For nearly four years, nobody knew if the McStays had run away to start a new life or if something far worse had happened. The truth, when it finally came, was almost harder to accept: the man responsible had been a close family friend the entire time.
A Family, Then Silence
Joseph and Summer McStay lived a comfortable life in Fallbrook, California, with their two young sons, Gianni and Joseph Jr., ages 4 and 3. Joseph ran a business designing decorative indoor water fountains. On February 4, 2010, it was an ordinary day — Joseph told his father he was rushing to a lunch meeting, Summer caught up with her sister over the phone.
At 5:47 p.m. that evening, all contact stopped. No more calls, no more credit card activity. The family simply vanished.
"It was like they went, 'Poof,'" Joseph's mother, Susan Blake, later said. "You don't know what to think."
A House Frozen in Time
Concerned after days of silence, Joseph's brother Michael let himself into the house through a window on February 13. There was no sign of struggle, but plenty that didn't add up: the family dogs had been left unattended, food was rotting in the kitchen, and Summer's prescription sunglasses — something she'd have needed for any trip — were still sitting inside.
A search warrant executed days later turned up no blood and no signs of forced entry. Without evidence of an actual crime, investigators couldn't even get a warrant to access the family's financial records. The case sat in frustrating limbo.
A Trail Pointing South
Investigators traced the McStays' white Isuzu Trooper to a parking lot in San Ysidro, right near the U.S.-Mexico border, where it had been towed days after the family disappeared. Border surveillance footage appeared to show a group matching the McStays' description walking into Mexico the same day they vanished, and a search of Summer's computer turned up browsing history about Mexico and Spanish-language tutorials.
It looked, for a while, like a family that had simply decided to disappear and start over somewhere else.
Susan Blake never believed it. She watched the border footage repeatedly and was certain the people in it weren't her son and his family. "That isn't his walk," she insisted.
Interpol was alerted to watch for the family south of the border. Tips and supposed sightings trickled in for years. None of them led anywhere. In April 2010, the case was handed to the FBI. Still, nothing.
Found in the Desert
In the fall of 2013 — nearly four years after the family disappeared — an off-road motorcyclist riding through the desert near Victorville, about 100 miles from Fallbrook, came across skull fragments. The search that followed uncovered two shallow graves, each containing the remains of one adult and one child.
Too much time had passed for usable DNA, but dental records confirmed what investigators feared: this was the McStay family. A sledgehammer was recovered at the site. All four had died from blunt force trauma.
"It gives us courage to know that they're together and they're in a better place," Joseph's brother Michael said at the press conference announcing the discovery. "It's been a tough road."
The case, which had spent nearly four years as a missing-persons investigation, instantly became a homicide case.
The Friend Who Did It
Investigators went back to the Isuzu Trooper with fresh eyes and found DNA on the steering column and gear shift belonging to Charles "Chase" Merritt — Joseph's business associate, and by most accounts, a genuine friend. Merritt had passed a polygraph back in 2010, but a closer review of his old interview transcripts turned up something investigators hadn't caught the first time: he'd referred to Joseph in the past tense — "Joseph was my best friend" — years before anyone had confirmed the family was dead.
The motive that emerged was financial. Merritt had a serious gambling problem and owed Joseph more than $42,000 over botched fountain installation work. Joseph had reportedly been patient with him in the past, but investigators believe he'd finally decided to cut Merritt out of the business entirely — a decision Merritt couldn't accept. Investigators later found forged checks drawn on Joseph's account, and cell phone records placing Merritt near the burial site in the days after the family disappeared, as well as near a call attempting to close out the McStays' online business account.
The full theory, as prosecutors laid it out: Merritt killed the family, drove their bodies out to the Mojave Desert to bury them, then drove their car to the border himself to make it look like they'd fled to Mexico — including, investigators believe, the suspicious search history on Summer's computer.
Trial and Sentencing
Merritt was arrested in November 2014. After years of delays — including Merritt repeatedly firing his own attorneys to represent himself — his trial finally began in January 2019 and ran 50 days. In June 2019, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder on all four counts.
The sentencing hearing in January 2020 was raw. Summer's sister told the court, through tears, "Our children won't grow up together. They won't age together... You took their lives so violently." Susan Blake called Merritt directly: "How could you beat two precious little babies? How scared were they, Chase? Crying for Mommy and Daddy? Chase, you are a low-life baby killer." Joseph's brother Michael said simply that Merritt had "robbed the world of four beautiful souls," adding that he believed Merritt to be "conscience-deprived."
Merritt, for his part, maintained his innocence throughout, telling the court, "I loved Joseph. He was a big part of my life and my family's life. I would never have hurt him in any way. I would have never raised my hand for a woman or child. I did not do this thing." He accused prosecutors of professional dishonesty and insisted the real perpetrator was still out there.
The jury wasn't moved. Merritt received life without parole for Joseph's murder and was sentenced to death for the murders of Summer, Gianni, and Joseph Jr.
Where Things Stand Now
Merritt remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California, alongside several other notorious convicted killers. California has not carried out an execution since 2006, and Governor Gavin Newsom has maintained a moratorium on executions throughout his time in office, meaning Merritt's death sentence is unlikely to be carried out in the foreseeable future regardless of how his appeals proceed.
For the McStay family's surviving relatives, the verdict closed a chapter that had stretched on, unresolved, for nearly a decade — but it didn't undo the loss. As Joseph's oldest son, Jonah, said at the sentencing: "I fight each and every day to mend the wounds left by someone who, instead of healing, sought to destroy others, my family, for their own personal gain."
Sources
Man Ordered To San Quentin Death Row For Killing Family Of 4 — CBS San Francisco https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/charles-chase-merritt-san-quentin-death-row-murder/
Charles "Chase" Merritt gets death penalty for murdering McStay family — CBS 8 San Diego https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/crime/charles-chase-merritt-sentencing-continues-in-the-mcstay-family-murders/509-ea589472-ee3a-4efe-98e4-b432353944ec
McStay Family Murders: Where Is Convicted Killer Charles 'Chase' Merritt Now? — Yahoo Entertainment https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mcstay-family-murders-where-convicted-090134298.html