermingle. The defendant sat at the defense table in a suit that fit correctly, hands folded, posture still. The state went first...

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-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

It started with the calendar. February 4, 2010. Detectives rebuilt the day again, not from the perspective of web traffic or corporate filings, but from physical movement. Joseph’s schedule. His meetings. His calls. His last confirmed face-to-face interactions...Almost four years after the Joseph and his family were murdered, authorities finally arrest their alleged killer...

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-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

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-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.

It did not happen all at once. There was no siren moment, no dramatic escalation, no declaration that something terrible had occurred. The transition from concern to action came through a phone call, logged like thousands of others, handled by a department accustomed to uncertainty and delay. The intake process required structure. A deputy recorded biographical details. Ages. Vehicles. Occupations. Known habits. There were questions designed to determine urgency: any history of violence, any threats, any medical conditions, any known disputes. The answers, as given, did not demand escalation. There was no immediate evidence of danger. No broken windows. No frantic voicemail. No witness claiming distress. What existed was absence. Absence is difficult to categorize.  But the McStays were missing...

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/

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.

Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate.  Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind.  Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.